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DRM Comments for Senate Judiciary Committee
posted by filter_editor on Friday August 30, @09:31AM
from the speak-now dept.
Copyright miladus writes " The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has a page explaining their current work on intellectual property and copyright law, especially Digital Rights Management.  They are also asking for comments.  In their own words, they are "eager to make this page a space for constructive contributions to the ongoing debate about copyright issues and technology policy, and we seek your cooperation in helping us move this debate in positive directions."

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    DRM Comments for Senate Judiciary Committee | Login/Create an Account | Top | 2 comments | Search Discussion
    Threshold:
    The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
    My comment (Score:1)
    by Murphy's Law on Friday August 30, @11:08AM (#262)
    User #174 Info | http://grep.law.harvard.edu/
    As an individual who utilizes his current rights to record television programming off the air for my own private use, I'm very concerned about recent trends in the legal establishment of technical systems to protect DRM systems with legal penalties. If it were up to copyright holders, all Fair Uses of copyrighted materials would be eliminated. We have seen several example of copyright holders and even republishers of public domain works utilizing DRM systems to restrict uses which clearly include Fair Uses of content. To legally enshrine content owners arbitrary choices of how the public uses copyrighted works with criminal and civil penalties is doing a great disservice to the public.

    Congress has mandated that television switch to digital formats by 2006. However, the content producers are insisting on DRMs such as the Broadcast Flag be implemented before they will release their content for use on digital systems.

    Consumers in this country will be up in arms when they discover that the switch from analog to digital systems means that they lose the ability to continue to record their favorite shows for later viewing. We can see how the restrictions put on Digital Audio Tape killed that media in the eyes of consumers. Digital television is currently being killed by the uncertainty of whether people will be even allowed to continue their current, legal practices.

    Fair Use analysis is difficult even for courts under the best of circumstances. Software and hardware can not be expected to provide the delicate balancing that courts routinely perform. The current method of allowing copyright holders to enjoin new technology so that the courts can consider if it contributes to copyright enfringement or has substancial non-infringing uses is the best way to protect the balance of rights and interests between copyright holders and the public.

    The market should be determining what features consumer electronics products carry, not Congress.I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, however the sig limit is too small to contain i
    My futile comment was... (Score:0)
    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @08:33PM (#269)
    Copyright law does not need to be updated in any way, except perhaps to reverse some of the mistakes made in the last few years, such as the disasterous Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provision.

    There is no technological way to defy the original intent of copyright without also violating the original "old fashioned" copyright laws. There never will be any such technological threat.

    But it is possible to defy that intent by passing new laws, or by legitimizing Digital Restrictions Management systems. Government should not be creating new crimes by outlawing things that have been legal up to now.

    Government should not be helping copyright holders to prevent their works from falling into the Public Domain by legitimizing the use of technological measures to keep works from being accessible in the future. This defeats the intent of copyright.

    Government should not be helping copyright holders to prevent their works from falling into the Public Domain by continuously increasing the duration of copyright for indefinate periods. This defeats the intent of copyright.

    Government should not change the implementation of copyright law in any way that is incompatable with its intent as described in the Constitution, unless a Constitutional Ammendment is passed to that effect.

    Repeal the anticircumvention provision of DMCA, and do not enact any additional laws that mandate or legitimize Digital Restrictions. If the Senate feels it must take a stand on Digital Restrictions Management, then outlaw it, as it almost always violates the intent of copyright, in favor of the copyright holder. Remember that copyright has always been a quid-pro-quo arrangement where the holder gets special rights for a limited time, in exchange for something. Don't lose sight of what the public is supposed to get out the deal.

    Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. - Isaac Asimov

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