Looking At How The DMCA Changed The Nature Of Competition
from the not-such-a-good-thing dept
Tim Lee writes in to point out that the folks at the Cato Institute have published his new study about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: "A lot of DMCA critics have focused on how DRM undermines fair use by narrowing the ways in which users can consume the content they have legally acquired. That's certainly a valid argument, but I tried to focus on the implications of another type of fair use: the fair use right to use reverse engineering to build a competing product. Prior to the enactment of the DMCA, the courts had consistently turned back efforts by incumbents to use copyright law as a way to exclude competitors from their technology platforms. Most famously, IBM was not able to prevent the creation of IBM clones, because a company called Phoenix used "clean room" reverse engineering techniques to develop a compatible BIOS without directly copying any of IBM's copyrighted software. The DMCA throws that principle out the window, because it makes it a crime to "circumvent" a DRM scheme -- that is, access the content without first getting the permission of the DRM creator." Seems like an interesting comparison of competition pre- and post-DMCA.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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DMCA Gives Too Much Power to Corporations
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DMCA
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Support Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA
Please write to your congressional representitive supporting HR 1201, either on your own, or using the form letter at https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?JServSessionIdr010=f01b8cz4y2.app2a&cmd=display&page=Us erAction&id=115
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IBM
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Re: IBM
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Correction Re: IBM
Yeah, Apple didn't have to do it, and they've got 2% of the computer market to prove it, lol.
Damn typos!
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Apple's IPhone is now Out
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