Grrr....
Sept. 9, 2001
I've been meaning to write this post for the last few days, that is, since I read about the latest copyright legislation coming out of Washington. I haven't actually been able to, since I've been too frustrated to come up with anything intelligent to say about. The negative aspects of this bill should be obvious to all. Nonetheless the Honorable Mr. Hollings seems to be blind to them, and if such an upstanding member of Congress can miss these important concerns, perhaps they are not so obvious, and must be pointed out. It has this requirement: that every digital device sold in the US must include a Commerce Dept. approved security system, to ensure that the device is not used for copyright infringement. And this security system will be chosen by the media corporations (most likely the very ones lobbying for the bill). The DMCA makes it a crime for anyone to sell a product or publish information that allows people to circumvent a copy-protection scheme. This new law will force all digital devices sold to include such copy-control schemes.
Now, I have several objections to this. The first is only to point out the laziness of the media industry. This industry already has a government granted monopoly on their product (through copyright). Thanks to the DMCA, they only have to put a little bit of thought into coming up with an "encryption" scheme, and it is a crime for anyone to point out weaknesses in that scheme. Now, with this bill, they are hoping to even avoid that responsibility. Rather, they would like to make the computer makers to bear the cost of producing these copy-control schemes. It shouldn't be the responsibility of digital device manufacturers or the government to provide everyone with locks for their doors. It is enough that they make theft against the law. In the same way, the media companies should not get copyright control.
My second point is a more principled one. Under this new bill, it would be a crime to have an unapproved computer even hooked to the Internet, regardless of the kind of activity that computer is involved with! This is an incredible restriction of my right to use my property how I wish. Running an unapproved machine as a mail server does not hurt anyone else, it doesn't hurt me, and it doesn't create a public nuisance. Why shouldn't I be able to do just that? Because I might use that machine to copy some Disney flick?! Well, gee, you know, I might use my pencil and paper to draw a picture of Mickey Mouse, and his image is copyrighted. Better make sure people can only use government-approved pencils that restrict the drawing of Mickeys.
Finally, we have seen from the results of the DMCA that the media corporations are not interested in creating content-control schemes that preserve the fair-use rights of the consumer. Thus, it is unlikely that whatever scheme they create for the Commerce Department will preserve those rights. Thus, it will become impossible for anyone to create derivative works, parodies, space-shift, or use protected media for educational or research purposes, rights we have traditionally enjoyed. These rights are the "trade-off" that the public gets in exchange for granting these corporations monopolies on their products. It is time the copyright-holders remember that these copyrights are granted to them by the people, and can be taken away just as easily if they are being abused.