dmca

I'm not big on videos over a minute long, but this one really lays out the war on sharing that underlies bills like SOPA (and its predecessors COICA, ACTA, and the DMCA).

Some excerpts:

SOPA and PIPA...want to raise the cost of copyright compliance, to the point where people simply get out of the business of offering it as a capability to amateurs....

Grooveshark has been involved in a series of lawsuits from the recording industry and, as with the Limewire lawsuits, it looks like the music publishers are piggybacking on the labels by suing later.

We've discussed many times just how easy it is to get around the NY Times' paywall.

I've never run up against it because I don't have javascript enabled, and the whole system is javascript based.

We have wondered, however, if doing this is technically a violation of the DMCA -- specifically the anti-circumvention clause.

Last month, we pointed out how ridiculous it was that modding your iPhone is considered perfectly legal, but that modding your Xbox somehow can get you three years in jail.

That was to point out just how silly it was that the DMCA does not allow fair use when it comes to its anti-circumvention rules.

This has long been a huge problem (and a potential Constitutional problem) for the way the DMCA is constructed.

Well, isn't this nice? Intel, who recently confirmed that the HDCP master key was, in fact, leaked, has also decided that it's going to threaten to sue anyone who makes use of it, under the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause.

The American Prospect: "New DMCA exemptions are an improvement, but the basic paradox of telling consumers how they may use electronics remains unaddressed."

The safe harbors are part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and give sites immunity from monetary damages if they observe the DMCA's "notice and takedown" procedures for potentially infringing content and comply with other legal requirements.

The Fox News Channel boasts that it takes a different approach to news coverage than, say, CBS, NBC, or NPR.

But it appears Fox takes the same approach as its competitors when it comes to fair uses of its news coverage in political advertisements.

This document collects reported cases where the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA have been invoked not against pirates, but against consumers, scientists, and legitimate competitors.

In practice, the anti-circumvention provisions have been used to stifle a wide array of legitimate activities, rather than to stop copyright infringement.

The key Internet section of the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has now leaked, and the DMCA looks set to go worldwide.

While it doesn't appear to change US law, the draft has plenty of implications for other countries.