If You Think You Should Actually Own Products You Bought, Now Would Be A Good Time To Call Congress
from the call-in-time dept
We recently wrote about a bill being introduced in Congress that would help fix the DMCA by making a very minor, but important, set of changes to the anti-circumvention clauses of the DMCA. As you may recall, Section 1201 of the law says that it's against copyright law to circumvent "technological measures" designed to prevent you from accessing something, even if the purpose of bypassing those measures is not to actually infringe on any copyright. That's why we end up with crazy situations like it being illegal to "unlock" your mobile phone. A bipartisan group of Representatives have introduced this new bill, the Unlocking Technology Act (HR 1892), which makes it clear that if you circumvent technological protection measures to do something that doesn't infringe, then that, itself, is not a violation of copyright law. This doesn't "weaken" copyrights in any way. Those who break DRM to infringe are still violating this clause. All it does is stop the absurd situation where you are found to "violate" copyright law despite not infringing on anyone's copyright.It's difficult to think of any reason why this bill shouldn't become law.
And, of course, because of that, there's an uphill battle to get Congress to actually support it. FixTheDMCA -- the group that first put forth the petition that got the White House to agree that you should be able to unlock your mobile phones -- is now running a call-in campaign, asking people to call their Congressional representatives, to let them know that they should support the bill.
It's a pretty simple question: do you actually own the products you buy? Most people think that they do, but under the current text of Section 1201, the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA, you don't. Here's a chance to fix that basic premise and to make it clear you own what you buy. Seems like something Congress should easily support, so now might be a good time to let them know that.
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Filed Under: anti-circumvention, copyright, dmca, freedom to tinker, ownership, section 1201
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Let me explain. The basic premise of your argument is wrong. You are saying that removing the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA weakens the rights of copyright holders because removing the anti-circumvention clause weakens the rights of copyright holders. This is a logical fallacy known as "begging the question" (as opposed to the common use where it means creating a question). Repetition of your fallacy does not improve it's validity.
The second part of your statement must be argued for the initial postulate to be valid. In other words, you must first explain how making circumvention of protections for non-illegal uses of copyrighted material in any way affects the rights of copyright holders.
For example, let's take another set of laws. It is illegal for you to break into my house. It is not illegal for you to enter if I give you permission, and it is always legal for me to enter my own house barring something like a restraining order. Let's imagine it is also illegal to climb into a house through a window since that is circumventing the security of the house.
Now, as a homeowner, I have the right to prevent unauthorized entry to my home. If I accidentally lock myself out of the house, and climb in through a window, should I be prosecuted for breaking and entering under the clause of the law that states going through the window is illegal? And if that law were removed, so it is now legal for *me* to enter my house, but still illegal for an intruder, does that diminish my homeowners rights in any way? Either way the right to enter my house is unaffected...someone entering illegally is illegal, regardless of the method, and someone entering legally should not be a criminal for entering through an "illegal" method.
So what Mike stated is correct...the actual copyrights of copyright holders are unaffected by this change. The ability to take legal activity and treat it as illegal simply due to the method would be removed. This may help reduce the abuse of copyright law for non-copyright purposes but does nothing to diminish the copyrights themselves.
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Waste of time. I have zero faith in a Congress that can't even take the time to fix the problems which made the DMCA an issue to begin with.
We don't need new laws. We need the existing laws corrected.
And obviously, my calls to my (Ind) senators have done nothing to make this happen.
Do that, instead of supporting this law, please.
Tell Congress to fix what they broke in the first place.
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This law fixes the old law.
Waste of time. I have zero faith in a Congress that can't even take the time to fix the problems which made the DMCA an issue to begin with.
That's what this law does.
We don't need new laws. We need the existing laws corrected.
That's what this law does.
And obviously, my calls to my (Ind) senators have done nothing to make this happen.
Your calls alone won't, but lots of calls will.
Do that, instead of supporting this law, please.
Uh, again, that's what this law does.
Tell Congress to fix what they broke in the first place.
Again, that's what this law does.
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And it does so by WEAKENING copyright law, which is the ONLY reason why you support it. But, yeah, pretend like it doesn't weaken anything. Hilarious.
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Explain.
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Allowing you to control the device you paid for is utterly ridiculous.
See every market is trying to prevent you from owning what you buy and pay for.
If I by a CD I can resell it. I buy digital music I can't. Same exact music different format. That is why to this day I refuse to buy digital copies of music or movies.
If you root your phone you might uninstall all their tracking software. You might even put that phone on a different carrier, or resell it. We can't have any of that, those are lost sales. Lost sales of devices, loss sales of your personal information and loss of you as a carrier customer.
Remember you as a lowly customer are to have no rights. It is your responsibility to give over all your hard earned income for nothing substantial in return.
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By making it LEGAL to take your stuff and make it work the way you want it to so you can use it for legitimate stuff?
Like say, if I wanted to Jailbreak a Nintendo 3DS so I could import Japanese games, how is that taking rights away from Nintendo?
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Also, a number of ROMs for android provide support for different base bands, most of the time they are carrier specific, but with knowledge and patience, you could conceivably allow a Sprint branded device access to Verizon Wireless' network.
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And restoring rights to consumers, boy.
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The only directions I see rights going here is an increase in rights the people should already have. But copyrights aren't weakened at all.
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And it never should have been change to opt-out. Copyright as an opt-in system is the way was intended.
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It changes the law. It does not weaken anyone's *copyright* which is what I claimed.
But here you are throwing a temper tantrum pretending I said what I didn't say.
You do that all too frequently.
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Currently, copyright holders have a legally enforceable claim against those that circumvent access controls. This is regardless of whether those people engage in copyright infringement. Under this proposal, copyright holders would no longer have that same legally enforceable claim against people that circumvent access controls yet do not engage in copyright infringement. Thus, this would give copyright holders LESS rights than they currently have. Under the proposed change, there would exist people against whom the copyright holder does not have a legally enforceable claim which under the current regime they currently do have such a legally enforceable claim. This is a WEAKENING of copyright holder's rights.
Please address my actual point directly, if you would.
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People are starting to recognize that we have lost the ability to tinker and come up with new ideas and that many new ideas are now starting in other countries instead of America.
This will harm you as well, if you live in America, but you are too greedy/foolish/stupid to see it.
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At least in the context of section 1201 this isn't correct. From the start it wasn't about protecting copyright. It was about protecting DRM. Creators of DMCA 1201 knew it perfectly well. See below.
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True, and that would disappear, but it isn't a COPYRIGHT claim. It's just a claim the copyright holder has as an extension of a law put in place to protect copyright.
Just because it's an issue covered in a bill that protects copyright (among other things) doesn't mean it's copyright issue.
Therefore, "fixing" (liberal usage of the word) the issue has no effect on copyright. That's the point you're failing to understand.
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> no longer have that same legally enforceable
> claim against people that circumvent access
> controls yet do not engage in copyright
> infringement
Why should they have such a claim in the first place, especially when giving them that claim takes away my ability to use my own property the way I want to?
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Stop using stupid arguments.
if you throw a brick at someone or something, you cause harm, thus your rights interfere with someone else's rights to live. In that case, your rights are trumped.
So, AJ, kindly, use some fucking common sense for once in your miserable life.
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> to begin with,
No, I'm asking *you* why *you* believe a phone service provider should have a legal cause of action against me merely for making full use of my own property.
If doing so violates my contract with them, then they have remedies under contract law. They don't need the DMCA. Why does there need to be this additional draconian statute with criminal penalties out there that really does nothing but prevent people from doing legal things with their own property. The underlying actions are legal but this idiotic law makes the mere act of exercising one's rights a crime.
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Are you referring to unlocking or jailbreaking?
If doing so violates my contract with them, then they have remedies under contract law. They don't need the DMCA.
Going after each customer in breach of contract is far more difficult than shutting down the parties that supply the tools that make it all too simple for their customers to breach.
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> contract is far more difficult than shutting
> down the parties that supply the tools that
> make it all too simple for their customers to
> breach.
Ah, so you apparently believe making things easy for big companies at the expense of citizens' property rights is the proper purpose of the criminal justice system.
Gotcha.
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No, they don't. The only rights granted to copyright holders are in 17 USC 106. 17 USC 501 does not say it's infringement. This bill would not limit this in any way.
Whatever claims are held are the government's. This is criminal law.
Furthermore, weakening the rights held by copyright holders does not necessarily weaken copyright itself. Granting owners those rights is not the primary purpose of copyright.
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Actually, I was wrong. It is also civil law. 17 USC 1203 allows civil actions against people who violate 1201.
Still, that does not mean that any of the rights granted in 106 were violated. These are the only things that are considered an infringement of copyright, as 501 makes clear. (In fact, 1203 doesn't talk about copyright holders, but "any person injured by a violation of section 1201.")
Considering 1201(c) ("Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title"), I think it's fair to say that Congress did not intend to grant copyright holders any more rights that they already had. They were never seeking to add another right to 106.
It's pretty clear that the Congressional intent was to prohibit circumvention specifically for the purpose of infringement. Making this intent clear, by explicitly stating it in the statutes, would not in any way diminish the rights granted in 106, and would simply clarify Congress' intent in enacting the statutes in the first place.
There is no sane reason to be against this bill at all.
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No, they don't. The only rights granted to copyright holders are in 17 USC 106. 17 USC 501 does not say it's infringement. This bill would not limit this in any way.
Whatever claims are held are the Ugovernment's. This is criminal law.
Furthermore, weakening the rights held by copyright holders does not necessarily weaken copyright itself. Granting owners those rights is not the primary purpose of copyright.
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So, you have admitted that it went too far, thereby proving our point.
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The argument about weakening or not weakening is a red herring. Either you believe that circumventing protections to use a product you purchased should be allowed or you don't. If you don't, then why, or what would you propose instead of this law to ensure people aren't the target of inappropriate torts?
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How about all the legitimate Fair Uses that get taken down daily? How about the fact that the DMCA doesn't allow me to buy a phone from Sprint, then, when my contract runs out, run it on, let's say Straight Talk for how I want because it's locked onto Sprint.
There's nothing about copyright in that, buskahosa.
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Further analysis indicates you are either: a meat puppet for Big Copyright, or a gerbil.
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As opposed to the reality where they are freely trafficked in?
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If someone engages in noninfringing use then they are not breeching the law and as such a non infringing use would not be subjected to face action against a copyright holder as there would no breech of copyright for which a copyright holder would not be able to take action as no breech of copyright has occured.
"" Thus, copyright holders would have LESS rights than they currently do.""
You make it seem that copyright holders should have the right to take action against something that is non infringing and not in any way breeching copyright. Well if a copyright holder does not own the copyright to something then they have no right to take action against something that they don't own the copyright too. What you want is for the copyright holder not only to control what they own the copyright too but also to control the use of something that they do not own the copyright too also.
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Because, honestly, AJ, if you buy something, shouldn't you *OWN* the thing?
And, according to the First Sale Doctrine, which TRUMPS copyright law, once you buy something, you can do what you WANT to it, no questions asked.
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Yes, because it is soooo hard to infringe anything these days.
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And! That is the issue.
You are correct!
Absurd as it sounds you are correct which only shows how over board copyright in the US is.
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Put up or shut up.
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Re: Put up or shut up.
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I applaud your fervor for trying to do something to correct the issues, even if it means "one step at a time", but the problem is the "fix" is covering an issue that, in my opinion, isn't as relevant as the rest of the law.
If someone came to you an claimed patching a leaky hole in a dam is fixing the dam, how much credibility would you put into the remark?
The hole obviously indicates there's a problem with the dam, just as the anti-circumvention clause indicates there's a problem with the law.
I know I should be much more supportive, but I suppose I'm just tired of getting my hopes up only to see the crushed as either not enough people stand up to repair the dam or that the faulty contractor bribes enough politicians to make the issue go away another day.
This is what this law does. It pushes the bigger issues away for another day, and until this day arrives, businesses (who are trying to serve those very customers complaining they can't do with their product as they want) are being closed down due to the much, much bigger problem of the DMCA: take down notices and false claims of copyright ownership.
Bigger fish to fry, and this law seems to be going after goldfish rather than the white whale.
Good luck with this fight, but I hope no one minds I sit this one out.
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There can be one reason, the same that brought the DMCA idiocy into existence - DRM lobby's desire for control over various technologies.
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My digital music is all backed up on several devices as well as the provider's cloud.
My e-books are stripped of all DRM, converted and backed up on several hard drives and on my Ubuntu One account.
I share music and e-books with my friends and family because that is what culture is all about.
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Blimey, that' s Overt, Mate!
However, there's a larger issue. If something is illegal, it's possible for the law, even if typically unenforced, to be used in special circumstances.
Also, there's a general "chilling effect" of something like the DMCA's non-circumvention provision. Any dual-use tool, like a disassembler, or some such, becomes potentially illegal. Nobody wants to come up on the pointed end of a Federal charge in the USA, even if the charge is grossly unfair and probably unconstitutional and maybe even illegal relative to other statutes. So, potentially useful tools don't get developed, sold or circulated. Research is driven underground. When reverse engineering is outlawed, only outlaws will reverse engineer. I remember that some Indian police departments found this out: nobody legit could do some decryption they wanted done.
Down with non-circumvention!
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Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment_America_v._George_Hotz
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The biggest problem for the law passing, Obama supports it
Just look at the whole Sequester thing. Republicans opposed it and blamed it on Obama, until Obama opposed it, then Republicans decided to support it and refuse to repeal or replace it like Obama asked.
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Wow, really? Of course it weakens copyright law--that's why you support it. Copyright law currently makes it illegal to circumvent certain technological measures. That is REGARDLESS of whether once circumvented, a person engages in copyright infringement. This would allow people to engage in circumvention, thus weakening the existing law that does not allow such circumvention. The only thing this does is weaken copyright law. And you would not support it otherwise. That you can't admit this is comical.
All it does is stop the absurd situation where you are found to "violate" copyright law despite not infringing on anyone's copyright.
Why is that absurd? Anticircumvention is a different wrong than infringement. Copyright law is not only concerned about infringement.
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Who said it should be wrong? The DRM lobby? Everyone else says it's not wrong. So this new proposal expresses the view of the public. And it should repeal the invalid law of the DRM lobby which was forced on the public previously.
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This isn't weakening copyright law; it's restricting copyright law to be just copyright law. If there were a section of copyright law that dealt with embezzlement and a bill was proposed to remove it from copyright law to it's own section, would you call that a weakening of copyright law as well?
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I said it doesn't weaken *copyrights*. I said nothing about the law. It changes the law, but it does not weaken anyone's copyrights.
If you weren't so desperate to attack me on every post, you might try actually reading what I wrote.
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What do you mean by "copyrights"? And are you admitting that this does weaken copyright holders rights?
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* Copyright holders have many legal rights.
* This does not imply that every legal right they have is related to copyright.
* Previously, they had a legal right to prevent me from modifying my own property, even in situations where no copyright violation occurred.
* If this legislation passes, they will no longer have that right.
* The removal of that specific legal right has nothing to do with their legal copyrights, which are still in full force.
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Let's play your silly game. YES, it would (not "does") weaken copyright holders rights, by taking away legal rights they absolutely should not have. These rights contradict the true purpose of copyright (encouraging creativity) so removing them does not weaken copyright one bit.
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Yes, it is concerned with reducing the rights on consumers to enjoy what they buy in any way they see fit.
I pay for the damn thing so I will bloody well enjoy it and back it up multiple times.
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-You are using a software created by Vendor1 that generates large amounts of encrypted data files with your content.
-Vendor1 stops supporting this version of the software package, wanting you to purchase a new version.
-You instead decide that Vendor2's software offering is now better for you.
-Vendor2's software will not read the data from Vendor1's encrypted files.
-Vendor1 will not assist in extracting your data.
Back before the DMCA, it was ruled LEGAL in multiple cases to reverse engineer in order to ensure compatibility, data recovery, etc... This was in the early days of computing with attempted vendor lock in.
Under the current DMCA, if you attempt to write a script to circumvent the encryption in order to extract your own data into a new format, you would run afoul of the current anti-circumvention laws in an attempt to retrieve your own data. The crime ... wait for it ... copyright violation. Do you honestly not see the irony in this situation?
Prosecution would depend only on how vindictive Vendor1 is feeling that day.
How would you solve this common problem to software developers?
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DMCA is a US law. US laws are valid only the US.
Send your data to China or India. They can legally extract it, they can do it much cheaper than you can, you can spend the day sleeping while the data is processed, and helps the Indian economy which makes the elitists happy.
See solution simple.
Everyone happy.
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Who said it should be wrong? The DRM lobby? Everyone else says it's not wrong.
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That AJ is pretending I said something I didn't, and then going on one of his trademarked temper tantrums, is priceless.
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Cute, but let's stick to the merits. What did you mean by "copyrights," then? And please address my point and explain whether you agree that this will indeed weaken copyright holders' rights. Thanks.
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Just because it'll allow me to use MY property that *I* legally purchased the way *I* want to and not the way *THEY* want me to doesn't mean that it weakens copyright.
If I buy a cellphone, a PS3, or a 3DS right now, they are region/service locked and breaking that lock is against the law, even if I legally purchase a game/service from another region/service provider so that I can play/use the game/service.
I'm pretty sure that's wrong.
Or did you miss the case where the Supreme Court slapped down the textbook publisher and said first sale doctrine trumps your copyright?
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Allowing the trafficking of technologies that can be used to circumvent access controls would weaken copyright holders' rights--both their exclusive rights under Section 106 and their anticircumvention rights under Section 1201. The fact that Mike supports this should tell you that it weakens copyright rights.
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If you own something, you can DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH IT!
The first sale doctrine, the Supreme Court's ruling on the matter of buying something and then re-selling and doing what you want with it, states that copyright law does NOT trump a person's right to do with property as they please.
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So you are talking about some non tangible potential of affecting copyrights, while you ignore that DMCA/1201 very concretely violates users ability to exercise fair use. Therefore dropping DMCA/1201 will restore concrete users' rights and will not really affect any copyrights. Ignoring this is hypocrisy.
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It protects DRM which protects copyright.
So you are talking about some non tangible potential of affecting copyrights, while you ignore that DMCA/1201 very concretely violates users ability to exercise fair use. Therefore dropping DMCA/1201 will restore concrete users' rights and will not really affect any copyrights.
It does indeed make it more difficult to engage certain types of fair use. But there is no RIGHT to fair use, only a privilege. So it doesn't violate your rights. It just makes it more difficult to exercise a privilege in certain ways (but not others).
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hoo hoo hoo!
that is Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG!
DRM does NOT protect copyright. DRM is a POS that entertainment industries put up so that people couldn't make legitimate copies of their CDs, DVDs, or Video Games because the publisher didn't want that.
In fact, AJ, DRM specially controls how content is used. There is *NOTHING* about DRM related to copyright OTHER than the DMCA.
So, go back to your MPAA masters and tell them that DRM may just be outlawed soon.
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But there is no RIGHT to fair use, only a privilege.
that's a flat-out lie!
Copyright is the privilege, not Fair Use. Fair Use is the right and is how creativity fucking works!
But you'll just ignore what I say like you ignore everything else that counters your little world, won't you?
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So you agree that DMCA 1201 is not directly related to copyright, it's directly related to DRM. Relation to copyright is indirect. Now you have to convince everyone that such relation will affect any copyrights if DMCA is to be dismantled. You'll have really hard time doing it. Firstly, the presence of DMCA doesn't really reduce the breaking of DRM. If DRM is breakable - it will be broken, DMCA or not. Secondly DRM itself doesn't really affect copyright - as practice shows DRM doesn't prevent infringement, all it does it is annoying legitimate users by crippling the usability.
So to put it shortly, you have a defective method (DRM) that doesn't protect copyright, but pretends that it does. Because of its deficiency, there is another defective method (DMCA), which doesn't protect DRM, but pretends that it does. And you are saying that removing this second level defective layer will affect copyright? It's laughable. I'd say - scrape them both (DMCA and DRM) and it won't affect any copyright. Surely scraping the DMCA is a good first step.
Fair use argument goes only on top of this.
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That seems a bit of a stretch. That's like saying my window and door locks only protect my windows and doors from opening, not the contents of my house. It's like saying my alarm system only indirectly protects my stuff.
Firstly, the presence of DMCA doesn't really reduce the breaking of DRM. If DRM is breakable - it will be broken, DMCA or not.
Sure. DRM gets broken. But if it's illegal to traffic in it, then that makes it harder to obtain and utilize. I understand that hardcore pirates (Mike's bread and butter) won't be affected, but it stands to reason that the more difficult and underground something is, the less people will use it.
Secondly DRM itself doesn't really affect copyright - as practice shows DRM doesn't prevent infringement, all it does it is annoying legitimate users by crippling the usability.
You're assuming that the same amount of infringement would occur in the absence of DRM. I don't think you can show that. And given the fact that copyright holders are so protective of DRM, it seems to me that they think it has an effect on infringement. Again, hardcore pirates will pirate their little hearts out. But the harder it is to infringe, the less people will do it.
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If there's no DRM preventing me from making a backup I wouldn't have to download a copyright-infringing copy of the same file, you pinhead.
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Can you show that the presence of DRM decreases infringement in any significant manner? You can't. And those who created DMCA couldn't possibly show it. Empirical evidence however shows, that even with DRM present, content is pirated. The moment DRM is scraped - content is pirated as if DRM didn't exist. Even if DRM slightly slows this process (on the time which it takes to break it) - it's hardly relevant, since DRM is usually broken pretty fast.
However, besides all these points, DRM itself is unethical. Therefore DMCA 1201 should be considered unethical.
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Bad comparison. If you want a valid analogy, you can compare the use case that involves DRM and DMCA to the owner of the house (end user) who goes to the store vendor (content owner) and buys a product (content). Product is copyrighted, so the vendor protects it (puts DRM on it). Protection entitles a spybot and electrified protective wrap which accompany the product to user's house.
User comes home and attempts to use the product. Spybot which now spies on the user in user's own house notifies the user with red lights that most probably user is a criminal, lest use will attempt to duplicate the product. User tries to unwrap the product, but the sneaky wrap refuses to be removed and notifies the user that user can only peek through the wrap with special tool X from the vendor. User most probably doesn't even have a tool X, or has a tool Y, which doesn't really help.
Now frustrated user finds a special tool Z which disables the annoying and potentially dangerous spy bot and its flashing lights and disintegrates the nasty wrap and then finally gets to the product.
With all that, somewhere in background the Big Brother creates a rule which says "you can't disable the bot, you can't remove the wrap with any tool" and etc. It doesn't prevent one from doing it, but it forbids it. Makes a lot of sense, right?
So in order to "protect" the product, the vendor created a privacy violating bot and really irritating wrap which user has to disintegrate first to get some sensible and comfortable user experience. But to scary users off from doing it, there is also a DMCA, which users view as lunacy, since they really need to disable the bot which is an outright spy for who knows whom and they need to remove the wrap, since they have no need to buy any ridiculous tool X - they already have tool Y.
Bottom line - DMCA/1201 doesn't protect DRM and doesn't prevent its breaking. DRM itself is a crooked and unethical methodology which shouldn't even exist in the first place. Both should be gone of for good.
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"Protecting copyright" may be the stated purpose of DRM, but it is not the intended purpose (that would be control, not protection) nor is is the real-world result. As a protection measure it's proven to be completely ineffective.
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The public benefits from weakened damages, increased production, and other added benefits. Copyright is not weakened. It's more in line with the demands of the public that benefits.
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Where'd you run off to, Mike? Pretending like I'm having a "temper tantrum" so you can get out actually discussing your argument on the merits is your trademarked move. I know some of the dumber ones buy it, but wouldn't you rather just thrash me about on the merits? I'd love to chat with you about these things, but I suspect that, as you've done so many hundreds of times before, you're too chicken. I don't get it. I'm not that intimidating, am I?
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I'm just calling it like I see it, AJ.
No matter how many times we've told you that this isn't about weakening copyright, but rather about letting owners have control of their items, you just put your fingers in your ears and go "NO! IT'S WEAKENING COPYRIGHT! DEBATE ME, MIKE! WHY YOU RUN AWAY LIKE A COWARD?!"
So, really, AJ, you're the dumbass troll.
All of your points have been countered and you just keep replying with the same lies.
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If SCotUS started to make treaties and Congress told them to stop, it wouldn't be a weakening of SCotUS, it would simply be putting them in their place. That anticircumvention was ever a part of copyright law is wrong (that it was ever a part of the law at all is another wrong for another discussion).
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Circumvention of DRM has nothing to do with copyright in itself. It might affect copyright, it might not. It's like saying that usage of wheels should be regulated by criminal law, since robbers use cars to rob banks (Cory Doctorow's analogy).
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If I don't own what I buy...
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maybe if they were to ask themselves questions like these, they may then understand what the hell people are talking about and why they get SO FUCKING ANNOYED WHEN THEY ARE STOPPED FROM DOING WHAT THEY WANT WITH SOMETHING THEY HAVE PAID OUT HARD EARNED CASH FOR!!!!!
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Ok, I'll grant you that, Joseph, but answer this: why is that a bad thing?
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I bought the damn thing and so long as I'm not 'stealing' content with it or causing physical/mental distress to someone else with it, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want with it. If I want to move to another carrier with it, so be it. If I want to install apps that the almighty Apple doesn't like, go me. If I want to sell it to my mother-in-law for $20 I should be able to do that too.
If you disagree with the idea that what you buy (not license or rent a service/product) is YOURS and not "yours until we say so" then you've got problems, period. I didn't lease a phone, I bought one.
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Let me explain. The basic premise of your argument is wrong. You are saying that removing the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA weakens the rights of copyright holders because removing the anti-circumvention clause weakens the rights of copyright holders. This is a logical fallacy known as "begging the question" (as opposed to the common use where it means creating a question). Repetition of your fallacy does not improve it's validity.
The second part of your statement must be argued for the initial postulate to be valid. In other words, you must first explain how making circumvention of protections for non-illegal uses of copyrighted material in any way affects the rights of copyright holders.
For example, let's take another set of laws. It is illegal for you to break into my house. It is not illegal for you to enter if I give you permission, and it is always legal for me to enter my own house barring something like a restraining order. Let's imagine it is also illegal to climb into a house through a window since that is circumventing the security of the house.
Now, as a homeowner, I have the right to prevent unauthorized entry to my home. If I accidentally lock myself out of the house, and climb in through a window, should I be prosecuted for breaking and entering under the clause of the law that states going through the window is illegal? And if that law were removed, so it is now legal for *me* to enter my house, but still illegal for an intruder, does that diminish my homeowners rights in any way? Either way the right to enter my house is unaffected...someone entering illegally is illegal, regardless of the method, and someone entering legally should not be a criminal for entering through an "illegal" method.
So what Mike stated is correct...the actual copyrights of copyright holders are unaffected by this change. The ability to take legal activity and treat it as illegal simply due to the method would be removed. This may help reduce the abuse of copyright law for non-copyright purposes but does nothing to diminish the copyrights themselves.
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That's not what I said. The anticircumvention provisions strengthen copyright holders' rights by making it more difficult to circumvent access controls. Those access controls make it more difficult to infringe. By making it legal to traffic in these circumvention technologies, that in turn makes it easier to infringe.
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There are few (if any) copy protection measures that haven't been broken, and there is still the analog hole. No work that has copy protection measures is safe, nor would it be difficult to copy them. People who want to infringe on a work will do so regardless of the anitcircumvention clause. By removing it, all that is happening is that the rights of people are being given back to do things that are not otherwise illegal (such as unlocking phones, fair use copying, copying public domain works, etc). Those who violated the anticircumvention clause to infringe are still committing infringement, while those who violated it for non-infringing purposes are no longer breaking the law.
What exactly do you have a problem with in this case? How exactly is copyright law being weakened?
Not only that, but the law disagrees with you completely. Section 1201(c) states:If nothing in 1201 affects the rights of copyright holders, repealing it cannot possibly affect those rights either.
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Wrong. The law does not make it any more difficult to circumvent access controls. Your claim is laughably ignorant of reality.
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Heard of a little thing called the Prohibition? It was a little thing, you might not have heard of it, but it was a period in the 1920's when you couldn't buy alcohol. Shocking, I know. The government went around saying it was illegal to buy beer, and punished anyone they could find.
Guess what happened? Even though it technically was difficult to buy beer (you couldn't do so openly, you had to be circumspect about it, go through shady channels, basically some amount of effort) and it was underground by default seeing as how it was illegal...people still continued to drink. In large numbers. The US government threw 15,000 agents last I checked at this, and failed completely.
This was because the PEOPLE didn't want it to be illegal.
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WELL...
Technically speaking, people *DID* want it to be illegal, at first.
However, people soon found out that their scapegoat of alcoholism being all of the problems of society was a falsehood and the fact that you had to now DEAL with them instead of being able to drink to try and forget them, even for a little bit, caused real issues.
So now, people wanted alcohol to get away from problems, but it was illegal, so they started to make their own.
And that was how organized crime came into being in the 1930s.
Once alcohol was legal again, though, most of the organized crime either went away or moved onto something else.
Huh... I wonder if that should be applied to marijuana or something.
Something to think about.
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Ah, I think I get the fundamental difference in viewpoint that's causing the issue. Let me see if I understand this correctly.
In your view, copyright is a natural right that creators of works possess. They created it, therefore they own it, and anyone else who accesses must follow their rules. "Fair use" is an exception that temporarily diminshes the creator's rights in order to allow the public access to certain allowed uses of the work, such as parody or news reporting. Is that close?
Because that's the opposite of my view, and arguably of the Constitutional view. In my view copyright is a temporary right granted to creators to supress my natural right to do with it whatever the heck I want.
To take it to a real world example, if one of my friends tells a story at a party, what "right" does he have to that story? I can tell the story, change the story, or do whatever I want with it, as people have always done. People copy each other reflexively and naturally; look up the concept of "mirroring" in psychology. They have no natural right to their stories, ideas, and behaviors that prevent other people from mimicking or using in their own way. How do you think dialects start?
In other words, "copyright" is a commercial protection of culture to encourage the creation of more culture. Put another way, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The key part in both concepts is the purpose or intent...in my version the "encourage the creation of more culture" and in the Constitutional language "To promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts."
You seem focused on the rights of creators as if the purpose of those rights is to make the creators money and to prevent other people from infringing on their copyright. This is not, and has never been, the purpose behind copyright law, although it is being widely used for it now.
So from your point of view, this change would weaken copyright law by removing the "right" of preventing infringement and loss of control. From my point of view this change strengthens copyright law by promoting the exchange of ideas, reducing economic waste by those who are not creators (the distribution companies), and by increasing the value of copyrighted works.
To illustrate my point, I will utilize a bit of fair use:
"So what I told you was true, from a certain point of view."
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Yeah, we can do that. Everything that the tax money pays for (roads, sidewalks, street lights, police, firemen) will from this day forth be payed for by you directly.
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AJ, let me give you some advice. You're never going to convince anyone to join your side by making insane arguments like you do. If you want to get people to agree with you, you may want to use some logic every now and then.
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Find out what happens next time on Techdirt, the ongoing chronicles!
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Here's one way you can try and be taken more seriously. Don't say something so obviously false, that all anyone has to do to check its veracity is simply scroll up and down.
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This is why there is no discussing anything with you on the merits. You employ logical fallacies like you invented them, and you constantly move the goalposts.
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This is why there is no discussing anything with you on the merits. You employ logical fallacies like you invented them, and you constantly move the goalposts.
I didn't move the goalposts. You said "copyrights," and I assumed you meant the rights granted to copyright holders under the Copyright Act--which is a reasonable interpretation of the word. You appear to be limiting your claim to some subset of those rights. That's fine. The word "copyrights" can be construed differently, and my construction differed from yours. No big deal. But you still have not answered my question: What do you mean by "copyrights." You're pretending like it's my fault I don't know what you mean when you haven't bothered to explain what you mean by your use of the word.
Regardless, I've asked you to address my point this proposal would indeed weaken the copyright rights, defined broadly as including the anticircumvention rights under 1201, of copyright holders. You have not addressed this question. Nor have you addressed the point I've made repeatedly in the comments that if you meant by "copyrights" only the exclusive rights under Section 106, then this proposal would weaken those rights as well because making it legal to traffic in technologies that can be used to circumvent access controls would make it easier to infringe. Those controls exist for the purpose of protecting the rights under Section 106. If those controls are weakened, then that in turn weakens the protection of the Section 106 rights. The fact that it would still be illegal to violate the 106 rights ignores the fact that it would be easier to do so.
Now, instead of pulling out your usual trope about "temper tantrums" and "moving the goalposts," why don't you actually discuss these actual issues on the merits? Seriously, Mike. Grow a fucking pair and discuss something like a man. Stop running away all the time. It's fucking ridiculous.
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This is a load of bunk, and you know it. Breaking DRM doesn't imply infringement since DRM circumvention tools can be used for legitimate purpose (i.e. accessing the legally purchased content). Therefore prohibiting distributing and using them altogether is like prohibiting selling and using knives, since they can be used for crime as well as for legal purposes. This, paired with the fact that DRM itself doesn't protect copyrights (as we discussed above) and thus weakening DRM doesn't affect infringement makes it completely reasonable to repeal DMCA 1201.
In general, it's a moronic idea to use legal methods (DMCA) to prevent a deficient technology (DRM) from being broken, since it that can't protect what it's intended to protect.
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Hardly. I'm asking Mike to admit that this would weaken some of the rights that copyright holders have as far as anticircumvention is concerned. He can't even admit that much. Just like he can't admit that there is an allegation of specific criminal infringement against the Dotcom Crew or that Swartz may have violated the CFAA. For some reason (ahem... fundamental, cellular-level dishonesty) he can't ever concede simple points that cut against his rhetoric.
As far as the 106 rights go, all I've heard are conclusory statements that DRM does absolutely nothing to prevent piracy. If Mike is basing his assessment that this proposal doesn't weaken 106 rights because DRM is ineffective, he should admit that. But he won't discuss it because he knows he can't prove that DRM has no effect. It's just part of the TD mantra that disincentives are completely ineffective when it's copyright. It's total bullshit, as per usual, and Mike has run away rather than discuss anything on the merits. What a fake.
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So, Joe, can you point to anywhere in the copyright statutes that says that copyright holders have a right to control all access to the works that they authored?
No, you can't, because that was never a right that was granted to them.
And, clearly, Congress did not intend to grant copyright holders those rights. That's why they explicitly included a "savings clause" in 1201(c): "Nothing in this section shall affect rights, remedies, limitations, or defenses to copyright infringement, including fair use, under this title."
This bill would merely clarify that intent - nothing more.
Furthermore, as it stands, this statute applies to much more than copyrighted material. Let's take the classic example: "jailbreaking" your phone so that you are able to switch to a different carrier. If you did this, what access to copyrighted works are you gaining?
The answer: none. "Jailbreaking" your phone does not result in access to any material whatsoever that is within the scope of copyright, as defined in 17 USC 102.
In other words: the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions grant rights to people who have no copyright interests whatsoever.
This is a major flaw in the law as it stands. You said, and I agree, that the intent is to allow copyright holders to protect themselves against infringement. But it is overreaching as it stands, and this bill would simply rectify the situation.
As far as the 106 rights go, all I've heard are conclusory statements that DRM does absolutely nothing to prevent piracy.
That's not really the issue. Anti-circumvention measures (not merely DRM) may help prevent piracy - but, of course, shutting down public libraries would also help prevent piracy. The plain fact is that anti-circumvention provisions do not serve the public welfare. Anti-circumvention measures may help prevent activity that is infringing, but they also bypass all of the limitations on copyright rights that are Constitutionally necessary.
Plus, as I said, anti-circumvention measures are unlawful even regarding material that is not covered by copyright law.
Also, replying to another comment:
making it legal to traffic in technologies that can be used to circumvent access controls would make it easier to infringe.
This is aboslutely false. How easy it is to infringe depends entirely upon how easy it is to actually circumvent the particular access controls. Whether that is legal or illegal makes little difference. I mean, for fuck's sake, people print DeCSS on T-shirts. It can't get more easy than that.
What it would do is make it easier to "traffic in technologies" that don't infringe. But nothing in this bill would make it any more difficult for copyright holders to enforce their rights. It would simply legalize activities that never infringed on their rights in the first place. If someone makes something that can bypass copy protection for the purposes of infringement, they can still get sued, and they can still face criminal charges. And it is not any harder for either copyright holder or the govenrnment to bring these charges against them.
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Just can't stop lying can ya?
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Yes.
yes, but that does not mean you are able to use what you own how you like.
You can own many things and still have restrictions on it's use, you can own a car, but it's illegal to speed on public roads, you can own a knife but you cannot kill someone with it, or use it to conduct a crime.
You (in America) can own a gun, but you cannot just take it where you like or discharge it when you like, (or kill someone with it).
So Masnick, it's quite simple yes, you can own many things, you can even own copies of works and not own the copyright!!.
This is pretty basic stuff mansick, why do you have so much trouble understanding it ?????????
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Anyway, you're missing the point (big surprise) again (shocker, I know)
Those examples that you listed with the car, knife and gun...
Speeding puts people's lives in danger. Knifing someone takes away a person's life. Shooting a gun can kill or injure people, which interferes with their rights to live.
Now then...
How does unlocking my electronics take away a person's rights like those do?
All unlocking does is, instead of taking away rights, GIVES people the right to use their stuff as they see fit so long as what they're doing doesn't interfere with another person's rights.
Throwing bricks, stabbing someone, speeding, shooting, all of those endanger human lives.
Unlocking a phone or video game system doesn't hurt ANYBODY!!!
You seem to fail to grasp this basic concept, AJ.
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Please...make. it. stop.
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Hollywood screener DVDs
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