MESSAGE
| DATE | 2002-10-02 |
| FROM | Brendan Tween
|
| SUBJECT | RE: [hangout] fair use bill
|
I agree with Ruben - all it seems to say is that it would decriminalize
circumventing technology. It doesn't put any limits on how far "copyright
owners" can go to make copying impossible, it doesn't limit the terms of
EULAs, it doesn't mean they (the RIAA, etc) can't design and build
technology that damages your hardware. It just means they can no longer get
prosecutorial lapdogs to do their dirty work. It doesn't rule out the
possibility that they (again, the RIAA, etc) will just pummel you in civil
court. Essentially, as I read it, this article doesn't show a bill that
offers consumers any protection from abuse by hollywood, only protection
from the misuse of law enforcement.
Which essentially means, we're only slightly less at the mercy of the
studios.
brendan
-----Original Message-----
From: Ruben I Safir [mailto:ruben-at-mrbrklyn.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 4:58 PM
To: Ray Connolly
Cc: 'nylxs'
Subject: Re: [hangout] fair use bill
This bill would not ensure Digital Rights
> Lofgren's bill would ensure consumers can copy CDs, DVDs and other digital
> works for personal use, just as they now do with TV shows and audio tapes.
>
> ``This would not authorize someone taking their digital content and
sharing
> it with a million of their best friends,'' Lofgren said in an interview
> Tuesday. Instead of creating new rights for consumers, she said, her bill
> would ensure that ``the rights they have in the analog world, they have in
> digital.''
>
> Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., plans to introduce similar legislation Thursday.
>
> Lawmakers are wrapping up their business for the year within weeks, and
> neither measure has any chance of making it through Congress by then.
> Rather, the bills are aimed at staking out the technology industry's
> position in a festering dispute that could result in congressional action
> next year.
>
> The bills also would amend a 1998 law, the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act,
> that makes it a crime to circumvent technological protections built in to
> copyrighted works. Instead, consumers would be allowed to bypass the
> technology if the intent is to make a copy for personal use.
>
> The legislation will vie with Hollywood-backed proposals, filed by Sen.
> Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., and Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Los Angeles, that
> would embed copy protection into PCs and an array of consumer devices, and
> allow the music and film industry to use aggressive anti-piracy
technologies
> to thwart unauthorized downloading over the Internet.
>
> ``The laws that have passed in recent years have imbalanced the historical
> balance between owners of copyrighted works and users of copyrighted
> works,'' Boucher said in an interview Tuesday. ``The balance has been
tilted
> dramatically in favor of owners at the expense of users.''
>
> The film and music industries cast the debate in terms of piracy, arguing
> that copy protections are needed to ensure people don't download movies
and
> music without compensation to the copyright holders.
>
> The tech industry counters that free-flowing downloads of movies, music
and
> other digital works could drive demand for broadband Internet connections,
> which it hopes would in turn spur innovation and increase sales of new
> technologies.
>
> ``If this bill were to pass, it would render ineffective, worthless and
> useless any protection measure we would have in place to protect a $100
> million movie,'' Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association
> of America, said of the Lofgren bill. ``You could download a million
movies
> a day, and no penalty for it.''
>
> Caught in the middle of the debate are consumers, whose ``fair use''
rights
> are in limbo. The courts have long upheld consumers' rights to make
personal
> copies of songs, TV shows and other copyrighted works. But the move to
> digital raises the question of where to draw the line, when near-perfect
> copies can be easily shared over the Internet with large numbers of other
> users.
>
> ``Lofgren's bill aims to restore what Congress thought it was doing --
> preserving fair use for people who have lawful rights to use stuff,'' said
> Paula Samuelson, a law professor at University of California-Berkeley's
> Boalt Hall School of Law. ``The Lofgren bill offers meaningful protections
> for a number of ordinary activities by consumers that should be lawful
under
> copyright law but about which the law is presently ambiguous.''
>
> ____________________________
> New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
> Fair Use -
> because it's either fair use or useless....
>
--
__________________________
Brooklyn Linux Solutions
__________________________
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS http://www.nyfairuse.org
http://www.mrbrklyn.com - Consulting
http://www.nylxs.com/radio - Free Software Radio Show and Archives
http://www.brooklynonline.com - For the love of Brooklyn
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.nyfairuse.org - The foundation of Democracy
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive or stories and
articles from around the net
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/mp3/dr.mp3 - Imagine my surprise when I saw you...
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/downtown.html - See the New Downtown Brooklyn....
1-718-382-5752
____________________________
New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
____________________________
New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
|
|
