[free-sklyarov] Re: Why is printing illegal?

[Morgan]

mickeym wrote:
>This is yet another problem with the DMCA. It appears to allow
>"provisions established by companies" in addition to the rights
>granted by copyright law. As someone said earlier, the DMCA is
> a "plug-in" to the law.

Wow!  I hadn't really realized this before, but it strikes me as
awfully bizarre.  I wasn't convinced Elcomsoft's tool was really
all that legal and wonderful (in the US);  my reason for
protesting was that I think it's never worth taking a person's
freedom for a property crime with very abstract "victims." (we
have civil court for that)

License agreements can have all sorts of special requirements
because they essentially fall under contract instead of
copyright law (obviously IANAL).  Does anyone know if pre-DMCA,
could criminal charges apply (fraud?) if a license violation
that wasn't a copyright violation occurred?

I've heard of threats to reviewers of beta software (who agreed
not to talk about it) (Anarchy Online), but I haven't heard of
threats that cited DMCA as their biggest stick for enforcing
super-copyright provisions.

If corporations can **write their own laws** because their
provisions steamroller over provisions Congress gave us, but
circumventing their provisions is a criminal act, that strikes
me as awfully un-Constitutional.

If I transmit a TV show upside-down and require viewers to watch
it standing on their heads, is someone who tells people to turn
their TVs over a criminal?


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