MESSAGE
| DATE | 2002-05-14 |
| FROM | Ruben I Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [fairuse] Re: [hangout] Pact Reached to Stop Pirating Of Digital TV Over the Internet (fwd)
|
Please just send the link
On 2002.05.14 16:22 Seth Johnson wrote:
>
> Ruben: See the link below -- the original message in this
> thread.
>
> April 26, On C-Net.
>
> I believe Boucher is referring to the BPDG group, to which
> FSF's Bradley M. Kuhn has sent a message -- posted below as
> well.
>
> Tom Poe of the SEUL.ORG (Simple End User Linux) group is on
> the BPDG Committee's closed list.
>
> Seth Johnson
>
> Ruben I Safir wrote:
> >
> > Where is this interview?
> > And when was it?
> >
> > On 2002.05.14 15:41 Richard Stallman wrote:
> > > Do we have any confirmation that any legistlative action
> > > has taken place, or is taking place, in response to the
> > > "agreement".
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [fairuse-discuss] Boucher: Pro- Content Control
> Date: Sun, 05 May 2002 08:38:13 -0400
> From: Seth Johnson
>
>
>
> (Boucher wraps himself in pro-"consumer" garb, while
> endorsing content control. -- Seth)
>
> Salient passage:
>
> I do agree that we need to take some steps to assure that
> material which is, for example, broadcast across
> digital-television equipment should be protected in such a
> way as to disallow unauthorized copying and disallow
> uploading to the Internet. I actually endorse the idea of
> doing that. But I think that should be done in a
> collaborative process that involves the manufacturers of
> equipment and also involves the motion- picture studios. And
> that very process is underway. That group has already
> achieved an agreement that will protect television
> content--broadcast and digital format--and received in the
> home by either cable television or by satellite. What they
> have not achieved is an agreement in regard to material that
> is broadcast over the air for receipt by an antenna or by
> "rabbit ears." But they're working to do that, and we expect
> that within another six weeks there will be a private-sector
> agreement that produces a standard for protecting that
> content as well. Now, at the end of that process, after the
> equipment manufacturers are satisfied that the standard is
> workable, after the motion-picture studios are satisfied
> that it offers sufficient protection, after the various
> consumer groups that are also working in this process are
> content that the employment of that standard will enable
> people to continue to exercise their fair-use rights for
> appropriate home recording of the material--after all of
> those tests are met, there may be a role for Congress to
> require that equipment respond to that particular standard,
> and all of the external stakeholders will have endorsed the
> standard and say that this technology works, and that
> consumer rights are protected. Now, at that point, I would
> be willing to entertain a proposal that Congress act and
> require that equipment respond.
>
>
> http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0-3219397-8-9792032-1.html
>
>
> Interview with a congressman--part one
>
> By Eliot Van Buskirk
> (4/26/02)
>
>
> When a regular reader of my column e-mailed me to say that
> he could set up an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher
> (D-Virginia), I admit that I was a bit skeptical. After all,
> this is the Internet, where people e-mail you with seemingly
> impossible opportunities everyday. But soon enough, I was on
> the phone for half an hour with Rep. Boucher, who called
> fresh from a vote on the House floor to talk with me about a
> variety of pressing online music issues--most specifically,
> our right to the fair use of the content that we buy. This
> constitutional right, which is closely related to free
> speech, has already been severely damaged by the DMCA
> (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and could be obliterated
> by a new bill introduced by Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings
> (D-South Carolina). Boucher thinks that you should be able
> to burn mix CDs, but due to the lobbying efforts by the
> record industry in Washington, many others in Congress don't
> see things in the same proconsumer light. Here's what Rep.
> Boucher had to say in this first of two installments.
>
> MP3 Insider: So I really liked your article on CNET
> News.com, and it seems like we agree with each other on a
> lot of these issues.
>
> Rep. Boucher: Yeah.
>
> M: I'm wondering, just to start things off, do you use a
> computer to download or stream music?
>
> B: I actually use a computer a lot. I have three computers
> that I use on a regular basis--one is on my desk top in my
> Washington office, another is at home, and I have my laptop
> that I use when I'm traveling. However, I'm not in the habit
> of downloading music from the Web. I defend peoples' right
> to do that in a lawful manner, but I have not undertaken
> that practice myself.
>
> M: OK. So how long would you say that you've been online?
>
> B: I have been online since the early '90s. The first
> legislation that I produced relating to the Internet was a
> bill to overturn a restriction inside of the law that
> prohibited the Internet backbone from being used for
> anything other than research and scientific and educational
> communication.
>
> M: Interesting.
>
> B: The effect of that restriction, which was known as the
> acceptable-use policy, prohibited electronic commerce, and
> the first Internet-related legislation that I sponsored,
> which was in 1992, repealed the acceptable-use policy and
> thereby enabled the Internet to be used for electronic
> commerce. So I have been involved in Internet-related policy
> for approximately one decade, and I have been using the
> Internet myself for almost that period of time.
>
> M: Excellent, so you definitely know the area fairly well.
>
> B: Yes.
>
> M: OK, so now into some more specifics. You've gone on the
> record as a vocal opponent of the DMCA, the
> anticircumvention clause especially, and I remember Orrin
> Hatch, who's a Republican, making statements in support of
> file sharing back during the Napster hearing. I'm wondering
> if you could tell me, how do you think the two parties line
> up overall, in terms of consumers' digital rights in the
> Internet age?
>
>
> B: Well, I think what you're seeing is that among the
> handful of members of Congress who are involved in
> intellectual-property policy today, House and Senate, you
> are seeing those members basically divide into two camps.
> One of those camps staunchly defends all of the provisions
> of the DMCA, staunchly defends the 20-year extension of
> copyright terms, staunchly defends the content community's
> copyright interests, against all efforts to enhance the
> rights of the users of intellectual property--that's one
> camp. The other camp is the other side of the equation, and
> that other camp is members who believe that the historical
> balance between the rights of copyright owners and the
> rights of the users of copyrighted material has been
> dramatically altered in favor of the owners of copyrights at
> the expense of the rights of the users of copyrighted
> material.
>
> M: Right.
>
> B: I am in that camp [the second one].
>
> M: Good.
>
> B: I think that the balance needs to be restored, and I
> would note that in the camp in which I am in, one finds
> libraries, universities, the Internet industry, the
> manufacturers of digital media, and consumers.
>
> M: Speaking of the consumers, I know the MPAA and RIAA are
> fairly well organized in terms of their efforts. Are there
> any kind of consumer-advocacy groups getting involved? I
> mean, I sometimes get the feeling that
> people--consumers--don't know what's at stake here, really.
>
> B: Well I think that's true. I think this debate is just
> beginning, and in the early stages of any debate, oftentimes
> the external stakeholders appear to be somewhat lopsided in
> terms of their ability to influence the process, and I would
> grant you that at the present time, the Motion Picture
> Association [of America] and the Recording Industry
> Association of America, by virtue of their long-standing
> knowledge of Congress and relationships with many key
> members of Congress, would appear to have the upper hand. On
> the other hand, I think a lot has changed since 1998, when
> the DMCA was passed by Congress. We now have the formation
> of a number of groups that are dedicated to user rights. I
> would include among those the Digital Media Association
> (DiMA), which represents Webcasters. They were not a part of
> the debate in 1998. I would also include the Electronic
> Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Center for--what is it
> called, Electronic Democracy, something along that line? All
> of these groups have come to the scene since 1998 and are
> now here, expressing the concerns of people who are users of
> intellectual property.
>
> M: Right.
>
> B: I think there's also a growing body of scholarship that
> suggests that what I said previously is true, and that is
> that the balance, which we always respected in our law,
> between the rights of intellectual-property owners and the
> rights of the users of that property has now been
> dramatically shifted, and that the balance now lies on the
> side of the owners of copyright, and that that shift has
> occurred at the expense of the rights of copyright owners.
> It has certainly occurred at the expense of the fair-use
> rights, which underpins our right to speak freely in
> society. That growing body of scholarship includes a number
> of prominent law professors and writers on the West Coast.
>
> M: Are you familiar with Lawrence Lessig and his work [Code
> & Other Laws of Cyberspace and The Future of Ideas ]?
>
> B: Yes, I am. I've read his work, and I applaud it. I think
> he's exactly on target.
>
> M: Right. I get letters from people all the time, I mean
> they read my column when I tell them what these laws say
> they can't do, and I think more people who have CD burners
> now, and the average person is starting to understand this a
> little more, maybe, we'll see...
>
> B: Well I think we will, and you're absolutely right in
> saying that the attempt by the labels to introduce
> copy-protected CDs into the U.S. market is going to have a
> profound effect on this debate. Millions of Americans have
> now become accustomed to using their CD burners at home in
> order to perform a completely lawful act. And that is to
> take music that they have purchased at the store and
> rearrange the tracks on those CDs on a CD they've compiled
> themselves, so that they have on that self-manufactured CD,
> exactly the music they want to hear in the order in which
> they want to hear it. And that is a classic exercise of
> Constitutionally protected fair-use rights.
>
> M: Right.
>
> B: And to the extent now that people are frustrated in being
> able to perform that legal act, I think you're going to see
> millions of Americans complain to their members of Congress
> that something is amiss when they go to the store, buy a CD,
> and then take it home and find that they can't space-shift
> from that CD onto another CD they want to create for their
> own personal use.
>
> M: Right, do you think the Sony vs. Betamax case is going to
> stand up as sort of a precedent that reinforces our right to
> fair use?
>
> B: Well, the Sony vs. Betamax decision is a very valuable
> decision. It was rendered 20 years ago. To a large extent it
> was reversed by the DMCA. What the Sony vs. Betamax decision
> held is that any time technology can be used for two
> purposes--a minimum of two, but two anyway, one of which is
> infringing, and another of which is noninfringing, that the
> technology is lawful technology as long as it has a
> substantial noninfringing use. And the court analyzed the
> Betamax and found that because it allowed time-shifting, it
> had a substantial noninfringing use (time-shifting is fair
> use), and therefore Betamax was found to be lawful
> technology. That's a very valuable legal principle: The
> presence of a substantial noninfringing use renders the
> technology to be lawful. Now unfortunately, the DMCA
> essentially reversed that, because it says that if the
> technology, even though it has substantial noninfringing
> uses, was primarily intended by the manufacturer to be used
> for an infringing purpose, then the technology is unlawful.
> Now the problem is, nobody's going to know at the outset
> what a court is going to rule about the intent of the
> manufacturer. How do you determine that extent? How does a
> court subsequently determine what was in the manufacturer's
> mind at the time that he produced technology that could be
> used both for infringement and also had noninfringing
> purposes? And so the Sony vs. Betamax principle was severely
> weakened by that provision of the DMCA. And then, of course,
> anybody who traffics in a device which is declared to be an
> infringing technology--such as Mr. Sklyarov from Russia--can
> be arrested for criminal conduct.
>
> M: Right.
>
> B: And I have very serious problems with punishing the
> technology. And that is precisely what the DMCA seeks to do.
> We should punish people who engage in acts of piracy. We
> should not punish the technology which can be used for
> infringing purposes but also for substantial noninfringing
> purposes.
>
> M: So along those lines, I just came across a very
> interesting quote from John Ippolito of the Guggenheim, and
> he's talking about Senator "Fritz" Hollings's bill, the
> CBDTPA, and Ippolito says about that bill, "To disable the
> Internet to save EMI and Disney is the moral equivalent of
> burning down the library of Alexandria to ensure the
> livelihood of monastic scribes."
>
> B: (laughs) Well, it's artful...(laughs) Well, without being
> quite that eloquent, let me endorse the general idea that he
> expresses. I think that Senator Hollings's bill is
> wrongheaded. It is inappropriate for the government to
> establish technical standards to be applied to digital
> media. The government is not a very good
> standards-developing body.
>
> M: Mmm-hmm.
>
> B: I do agree that we need to take some steps to assure that
> material which is, for example, broadcast across
> digital-television equipment should be protected in such a
> way as to disallow unauthorized copying and disallow
> uploading to the Internet. I actually endorse the idea of
> doing that. But I think that should be done in a
> collaborative process that involves the manufacturers of
> equipment and also involves the motion- picture studios. And
> that very process is underway. That group has already
> achieved an agreement that will protect television
> content--broadcast and digital format--and received in the
> home by either cable television or by satellite. What they
> have not achieved is an agreement in regard to material that
> is broadcast over the air for receipt by an antenna or by
> "rabbit ears." But they're working to do that, and we expect
> that within another six weeks there will be a private-sector
> agreement that produces a standard for protecting that
> content as well. Now, at the end of that process, after the
> equipment manufacturers are satisfied that the standard is
> workable, after the motion-picture studios are satisfied
> that it offers sufficient protection, after the various
> consumer groups that are also working in this process are
> content that the employment of that standard will enable
> people to continue to exercise their fair-use rights for
> appropriate home recording of the material--after all of
> those tests are met, there may be a role for Congress to
> require that equipment respond to that particular standard,
> and all of the external stakeholders will have endorsed the
> standard and say that this technology works, and that
> consumer rights are protected. Now, at that point, I would
> be willing to entertain a proposal that Congress act and
> require that equipment respond. The Senator Hollings's bill
> is way ahead of all of that. Senator Hollings's bill would
> require that all digital media immediately respond to a
> standard that the government would wind up setting. There
> would be no assurance that consumer rights would be
> protected. There would be no assurance that the fair-use
> right to home recording of digital content would be
> preserved. There would be no assurance that the technology
> as applied to consumer-electronics products and
> information-technology products would allow those products
> to function effectively. And I'm convinced that if his bill
> becomes law, which I don't think it will, but if it were to
> become law, I think it would probably inhibit the
> introduction of a lot of useful new technology.
>
> M: Exactly. I mean it seems to me that in fact it would
> incent people to buy used computer equipment from before the
> legislation were enacted...
>
> B: Absolutely.
>
> M: ...which is ironic because it's called the promotion of
> broadband and digital television, promotion of sales
> [Editor's note: The law is actually called the Consumer
> Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act], it seems to
> me that the exact opposite is true.
>
> B: I think that's right.
>
> M: Right. OK, so since the Internet is international, then
> there's the aspect of will the DMCA become the basis for
> worldwide copyright law, and do you think that's realistic?
>
> B: Well, that's a big problem. You put your finger on a
> major concern there.
>
> ____________________________
> New Yorkers for Fair Use -
> because it's either fair use or useless....
>
> ---------------------------------
> ---------------------------------
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [fairuse-discuss] FSF's Kuhn on BPDG/Pact Vs.
> "Pirated" Digital TV
> Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 20:31:59 -0400
> From: Seth Johnson
>
>
> (Forwarded from the Simple End-User Linux for Education
> list, seul-edu-at-seul.org)
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 17:38:04 -0700
> From: tom poe
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> Subject: Re: BPDG: Revised requirements draft proposal
> Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:34:58 -0400
> From: "Bradley M. Kuhn"
> To: bpdg-tech-at-list.lmicp.com
>
>
> "Bradley M. Kuhn"
> Dear Michael, co-chairs, and fellow BPDG members,
>
> I am the executive director of the Free Software
> Foundation. I was only recently made aware of the
> activities of the BPDG, and thus am a late comer to the
> discussion. However, according to the CPTWG, this subgroup
> is open to all organizations who have an interest in its
> recommendations. Having read the relevant material, it is
> clear that the requirements on "Covered Products" set forth
> in the Revised Requirements Draft Proposal will have a
> direct and negative impact the work of Free Software
> developers, and thus a direct impact on the Free Software
> Foundation.
>
> Before I discuss the details of that impact on Free
> Software, I will give some brief background on our
> organization. The Free Software Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
> non-profit that was founded in 1985. We promote and create
> software that is Free as in freedom; the user has the
> freedom to copy, redistribute, and modify all Free
> Software. In the 1980s, we started development of a
> completely Free Software Unix-compatible operating system,
> called GNU. Available today as modern GNU/Linux systems
> (whose name is often shortened to "Linux"), this operating
> system has an estimated twenty million users worldwide.
> GNU/Linux is widely used and redistributed by large
> corporations such as IBM and HP. While the system has
> thousands of contributors, FSF remains the largest single
> copyright holder of the core GNU/Linux system.
>
> >From my understanding of your requirements draft, it is likely that a
>
> GNU/Linux system and other related Free Software will
> eventually be considered Covered Products. Currently, many
> people use GNU/Linux systems to view television broadcasts;
> I doubt this will change as HDTV becomes more widespread.
> Thus, FSF is gravely concerned about what this proposal will
> mean for GNU/Linux as a Covered Product.
>
> Most Free Software that can decode broadcast signals would
> not typically fit the requirements in Sections 3.a and 3.b
> of the proposal. However, even if Free Software developers
> did make efforts to implement those restrictions, it would
> be utterly impossible to adhere to most of the other
> requirements in the proposal---in particular, but not
> limited to, Sections 7.a, 7.c, 11.a, and 11.b.
>
> Free Software is designed around the idea of sharing
> information and advancing human knowledge---the core
> principles that made the modern advent of digital technology
> possible. FSF and Free Software developers around the world
> share the source code of all Free Software programs. Free
> Software licenses give users the freedom to modify the
> software as they see fit.
>
> Thus, requiring a software product to "frustrate" the user
> is in direct conflict with users' ability to modify the
> software to suit their needs. We have no way to tell why the
> user would like to modify the software---perhaps it is for
> the purposes of infringing copyright, but usually it is
> not. Most of the time, users simply wish to enhance the
> software to fix bugs or make it work better for the
> community.
>
> Also, with Free Software, all of the generally available
> standard tools for analyzing software would show the user
> how to make modifications to the product. In fact, this is
> the goal; developers of Free Software are encouraged to
> improve it to help the community of users. Perhaps a few
> will "improve" it by causing it to violate Section 3 of your
> draft; most others will simply improve it to make it more
> robust, more reliable, and to provide better features.
>
> Since everyone agrees that adoption of digital television
> technology is important, it seems to me that this working
> group should seek a consensus that allows the largest
> possible Free market to innovate around digital technology.
> The proposed draft summarily dismisses Free Software from
> the innovation space, and I seen no easy way to repair the
> draft to treat Free Software on equal footing. I suggest
> the adoption of an alternative draft that asserts the rights
> of innovators to use Free Software in Covered Products. I
> believe that EFF has circulated such a draft.
>
>
> As it stands, FSF opposes the Revised Requirements Draft
> Proposal.
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Bradley Kuhn
>
> --
> Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director
> Free Software Foundation | Phone: +1-617-542-5942
> 59 Temple Place, Suite 330 | Fax: +1-617-542-2652
> Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA | Web: http://www.gnu.org
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> ____________________________
> New Yorkers for Fair Use -
> because it's either fair use or useless....
>
--
__________________________
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__________________________
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____________________________
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Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
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