[free-sklyarov] Re: Elcomsoft hearing, April 1

[tom poe]

On Monday 01 April 2002 19:44, Seth David Schoen wrote:
> Alex Katalov writes:
> > Hi Tom,
> >
> > Unfortunately, my English is not so good to describe all what was
> > there, but I hope that Seth will help me!
> >
> > I can say only that total discussion was not too long, and the time
> > was limited - it seems that judge had learn most from the previously
> > filed motions (you can see them at
> > http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/) and today he wants only to
> > get an additional comments and clear some small details.
> >
> > tp> Hi, Alex:  Has there been any discussion that you're aware of that
> > focuses on tp> what happens with this DMCA law, in terms of governmental
> > agencies needing to tp> use your products to "backup" technical ebooks? 
> > For universities that need tp> your products to "backup" research ebooks?
> >  For libraries that need your tp> products to "backup" their library
> > inventories?  The assumption is, that tp> Adobe intends to move down the
> > road, and have everything on its eBooks, thus tp> making much money and
> > profits, right?
> >
> > tp> I suppose the same sort of question goes to the CBDTPA, and what
> > impact it tp> has on governmental use of "cp" "cat" and other utilities.
> >
> > tp> Thanks,
> > tp> Tom
>
> I was at the hearing this morning and found the presentation of the
> first amendment and fair use arguments especially forceful; maybe I'm
> predisposed to believe them, however.
>
> There was some interesting discussion about the fact that not all
> circumvention is for the purpose of copyright infringement.  The
> government argued that Congress knew this and still decided to
> prohibit all circumvention because this would help reduce the amount
> of infringement.
>
> Mr. Burton suggested that Congress did not intend to do that, and
> quoted part of the legislative history, also pointing out that the
> DMCA (if interpreted to ban _all_ circumvention) would be unique in
> Federal criminal law by completely omitting any kind of "criminal
> intent" requirement for contributory liability.  (He claimed that all
> other Federal criminal statutes which hold one party responsible for
> another party's actions include some requirement along the lines of
> proving that the accused party _intended to facilitate_ a crime.)
>
> The government's silliest moments were claiming that practically all
> uses of e-books are not fair uses, because they involve copying or
> modifying a copyrighted work (which are exclusive rights of a
> copyright holder).  They were led to such extremes as claiming that
> moving a book from one computer to another _is an infringement of
> copyright_.  (Also, they said that the DMCA didn't apply to public
> domain works, but avoided the question of whether it's a problem if
> the DMCA bans tools you need in order to _access_ a public domain
> work.)
>
> There was a little discussion of the idea that some people need to
> circumvent technological restrictions in order to make non-infringing
> uses.  Blind readers were mentioned, for example.
>
> Judge Whyte took both sides seriously and asked intelligent questions.

Hi:  Well, see, that's bothersome.  The Public Domain works are seemingly 
left out of the equation.  I know, the CTEA has pretty much eliminated that 
little problem for the foreseeable next 100000000 years.  And the ASCAP and 
BMI have this nifty little game of "arrangements" [they hold some 40 versions 
of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", not to mention all of the Classical music"], 
but there is this thing called CopyLeft, GPL, and we're working on creating a 
model that can "seed" a new beginning for musical works in coming years, with 
such projects as Studio For Recording, Inc., and there needs to be a way for 
the general public to engage.  Surely there will be accommodation for 
government, corporate, and academic access to information "copying", which 
this law apparently doesn't consider.  
Thanks,
Tom
http://www.studioforrecording.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/studioforrecording/