EFF declares anti-piracy DMCA unconstitutional in new legal showdown

[steven36]

Controversial Section 1201 of US law comes under fire

 

 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a lawsuit claiming that a controversial anti-digital-piracy law in the US is unconstitutional.

 

Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) – which became law 18 years ago – has long been controversial due to its heavy restrictions on what people are allowed to do with software. It was originally intended to protect the movie industry from piracy.

 

But the expansion of software – and corresponding digital protections – into an enormous range of devices including cars and medical devices has put increasing pressure on the law.

 

Although the law does include a safety valve in the form of a review by the Copyright Office every three years in which it receives proposals for exemptions, the EFF argues that it has failed to keep pace with the modern world. And that disparity has effectively made the law unconstitutional.

 

The EFF brings the lawsuit in Washington, DC on behalf of two plaintiffs: a computer scientist and a security researcher.

 

Andrew Huang is working on a completely open source computer and wants to extend the computer's abilities to enable it to remix video with other content, such as Twitter feeds. However, Section 1201 means that approach could be illegal since it would need to bypass digital protections to make it editable (even if the user has legally licensed the video).

 

And Matthew Green has been awarded grants to continue his work testing critical devices for security holes, but has also run up against Section 1201 because digging into software requires him to bypass digital protections.

The nub of it

At the heart of the argument the EFF is presenting is the fact that the DMCA's Section 1201 places controls on copyright beyond what the law of copyright actually allows.

 

Copyright is itself a special exemption to the idea of free speech – after all, it prevents people from using words or symbols in common usage in specific combinations, such as a sentence or a line of code. The DMCA places an additional layer of protection over that, but ends up also covering material that is not copyrightable.

 

EFF attorney Kit Walsh argues: "The creative process requires building on what has come before, and the First Amendment preserves our right to transform creative works to express a new message, and to research and talk about the computer code that controls so much of our world. Section 1201 threatens ordinary people with financial ruin or even a prison sentence for exercising those freedoms, and that cannot stand."

In other words, the law can be used to punish people carrying out activities protected under the First Amendment – hence it is unconstitutional.

 

Although the law has created some frustrating situations for consumers – having to buy new versions of movies all the time, for example – the expansion of software into every modern product is effectively locking down everything.

 

Car repair shops either have to pay car manufacturers to be allowed to work on their cars or risk violating the law by breaking protected software. With the smart home, this has even extended to such things as light bulbs and kitty litter boxes, says the EFF.

 

The lawsuit is going to take many years to work its way through the courts. The EFF knows this but hopes that by the end of it, it will be able to lift an unnecessary restriction that has the potential to hold back future innovations. It can expect an aggressive response from the movie industry.

 

Source:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/21/eff_says_digital_protections_unconstitutional/

 

[steven36]

 

Quote

 

Hardware hacker Bunnie Huang is suing the US government over the DMCA

 

 Countering Lawful Abuses of Digital Surveillance

 

Why I’m Suing the US Government

 

Today I filed a lawsuit against the US government, challenging Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Section 1201 means that you can be sued or prosecuted for accessing, speaking about, and tinkering with digital media and technologies that you have paid for. This violates our First Amendment rights, and I am asking the court to order the federal government to stop enforcing Section 1201.

 

Before Section 1201, the ownership of ideas was tempered by constitutional protections. Under this law, we had the right to tinker with gadgets that we bought, we had the right to record TV shows on our VCRs, and we had the right to remix songs. Section 1201 built an extra barrier around copyrightable works, restricting our prior ability to explore and create. In order to repair a gadget, we may have to decrypt its firmware; in order to remix a video, we may have to strip HDCP. Whereas we once readily expressed feelings and new ideas through remixes and hardware modifications, now we must first pause and ask: does this violate Section 1201? Especially now that cryptography pervades every aspect of modern life, every creative spark is likewise dampened by the chill of Section 1201.

 

The act of creation is no longer spontaneous.

 

Our recent generation of Makers, hackers, and entrepreneurs have developed under the shadow of Section 1201. Like the parable of the frog in the well, their creativity has been confined to a small patch, not realizing how big and blue the sky could be if they could step outside that well. Nascent 1201-free ecosystems outside the US are leading indicators of how far behind the next generation of Americans will be if we keep with the status quo.

 

Our children deserve better.

 

I can no longer stand by as a passive witness to this situation. I was born into a 1201-free world, and our future generations deserve that same freedom of thought and expression. I am but one instrument in a large orchestra performing the symphony for freedom, but I hope my small part can remind us that once upon a time, there was a world free of such artificial barriers, and that creativity and expression go hand in hand with the ability to share without fear.

 

If you want to read more about the lawsuit, please check out the EFF’s press release on the matter.

 

Source:

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4782