[CAnet - news] Death by DCMA

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[Excellent article in IEEE Spectrum on how DCMA is threatening innovation in
the content distribution industry.  I am deeply concerned by various groups
that are promoting DRM (Digital Rights Management) and IdM (Identity
Management) for a way controlling access and distribution of content whether
for academic or consumer purposes. From Dave Farber's IPer list -- BSA]


http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun06/3673

Death by DMCA

By:  Fred von Lohmann and Wendy Seltzer
IEEE Spectrum
June 2006

A flood of legislation released by the passage of the  Digital Millennium
Copyright Act threatens to drown whole  classes of consumer electronics

In 1998, U.S.  entertainment companies persuaded  Congress to make dramatic
changes in its copyright code  by passing the Digital Millennium Copyright
Act. The  DMCA gave  copyright holders new rights to control the way people
use copyrighted material and new protection for  technologies designed to
restrict access or copying. The  movie and record companies argued they
needed these new restrictions to fight increased piracy threats in the
digital era.

In the eight years since the DMCA's passage, however,  piracy has not
decreased, and hurdles to lawful uses of  media have risen. The Motion
Picture Association (MPA),  the international arm of the Motion Picture
Association  of America (MPAA), estimated worldwide losses because of
piracy to be US $2.2 billion in 1997 and $3.5 billion  annually in 2002,
2003, and 2004.

Meanwhile, entire consumer electronics categories have  been wiped from
retail shelves. If three or four years  ago you didn't buy a digital video
recorder that  automatically skips commercials, you're out of luck;  that
feature is not in such products today. Television executives brought
litigation that bankrupted the  company offering DVRs with these
user-friendly features,  because skipping commercials potentially undermines
their ability to sell commercial time.

You're likewise out of luck if you're looking to buy  software that lets you
copy a DVD onto your laptop's  hard drive; it's no longer for sale, at least
not in the  United States. Even if you want to put the movie you  bought
onto a pocket-size video and game console, such as Sony's PlayStation
Portable, which allows users to  watch video stored on flash memory or a
miniature hard  drive, you can't legally do so, because you'd have to
"rip," or decode, it to make the transfer-and the studios claim that this
action violates the DMCA. When  you rip a CD, be it to an audiotape or an
MP3 file,  you're not breaking any laws. But to rip a DVD you need  to
somehow get around the encryption technology built  into a standard disc,
and since such circumvention is  forbidden by the DMCA, if you rip a DVD,
you are breaking a law. Under the DMCA, legality doesn't depend  on how the
copy will be used but rather on the means by  which the digital content is
copied.

Now, in an even more vexing situation, U.S.  entertainment companies are
successfully spreading the  copyright code changes established by the DMCA
around  the world. Laws similar to the DMCA now exist in Japan,  Australia,
and much of Europe. At least nine additional countries, including Chile,
Guatemala, and Singapore  have also been pressured to enact DMCA-like laws
as part  of a devil's bargain with U.S. trade negotiators, who  say the
copyright change is necessary to secure free  trade pacts with the United
States that would govern all sorts of commerce. And in Europe, the body
charged with  defining the European digital television standards is  mixing
in content-protection obligations, responding yet  again to pressure from
major U.S. movie studios.

Emboldened by their successes, U.S. entertainment  companies are pushing for
another wave of even more  restrictive legislation. "Broadcast flag"
legislation  could require that all consumer electronics devices  recognize
protected television broadcasts and potentially refuse to copy them; a
so-called "radio  flag" bill would prevent or restrict the manufacture of
hard disk recorders for digital radio; and an "analog  hole" closure would
restrict the connections new digital  devices can make with analog devices.

As the entertainment industry expands copyright law,  the rising tide
threatens to completely wash away many  types of innovative gadgets.

...






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