2 Apr
2002
2 Apr
'02
1:19 a.m.
On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, Wayne M. Smith wrote:
Cool. I missed hearing about that.
The Digital
Millenium Copyright Act was no less ridiculous, and is now
Federal law. In the many times that law has been invoked, not one case
has involved the mass distribution pirates its proponents claimed to
target.
Wrong. 4500+ copies is "mass distribution."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/29/video-bootleg.htm In any event, the DMCA was intended to address not
only those who distribute copies, but those who provide "circumvention devices"
that enable others to engage in mass distribution. Doesn't it make as much sense to
go after those involved in "mass distribution"
of the circumvention device, such as DeCSS?
DeCSS was a huge red herring. It was originally developed to _watch_
DVD movies, not _copy_ them. The DMCA proponents raised bloody hell
about people downloading full-length DVDs to their computers and wathing
them free. Get a grip. At the time - 1998 - the price of disk storage
was more than a legal DVD, and unless you had a seriously wicked box,
the quality sucked. Besides, even at cable-modem speeds, it takes a
minute or three to download 5-1/2 _gigabytes_ of movie.
I'm not a proponent of piracy. I do think that mass distribution
should be a criminal offense. But we already have laws for that. DMCA,
UCITA, and this new abortion all go way too far.
Doc