[free-sklyarov] Congress says: Keep Dmitry in jail! Washington loves DMCA...

[Mark K. Bilbo]

That DOES it. I am SO sick and tired of being made into a "criminal." I'd
like to see these marketing frat boy types run the digital infrastructure
WITHOUT us.

We need to organize. Seriously. Before they turn IT into a sweat shop, slave
industry or some damn thing. I would just love to see us organized to the
point we could have a "Internet down day." Turn the thing OFF and then tell
the marketing droids and excutwits "hey, you want it, you make the funny
boxes go."

Mark (steaming)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan at well.com>
To: <free-sklyarov at zork.net>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 7:31 AM
Subject: [free-sklyarov] Congress says: Keep Dmitry in jail! Washington
loves DMCA...


>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com> -----
>
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> To: politech at politechbot.com
> Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:24:10 -0400
> X-URL: Politech is at http://www.politechbot.com/
>
>
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45522,00.html
>
>    Congress No Haven for Hackers
>    By Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
>
>    2:00 a.m. July 25, 2001 PDT
>
>    WASHINGTON -- Even as the world's geeks march against the Digital
>    Millennium Copyright Act, key legislators and lobbyists are dismissing
>    concerns about the controversial law as hyperbole.
>
>    The law that led to the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov
>    last week and an immediate outcry among programmers continues to enjoy
>    remarkably broad support on Capitol Hill. No bill has yet been
>    introduced in Congress to amend the DMCA for one simple reason:
>    Official Washington loves the law precisely as much as hackers and
>    programmers despise it.
>
>    "The law is performing the way we hoped," said Rep. Howard Coble
>    (R-North Carolina), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on
>    intellectual property.
>
>    The FBI arrested Sklyarov last week in Las Vegas for allegedly
>    "trafficking" in software that circumvents the copy protection
>    techniques that Adobe uses in its e-book format. Under the DMCA,
>    selling such software is a federal felony punishable by up to five
>    years in prison and a fine of $500,000.
>
>    "As far as I know there have been very few complaints from
>    intellectual property holders," Coble, the chief sponsor of the DMCA,
>    said in an interview Tuesday. "I am also encouraged by the Department
>    of Justice's actions in this matter to enforce the law."
>
>    When Congress approved the DMCA in October 1998 after about a year's
>    worth of little-noticed debate and negotiations, it was hardly a
>    controversial bill. The Senate agreed to it unanimously, and a
>    unanimous House approved it by voice vote, then bypassed a procedural
>    step that would have delayed the DMCA's enactment.
>
>    Since the House procedure says attempts to rewrite copyright law must
>    start in Coble's subcommittee, the odds of a DMCA rewrite in Congress'
>    lower chamber seem remote.
>
>    Coble's counterpart in the Senate, California Democrat Dianne
>    Feinstein, feels the same way.
>
>    "We need to protect copyrights and this law was designed to do that,"
>    said Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Feinstein, who chairs the Senate
>    Judiciary subcommittee on technology. "She's not looking to change
>    it."
>
>    [...]
>
>    But in the world of Washington politics, geektivists are woefully
>    outnumbered by the natives who populate and influence confirmation
>    hearings: Corporate, nonprofit and trade association lobbyists.
>
>    "We believe that a careful effort was made by Congress to balance the
>    rights of intellectual property owners and the rights of intellectual
>    property consumers," says Allan Adler, vice president at the
>    Association of American Publishers, which applauded Sklyarov's arrest
>    last week.
>
>    [...]
>
>    The Free-Dmitry movement argues that programmers should not be
>    prosecuted for creating software that can circumvent copyright
>    protection -- since such tools have many legitimate uses, such as
>    reading an e-book on another computer, as well.
>
>    But DMCA aficionados say there are precedents for broad prohibitions
>    on selling devices that can have both legitimate and illegitimate
>    uses.
>
>    Current federal law makes it a felony to own, distribute or advertise
>    for sale bugging or wiretapping devices that are "primary useful for
>    the purpose of surreptitious interception of wire, oral or electronic
>    communications." That applies even to parents who might want to
>    monitor what their young children are doing, or to other commonplace
>    uses.
>
>    You're also not allowed to possess hardware or software such as cell
>    phone cloning devices that let you "obtain telecommunications service
>    without authorization" -- even if your motives are pure.
>
>    [...]
>
>
>
>
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