THIS post does not deal with software, for a change. LiberalViewer spoke to YouTube/Google earlier this month about DMCA abuse and fair use (see video above and bear in mind that it's only part 1). These are important issues which increasingly impede or facilitate our freedom of speech on the Web.
Reviewer Caught Posting Marketing Material As A Review... Uses DMCA To Takedown Site Of Guy Who Exposed Him
Duncan writes in to alert us to what must the mother of all stories of a guy caught doing something questionable online, who then goes to amazingly great lengths -- including publishing private info, blocking users, changing content surreptitiously and (finally) using a bogus DMCA takedown to takedown the entire site of the guy who caught him. It's quite a story, so let's start from the beginning.
AFTER YEARS of taking a very conservative approach to the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the US Library of Congress has issued a wave of rulings that all but turn the law on its head.
Every three years, the Library of Congress reviews its policy on the DMCA and releases its opinions about how it should be interpreted.
This time the Library allowed widespread circumvention of the CSS encryption on DVDs, under some conditions. And in an opinion that sails up the nose of Steve Jobs it has ruled that jailbreaking Iphones qualifies as "Fair Use". It also will let punters crack their legally purchased e-books in order to have them read aloud by computers.
EFF Wins New Legal Protections for Video Artists, Cell Phone Jailbreakers, and Unlockers
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won three critical exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions today, carving out new legal protections for consumers who modify their cell phones and artists who remix videos — people who, until now, could have been sued for their non-infringing or fair use activities.
The Library of Congress added a number of ambitious new exceptions to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's prohibition of breaking copyright technologies today, most notably concerning iPhone jailbreaking and unlocking.
Comments
twitter
2010-07-27 18:04:39
Part of the censorship problem is a reliance on other people's servers, aka the cloud. In the US this is a result of poor network quality and pressure on ISPs to block services. Google blocks movies and books when forced by publishers. Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo once censored the Truthout newslist and most refused to back down. Only network and software freedom can prevent this kind of abuse.
The goal is more than the "protection" of "content" it is the exclusion of competition and a continuation of a control structure created by the mechanical presses and broadcast of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Software and network freedom threaten this control.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-07-27 18:27:38
Net neutrality and DMCA abuse both go under "network"?
twitter
2010-07-28 05:11:59
The flip side is that only the most oppressive and restrictive of software and networks can undo the tremendous free speech that electronic publishing and the internet naturally provide. Windows, OSX and many flavors of Android are repressive enough to kill free speech, as is a network built to enforce DMCA and ACTA. US companies have built a centralized network in China that goes a long way towards eliminating free speech. They would like to convert the internet we know into such a network. This is a difficult and insane task but publishers are arrogant enough to try.