LWN: Comments on "EFF Lawsuit Takes on DMCA Section 1201: Research and Technology Restrictions Violate the First Amendment"

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

nybble41 — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 21:14:01 +0000

> Where does your authoritation come from that let's you decide and declare "that's not a LWN comment"?

That's not what mcatanzaro said. It was a good comment, so it deserves to be published somewhere where non-LWN readers will see it. That in no way implies that it wasn't a perfectly acceptable comment for an LWN article.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

jschrod — Tue, 02 Aug 2016 21:08:13 +0000

Since evaluating the results of DMCA legislation are a regular topic on LWN.net, this kind of comment has been regularly on spot.

Where does your authoritation come from that let's you decide and declare "that's not a LWN comment"?

Since there is no obvious way to decide where you come from and why you think you're right, let's invent some. I'm subscriber #1646 and you're subscriber #93033. Since most tribes pay attention to their elders (and I'm a literal Unix grey-beard), I'll tell you: the GP's comment is a proper LWN.net comment. I evaluate this because I'm longer here as a subscriber than you.

See, gotcha.
Joachim

PS: In case anybody else reads this and think I mean that invented argument earnest: Switch on your sarcasm detection filter.

Donations and payments

marcH — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 17:27:59 +0000

>he (high) costs and profits of the backwards and insecure-by-design credit/debit card system are supported by the buyer side[*]

Of course I meant: "... by the SELLER side", sorry for the noise.

Donations and payments

jrw — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 16:16:15 +0000

OK. Now I'm sorry I started this comment thread. ;-)

I do agree that there are many, many things that could be improved about US and bank payments systems including their security and fee structures. However, perhaps more pragmatically, if you want to support EFF or other FLOSS-related organizations, a recurring credit card payment is one option accepted by many of those organizations. Of course there are also one-time payment options, as well as other ways of supporting them.

Donations and payments

marcH — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 15:48:17 +0000

It depends on the bank. I lived and have bank accounts in three different countries on two continents and transfers are always free as long they're in the same currency and not "same day".

The (high) costs and profits of the backwards and insecure-by-design credit/debit card system are supported by the buyer side[*]. That's why some small businesses don't accept cards or require a minimal amount. In other words, when donating with a card several percents of the donation go to Visa or Mastercard and some of their friends instead.

This problem has been solved in more... developed countries like India: https://lwn.net/Articles/638224/

On the same topic of secure payments: US cards are finally getting chips. 2/3 decades after they were massively and successfully deployed across Europe and elsewhere. NIH...

[*] of course except for credit interest; not directly tied to payments.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

NAR — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 11:55:36 +0000

Transferring money, especially international usually costs some money (there's 0.3% tax here, plus other fees). Paying with credit card is usually free, indeed, many banks offer some kind of refund (e.g. 1% from all purchases made by credit card is refunded). So in the end the difference between the two payment methods might be 1-1.5%.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

marcH — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 09:19:23 +0000

The easy and secure way to send money to EFF and many/most FLOSS foundations is with a automatic recurring transfer to a donation account of theirs.

The VISA/Mastercard/etc. payment system is ridiculously backwards and broken by design. When we go and pay cash in a shop, we don't offer our open wallet to the cashier and let him or her pick up whatever he wants from it.

EFF Lawsuit Takes on DMCA Section 1201: Research and Technology Restrictions Violate the First Amendment

RogerOdle — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 01:54:26 +0000

At the very least, the public is entitled to one thing. They are entitled to protection from obsolescence. I had a purchased MathCad before the company got purchased. After which the web pages for the security updates disappeared forever. I consider it fair use for anyone to archive and make available on the internet, security patches for software that has been abandoned. I also consider it fair use to reverse engineer software that has been abandoned, particularly if that software is the type that user produce their own material with (like word processors, image editors, ...). It is one thing if a new version of the software provides backward compatibility. In the case of MathCAD, the terms of the license changed to one with a time limit when previously the software would run forever. Needless to say, I stopped upgrading MathCAD. I know that more people are becoming unhappy with loosing the ability to enjoy their memories on the things they created on the computers in the past Some of the companies that wrote software has gone out of business, others were bought out by companies that only wanted the customer lists. Sooner or later, the public is going to demand justification of the DMCA provisions. It was imposed on us for the benifit big media corporations who discovered they were large enough to purchase congressmen. Fair use means that what we create with our own hands is ours. Holding our own creations hostage to the interest of big business is wrong.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

jrw — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 13:35:51 +0000

The easy way to send money to EFF and many/most FLOSS foundations is with a automatic recurring monthy charge to your credit card that they will set up for you.

Thanks, drag

CChittleborough — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 06:27:20 +0000

Thanks for the insightful comment, drag. And Dr Catanzaro is right: that is well worth posting somewhere it will get more attention.

Why not just prove intent?

josh — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 18:44:37 +0000

Sure, there are a thousand more things to fix with copyright law (again, mostly through repeals). But in the specific case of 1201, it serves no legitimate purpose that the rest of copyright law doesn't already cover.

Why not just prove intent?

mathstuf — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 11:42:56 +0000

But that comes with the tacit admission that reverse engineering and such are still copyright infringement. And fair use is a positive defense, so you're still left in a courtroom, leaving the potential to chill speech quite easily available.

Why not just prove intent?

josh — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 05:17:26 +0000

There's a much easier approach with the same effect: repeal the whole thing, because copyright infringement is already illegal.

Why not just prove intent?

dskoll — Sat, 23 Jul 2016 13:36:10 +0000

The practical reason they didn't include the requirement for malicious intent was that the added expense of prosecuting a violator would have eaten too far into the corporations' profits.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

drag — Sat, 23 Jul 2016 07:32:07 +0000

open source cars are interesting, but emissions requirements are a major bug-a-boo unless you go full electric.

Because of this, and other requirements, somebody besides the existing big automobile manufacturers producing any sort of large scale numbers of automobiles and selling to the public is not going to be allowed by the government. The cost of adhering to regulations is extremely burdensome. Telsa motors is kinda of the exception that proves the rule.. they managed to fill a nitch left by regulation since major manufacturers essentially pay Tesla for something amounting to 'pollution credits'. So the regulation currently subsidizes that business.

Since it is legal to build and register your own vehicle in the USA a open 'kit car' design is probably the most practical approach for a 'open car'.

The most open and simple car you can build is the T-Bucket style automobile with fiberglass tub. Speedwaymotors.com, for example, provide well engineered and safe chassis and body kits for t-buckets that can be had at very inexpensive price. Essentially 'cars in the box' you have to supply your own motor and work to finish the carriage interior. Not the most practical car, but they can be built for less $7-8K if you are clever at source parts and know what you are doing.

On the other end of the spectrum is something like the 'Ariel Atom', which is sold in USA as a 'kit car'. I don't know the details, but the car is shipped almost completely built to the purchaser were they attach enough items to qualify as a 'kit'

A middle-ground version would be the 'Locost' automobile which is designed to be built using sourced parts and resembles the Lotus 5 sports car.

Practical-minded kit cars are pretty non-existent though.

A practical approach to a daily driver is probably to forgo gasoline entirely and go full electric. In practice it can be quite simple electrical motors have much much simpler requirements then ICE motors do. For example there is no need for a clutch in most electric car designs. You can couple the engine directly to a manual transmissions. You can also use a powerful motor directly hooked to a drive shaft and forgo the transmission entirely. The motor control systems then can be the 'open' component. They can be relatively simple and built using discrete electrical components and simple embedded computer. Lots of motor control designs are open already. This way you can have a enclosed chassis, just pick a relative lightweight manual transmission automobile destined for the junk yard to convert.

The expense, unfortunately, is in the batteries. As the technology improves, though, conversions become more and more practical. Open designs in battery management systems is important, as well. It wouldn't be too difficult to have a standard motor and battery design people can use and sell adapter plates for popular conversions. So you can make it as a 'plug in play' affair as possible.

I don't know... Having a open car would be fantastic, but there are a lot of difficulties involved.

Why not just prove intent?

bucky — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 19:08:15 +0000

It seems to me that what you would really need to add to the law is that the plaintiff has to prove malicious intent.

In this case, "malicious" would mean the intent to re-market copyrighted material.

I expect that this idea is too simplistic. There must be some practical reason they didn't just do it this way from the beginning.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

eduard.munteanu — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 18:52:53 +0000

Since you mentioned the automotive industry, I'd actually be interested in buying more "open" cars (and various other appliances, generally). I think that, ultimately, this marketing gimmick is hurting profits as well. People tend to recognize vendors as being unreliable with respect to offering good value, so they're inclined to look towards 3rd parties. Vendors have long lost their credibility by putting "TM" on everything, confusing people and making misleading claims. I personally think there's good money to be made by adopting a no-bullshit strategy.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

Aliasundercover — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:49:22 +0000

Yes, well put, reminds me it has been a while since I sent money the EFF's way, should get on it ... then ...

Discipline myself to not talk about it as the best response I ever see is bemusement at my eccentricity.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

mcatanzaro — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:25:01 +0000

Publish this somewhere that's not a LWN comment.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

drag — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 13:23:54 +0000

That is probably right.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

Seegras — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 08:28:15 +0000

It is, at its core, mercantilist.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

drag — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 06:25:16 +0000

> so it looks like the security-by-obscurity fallacy is playing out yet again.

It's not quite that.

DMCA rules allows publishers to control markets. Prior to the internet there developed a massive publishing industry for music, movies, and books.

Publishing a music album, for example, required massive capital expense. You needed state of the art studios, technicians for managing that studio, back up musicians for recording the songs, relationships with shipping companies, radio stations, and store fronts. This is something a individual artist could never afford and thus they were dependent on the music studio system to reach a wide audience. Now with the internet the artist no longer need the publishers, so these corporations while still powerful they see the writing on the wall. Also they look back and see the massive profits they had from the popularization of music CDs... since they were able to force artists into surrendering the bulk of their copyrights restrictions to them in exchange for access to their publishing networks re-releasing digital forms of older albums was almost a license to print money.

For example Blueray. Movie studios release videos on blueray. The DMCA says you can't have the ability to circumvent Blueray encryption.

This means that by adopting the Blueray DRM the Movie studios can control who is allowed to make compatible devices to play back their videos. In order to play back the video the hardware or software needs a key and that key can only be provided by the consortium formed by the media companies and hardware companies that develop and control the DRM.

Through this they can control what software is able to be used with it. What OSes can play them. Also with the network featured built into blueray they can pull the plug on manufacturers that displease them, making them unable to decrypt newer versions of the standard. They can demand royalties and controls far beyond what mere copyright can allow. The hardware manufacturers that control the Blueray standard themselves can control who is allowed to make compatible devices, who is allowed to write the software, make the chipsets, and so on and so forth.

This is a massive amount of control of the markets. They can decide who is allowed to compete with them legally. Compared that internet piracy is barely a after thought.

> "major automobile manufacturers and the Business Software Alliance... vigorously opposed" his request for an exemption

That is because they want to use DMCA to control markets as well.

Automobile manufacturers and other types of industrial manufacturers make a huge amount of money from secondary support markets for their cars, tractors, and other equipment. Automobile dealerships often make much more money from repairing the cars they sell then from actually selling them. They make huge amount of money selling parts and providing diagnostic services.

The problem is that anybody can make a automobile part. Provided there isn't some inane patent in the way anybody in the world can make and legally sell a cam shaft position sensor, or some computer software and device to help hack into and troubleshoot devices on a canbus. People can unlock features in cars, reverse engineer and sell their own flash programmers, provide pin compatible computer modules, and so on and so forth.

If these manufacturers rap some sort of 'copyright protection' scheme around the networks and software being used in modern industrial equipment and automobiles then they can regulate who is allowed to make equipment that is compatible with these things. Not only that, but through licensing schemes, they can control who is allowed to work on their machines.

For example if you a independent mechanic and don't want to pay the astronomical prices and only use official parts to fix equipment then you won't get access to the software and hardware necessary to troubleshoot and diagnose issues in your customer's equipment. You won't get access to parts, you can't substitute inexpensive parts, and so on and so forth.

It's not just 'security through obscurity' it's a attempt to shake down the entire USA by leveraging intellectual property law and DMCA... as well as anybody in any country that has signed IP treaties with the USA government. It is insidious. It is the USA government working hand-in-hand with corporations to ensure that the American people (and etc) are stripped from their ability to use competition in markets to their advantage.

DMCA Section 1201 vs the First Amendment

CChittleborough — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 05:00:04 +0000

(Disclaimer: I am writing about US law but am neither a lawyer nor an American.)

As I read the EFF's pleading, they are alleging that (1) section 1201 limits people's First Amendment rights despite providing a way to give people exemptions , and that (2) the authority responsible for giving people exemptions, the Library of Congress, is not giving anybody exemptions, which violates both "the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act 5 U.S.C. §702". So the suit is aimed at both §1201 of the law and the operation of the exemption mechanism provided by §1201. This makes a lot more sense than the coverage of this lawsuit I've seen on other websites.

I note that Prof Green (see HybridAU's post above) says that "major automobile manufacturers and the Business Software Alliance... vigorously opposed" his request for an exemption, so it looks like the security-by-obscurity fallacy is playing out yet again.

EFF Lawsuit Takes on DMCA Section 1201: Research and Technology Restrictions Violate the First Amendment

HybridAU — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 01:56:08 +0000

Professor Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins University has a good post on this too.

http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2016/07/statement...