Extending the DMCA

[Sunner]

I'm not directly affected since I don't live in the US, but still...
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050107-4511.html.

 

[beatle]

Am I the only one who thought the Boy Scouts of America were out to take away our digital rights?

 

[drag]

The issue (as I understand it) is weither or not ISPs should be compelled to release data on ISP accounts.

the answer they already are, and it's always been like that.

If somebody is able to get a court order to make ISP release information, the ISP will. But they have to have good evidence that they know somebody broke the law and then they have to get law informance agencies involved and convince a judge that such a invasive force release of information is warrented.

However the BSA feels that people like the RIAA should be able to compel ISP's to release information just because their lawyers say so.

In that case the BSA can go F**K themselves.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: beatle
Am I the only one who thought the Boy Scouts of America were out to take away our digital rights?

Business software alliance.

 

[bamacre]

The main problem with the DMCA is it slaughters our Fair Use rights.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: bamacre
The main problem with the DMCA is it slaughters our Fair Use rights.

Yep.

Pirating software is already illegal.

DMCA makes it illegal to distribute programs designed to break encryption on digital information.

Even if it is stupid encryption... Say I make a file format were the "encryption" is to change all the 0's to 1's visa versa. A program that is designed to switch it back is now illegal.

For a real world example is that right now I have to break DMCA law in order to watch DVD's on my Linux laptop. A professor was arrested in class because he gave a lecture examining flaws in the design of DVD encryption to a class of computer science students.

A guy from russia (IIRC) was arrested when he visited the US for writing and distributing a paper describing the flaws in the protections of Adobe's Ebook format.

Note that these are activities that are perfectly legal if it wasn't for the DMCA.

If encryption is adiquate then even if you own a program that is designed to break it it could take centuries to do it. If encryption is inadiquate then it can be broken even if the DMCA makes it illegal. This stuff only serves to restrict the rights of law-abiding people and does not accomplish anything to restrict illegal activities.

If a hacker want to break encryption to steal bank account information the DMCA isn't going to stop him. It isn't going to stop him from finding out how to do it, talking to other people how to do it, obtaining programs to do it, or help the FBI in stopping him from doing it.