Boucher bill gets fair hearing
p2pnet.net News:- Rick Boucher’s Fair Rights bill is finally getting fair treatment at today’s Congressional hearing, Hollywood efforts to mash it notwithstanding.
Boucher and John Doolittle re-introduced the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act (DMCRA, HR 107) which would enact labelling requirements for ‘usage-impaired copy-protected’ compact discs, as well as amendments to Hollywood’s infamous 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
HR 107 would allow people to by-pass DRM systems to make copies for personal use, and would also let academics do the same for research purposes.
As 321 Studios founder and president Bob Moore – one of those giving evidence – sums it up, HR 107 “would re-affirm consumer fair use rights and balance the otherwise one-sided protection afforded copyright owners under current interpretations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act”.
And it will require content creators to “label copy-protected works accordingly,” says a Reuters story here.
Hollywood – which is behind the bill both literally and figuratively – has been pulling out all the stops to get HR 107 mashed.
A recent effort in this direction has the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) claiming HR 107 would, “give hackers explicit permission to distribute software and hardware devices designed to defeat copyright protection technology”.
“Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton, who took command of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in February, said current law should be scaled back to allow consumers to make personal copies and exercise other long-established ‘fair use’ rights, now prohibited under a 1998 digital-copyright law,” says Reuters, referring to the DMCA which, rumour has it, was originally dreamed up by former RIAA boss Hilary Rosen.
“The balance between consumers’ rights and producers’ rights over copyright material needs to be restored,” Barton is quoted as saying.
But, brandishing a bootleg copy of Runaway Jury, the MPAA’s (Motion Picture Association of America) Jack Valenti declared, “The honest people will do right, but dishonest people will not do right and, in the digital age, that is a devastation I just don’t want to comprehend,” says Reuters, adding that a Barton spokeswoman said she didn’t know when the committee would vote on the measure.
May 12th, 2004 at 9:50 pm
>Jack Valenti declared, “The honest people will do right, but dishonest people will not do right…
And therefore since someone used a gun once to kill someone, no one should have guns?? That arguement never worked in the states before with guns so why now with reverse-engineering? Go talk to the NRA Jack.
or
since some people drive recklessly that means the rest of us shouldnt be allowed to drive either??
More backwards logic from Jack…way to go buddy, retire before you go entirely off the deep end please. We are not all crminals despite your FUD.
May 12th, 2004 at 10:55 pm
I sent an e-mail to my congressman today asking that he support this bill. Below is a website with information on how to contact yours. I urge you to write and tell you elected representatives what you think. If you decide to, please be smart and respectful about it. Insulting, offensive, or otherwise stupid letters would be worse than nothing at all…
http://www.aidsstories.com/mail.html
Yes, it’s an AIDS site, but it’s the best one I found for e-mail addresses and information on contacting congressmen and senators for all 50 states.
May 15th, 2004 at 3:13 am
The story says “HR 107 would allow people to by-pass DRM systems to make copies for personal use.” That’s not really true. It is both too narrow and too broad. Too broad because not all personal uses would be permitted. Too narrow because the bill actually says it’s OK “if such circumvention does not result in an infringement of the copyright in the work”. What was lost on most people at the hearing (including the press) is that there are extremely important uses that are not infringing that have nothing to do with fair use. For example, certain reproductions for the blind, playing music in record stores, and reselling, lending, renting (in most cases), giving away or trading (physical copies). Also, privately performing a work is NEVER infringing — not even if you play a stolen copy. So, when Disney, for example, times out a DVD in order to force everyone to buy a new one, destroy competition from used DVDs (including gifts, lending and rental) and disenfranchise millions of Americans who depend on secondary markets because they can’t afford new (the same people who depend on used cars, used houses, used books, used clothes), the bill would allow circumvention to keep on playing it past the time-out period. That’s much more important, in my view, than mere personal use, and for some reason, I only heard one person (the librarian, naturally) mention it.
May 18th, 2004 at 2:03 am
My personal opinion is that if they REALY REALY REALY “REALY” want to target piracy, they should target…. oh. I don’t know… uuhhhh maybe CHINA or Thailand or other countries where it is the problem. Not here. America is only the MINOR contibuter to piracy.