HELP STOP THE MPAA/RIAA!

[enjoi]

http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=115

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been wreaking havoc on consumers' fair use rights for the past seven years. Now Congress is considering the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA, HR 1201), a bill that would reform part of the DMCA and formally protect the "Betamax defense" relied on by so many innovators.

HR 1201 would give citizens the right to circumvent copy-protection measures as long as what they're doing is otherwise legal. For example, it would make sure that when you buy a CD, whether it is copy-protected or not, you can record it onto your computer and move the songs to an MP3 player. It would also protect a computer science professor who needs to bypass copy-protection to evaluate encryption technology. In addition, the bill would codify the Betamax defense, which has been under attack by the entertainment industries in the "INDUCE Act" and the MGM v. Grokster case. This kind of sanity would be a welcome change to our copyright law.

Last year we sent 30,000+ letters of support for the DMCRA, and the bill got a hearing on Capitol Hill. It's time to double that number - take action at the link below, then urge your friends and family to support HR 1201, too!

This is the bill that prevents you from legally:

Backing up your purchased DVDs
Ripping a DVD to your iPod
Allows the RIAA to suggest insane/draconian digital rights management
Stiffles peer to peer technology (which has totally legitimate uses)

[roycegracie47]

I can see this clashing directly with the Fair Use Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Use) as it relates to US copyright laws. I also see it taking the ideas behind Digital Rights Management, which are fine the way they are and tossing those in favor of a very more restricitve, and as you so eloquently put it, a "draconian" (extra brownie points to enjoi for usage of such a great word) approach to punishment methods.

[enjoi]

I can see this clashing directly with the Fair Use Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Use) as it relates to US copyright laws. I also see it taking the ideas behind Digital Rights Management, which are fine the way they are and tossing those in favor of a very more restricitve, and as you so eloquently put it, a "draconian" (extra brownie points to enjoi for usage of such a great word) approach to punishment methods.
I'm not sure i catch your drift, you think this will hurt consumer rights?

[LCNlaxman]

Is HR 1201 wanting to prevent backing up your purchased DVDs, ripping a DVD to your iPod, etc.?

[roycegracie47]

I'm not sure i catch your drift, you think this will hurt consumer rights?
Not exactly, the DRM is that lobotomized version of P2P we have today, basically taking care of the basic fears the RIAA had after the whole napster thing, though it's still ignores the a larger share of filesharing, mostly bit torrent (which I support through the fansub argument, and policy most fansub sites I feel follow with accord and aplumb). It was a basic shot at placating the RIAA into making the P2P community into "crafty consumers" and I feel this new plan may infact impose more problems and clamp down on the last of the various programs used to share media for private use, something the Fair Use Doctrine has been protecting us for quite some time. I wouldn't know were to begin or explain consumer rights, I was trying to play up the importance of the Fair Use Doctrine and how this push by the RIAA makes those benefits you've stated and we wish to protect come under fire.

Of course now I think I've confused myself. Time to regroup!