Copyright office restarts DMCA rulemaking

Every 3 years, the Copyright Office, headed by Marybeth Peters, conducts a rulemaking to determine exemptions to 17 U.S.C Sec 1201(a)(1), which prohibits the circumvention of access-controlling technological protection measures (TPMs).

Most commentators believe that TPMs, aka Digital Rights Management (DRM), reduce the general public's ability to make otherwise noninfringing uses (e.g., fair use, as encoded at 17 U.S.C. Sec. 107) by leaving it up to content creators to set the terms of access and use.

Despite this widespread criticism, Peters has constructed the Office's powers in this matter so narrowly as to be utterly ineffectual.

For instance, she ruled in 2003 that, to make fair use of a DVD, instead of using your computer alone (which would still be quite difficult), you also have to buy a standalone DVD player and an analog-to-digital converter that does not recognize Macrovision.

Which converters allow you to import video despite the Macrovision flag? It's hard to say, since Section 1201 makes it illegal to manufacture devices exclusively for that purpose or to advertise any otherwise legitimate device's capability to do so.

Why do you have to pay hundreds extra to exercise your free speech rights? Because Jack Valenti's pals want to make more money.

If you think this blog post is long, wait til you see the forthcoming law review article documenting the stomach-churning policy developments that got us here.

In any case, feel free to submit your horror stories about how TPMs keep you from engaging in otherwise lawful uses. Please do; it makes the push for reform so much more powerful! But expect to be disappointed by Peters' ruling in the end.

Now open for biz: Legal P2P

ZDNet has a story declaring that iMesh is open for business. Here's the part where it becomes patently obvious that it's not exactly a red-carpet, world-premiere-sized start to the legal P2P biz. Go to the site; I think they do too little to convince people that there's some there there. Also, even their forums express some disbelief that this is the solution to the ongoing copyright war.

I'd love to install the software and play, but the last thing I need is another way to waste time online (he types on his blog).

Global satellite broadband? Not holding my breath

Now this is a high-tech way around your local cable/DSL broadband monopoly. Alas, the best they can do is 512 Kbps. Scheduled to roll out next year; I wish them well but suspect it will be another solution that is out of most budgets.

Props to Media Tank for the link; their news list rocks.

Telecom giants seeking to redline the poor

Few companies are better at making me violently angry than Verizon; little wonder, then, that they're joining SBC in lobbying for the right to exclude poor, largely minority communities from the digital millennium.

The telecom giants are lobbying for the right to roll out advanced digital TV and broadband services only in the most upscale of zip codes. This is in stark contrast to the decades-long policy tradition of universal telecommunications services.

Shame on both companies, and props to the late Delores Tucker for a thought-provoking article.

The hidden cost of documentaries: copyright clearances

They're hardly the first folks to cover it, but the Times explains that the cost of clearing copyright fees is a huge drag on documentary production. Considering the constitutional mandate to promote the progress of the useful arts and sciences, it is tragically ironic that copyright law keeps many doc's from getting produced and drains the life out of others.

For more on this, see the Untold Stories website, featuring a very thoughtful analysis (and, yes, a documentary) by Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi.

Disappointingly hackneyed article on CNet

Normally, CNet's News.com.com is the source for wonderful tech and tech law news. I link to them all the time. This time, however, I'm publicly dissing them, there and here.

Read this article by Progress and Freedom Foundation VP Patrick Ross. His journalistic credentials are actually quite sound, but his reasoning is not.

Next, flip to Comment #4. I wrote a rather lengthy rebuke, and that's the tip of the iceberg of very strong opinions I hold on this issue. I also challenged Ross to a debate. Are you reading this, Patrick? Because I'm serious. Let's go. I'll arrange everything; you just show up.

Audio format wars harm consumers

Here's yet another reason to support blanket licensing: format wars. Apple uses AAC at the iTunes store; most others use Secure WMA. Neither is playable on music players (ahem--MP3 players) designed to play the other.

The Times actually a) covers this issue, and b) offers some useful tips to the uninitiated.

Support blanket licensing. Apple's unique power is that it was the first company to get all the big labels to sign on the dotted line. If they can't withold that right, consumers will be downloading in MP3--or even some lossless compression format, e.g. FLAC--before long.

Indy video producers eye online distribution

Quick link to a Times story about how independent video producers are already starting to use the internet to escape the need to work with major distributors. Early adopters include Blair Witch co-director Dan Myrick with his serial, "The Strand of Venice".

More musicians: How to hack our CDs

In what I believe is a first, I have scooped CNN on a story. ("You hear about this kind of thing all the time, but you never think it will happen to you...")

Two weeks ago, I posted a story about how the Christian band Switchfoot was teaching people how to hack their CDs. Tonight, a colleague emailed me a story from CNN (via Billboard), pointing out that Switchfoot is among several bands teaching people how to hack their CDs. Others include the Dave Matthews Band and Foo Fighters. How many more musicians are concerned that the labels are keeping paying customers from enjoying their music?

As if that weren't rich enough, Sony BMG will also email the directions to you. Just fill out this form, and in less than 30 minutes, you can have your CD on your iPod. The short version is:

Import the tracks as "secure" WMA files
Burn to a standard audio CD using Window Media PLayer 9 or 10
Reimport the songs using iTunes

The fun part, though, is when the label tries to convince me that posting this on my blog is illegal:

This message and any attachments are solely for the use of intended recipients. They may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you received this email in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this email and any attachment is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error please contact the sender and delete the message and any attachments associated therewith from your computer. Your cooperation in this matter is appreciated.

But they're not fooling me. I may be one of a handful of non-lawyers who almost understands 17 USC 1201. I'm offering no "technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof." It's just unpaid commentary. In perhaps an even more ironic twist, Sony BMG is perhaps more liable than I would be under this law. At the media industry's behest, there is no fair use defense to Section 1201. By my reading, Sony BMG would, by the letter of the law, be as guilty as you or I if they started shipping BeatOurLameTech.exe files designed to undo their copy control technologies.

In the matter at hand, I think that neither Sony nor I is liable for giving such simple instructions for using tech you already have. But if I'm liable, they're more so; I'm exercising my "rights of free speech or the press for activities using consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing products," whereas their email form is used primarily for the purpose of helping you to defeat their wack copy controls.

Google sued

The Authors' Guild has sued Google over its massive book-scan, part of the larger project known as Google Print.

I don't have the time to write my own analysis on this issue, but let me revoke my previous non-vote and say that Google is engaged in fair use. Among others, Peter Suber and William Patry have provided very persuasive arguments to this effect. Suber rightly suggests that the AG may merely be engaged in a shakedown for a share of the profits. (Hey, it's worked for those whose songs have been sampled by hip hop and electronica artists.) Even though the copyright holders will clearly benefit from Google's clearly fair use (just like hip hop sampling revived the sales of countless old songs), they want their cut, and they have lawyers.

Check the links, esp. AG (which is like the Google Suit news channel) and Patry (who disses the four-factor fair use test in style).