[free-sklyarov] FT article

[David Haworth]

On Thu, Sep 06, 2001 at 04:39:43PM +0900, chandler wrote:
> It seems to me there's something
> profoundly incoherent (mathematically) in the concept of
> "circumvention".

It's not just the concept of circumvention that's incoherent.
The whole DMCA is pretty incoherent. Example:
it's illegal to circumvent a technological measure that
effectively protects a copyrighted work. (Or something like that -
my point is that the word "effectively" is used). Now you or
I might think that for something to be "effective" it must
actually work - so if a protection device can be circumvented
(especially as easily in this case), it can hardly be described
as "effective". But the act goes on to define an effective
protection measure as just about any attempt to conceal the
content. Hell, by that standard just about any proprietary
unpublished file format could be described as a "protection
mechanism"

What's really incoherent, though, are the industry mouthpieces
who continue to promote this crap, and the politicians who
accept their nonsense as fact.

Dave

-- 
David Haworth
Baiersdorf, Germany
david.haworth at altavista.net