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Ask yourself: does the United States Consitution consider the rights of corporations to be more important than rights of individuals?

If you said "no!", we agree with you whole-heartedly. Now what is the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) doing passing laws in the US? Read on.

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Why did Congress pass the DMCA?

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) drafted an international treaty that requires signatory nations to enforce particular rights in their own National laws. Some believed further U.S. legislation was necessary to implement U.S. adherence to the treaty. The result was the DMCA. It is sometimes referred to as the WIPO Treaty Implementing Legislation.

Why is the DMCA so bad?

The DMCA makes is a crime to "circumvent" copyright protection systems. Here is the language:

`Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems

`(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that--

Computer Scientists can no longer research software to ensure it provides adequate protection.

Here is an analogy: The NTSB conducts crash tests to ensure vechicles protect passengers in the event of an accident. Computer Scientists and Security experts conduct similar testing with software. This testing ensures adequate protection from crackers, failure, weak security, etc. Often, a researcher will write a paper describing an attack. This paper must then be translated into computer code often referred to as "Proof of Concept" code. Without code, the researcher has no proof his theory works. The law provides certain exemptions for research, however they are unclear and must be approved by the Corporation who created the software. If this corporation knows their software is weak or knows it can be cracked, why should they allow someone to actually test it!? This is what happened to Princeton Professor Felten and his research team when they were threatened by the RIAA.

Don't think this law is limited to the US. Similar laws along with outrageous Search and Seizure laws are also being enacted around the globe. Why are all these countries suddenly taking oddly similar approaches? WTO + WIPO = DMCA.

Futhermore, Source code == Speech. Mathematicians use symbols. The Deaf speak with their hands. Programmers speak in code.

To relate E equals the product of M times the square of C, I could write it out or just use symbols.
e = mc^2.
e = mc²

The same is true for computer code. It is sometimes the best way to relate something. Besides, how can I prove a flaw exists without code to back it up? Furthermore, Professor Felten could not publish a paper critizing and showing flaws in a protection system for fear of arrest. This was just a paper!

There are many other issues with this law, but you should find the information and parts of the law you are most interested in.

How is the DMCA related to the WTO?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) meets once a year to discuss policy and law. These policies and laws must be enacted by the signatory Nations. People all over the world meet during WTO meetings to protest Globalization. Why? Well, there are many reasons. But know this - they are making laws and signing treaties without your input. Is the WTO democratically controlled? The DMCA is a result of one of these treaties. Here in the US the arrests and cases on this site are just the first effects of these meetings. Take a look at this.

So how does this affect me?

Look to history for your answer. Quite some time ago, our leaders met to discuss policy and create laws. These laws became The Constitution of the United States of America. If you have reviewed our Cases section you will see that our laws are being changed to accomodate the laws passed by the (WTO). Why is this important? The WTO looks at member Nations as representing raw materials. It is cheaper to produce certain goods in certain countries depending on labor, environmental and other factors. Here in the US we produce a large amount of Intellectual Property. This export must be controlled and regulated, just as any other raw material is controlled and regulated. However, the copy control corporations would like to make sure they charge you every time you use this product. This charge could be extended to Books, Journals, Libraries, etc. Hence the fight for eBooks and the severe prosecution for copy control violations. (10 Years in Prison in the US).

What is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act?

Copyright, in the United States, is an attempt to maximize the intellectual resources available to all. People who create works - literature, art, software programs, music, and others - are given a limited right to keep people from making unauthorized copies of their work. This allows them to sell copies for a profit and provides a financial incentive to create more works.

In exchange for this, the public demands a number of concessions, primarily the following three:

1. Fair use is the right to make unauthorized copies of works for certain protected purposes - mainly for academics, reporting, or criticism. When a student quotes a book in a high school paper, she is making a fair use, and can't be stopped by the copyright owner.

2. First sale is the right to sell a copy over and over again, once it is made, as long as you don't make any new copies. When you read a book, then sell it to a used book store to be bought and read by someone else, you're exercising your rights under first sale.

3. Limited time - copyrights are granted for a limited time. After that time expires, the work goes into the public domain - it can be copied and used by anyone, for any reason.

How does the DMCA relate to Copyright and therefore affect me?

The DMCA is the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1998, supposedly to update copyright law for electronic commerce and electronic content providers. Unfortunately, this law is very poorly written, and is now regularly used by corporations to restrain the three primary concessions of copyright and otherwise prevent free speech activity.

The DMCA has one particularly bad section, called the anti-circumvention provision. That section makes it a crime to break encryption used to prevent someone from getting access to electronic content, or to "traffic" in a tool used to do so. This section is written so broadly, that, in theory, decoding the sentence E-thay mca-day eally-ray ucks-say from the Pig Latin could be a crime. It doesn't matter why, either. If it's not for financial gain, it might not be a crime, but you'll get sued for astronomical amounts of money. Suppose you're a professor who wants to publish a paper criticizing, with excerpts, an e-book. Under normal copyright law, you would be free to do so under the fair use doctrine. Under the DMCA, the corporation could prevent you from doing so by building techchnological access controls to prevent anyone from selling the book to you, and you would be barred by law from breaking those controls.

Needless to say, the DMCA also raises huge concerns about free speech.

What happened to Dmitry Sklyarov?

Dmitry Sklyarov is a Russian cryptographer. In order to expose the childishly simple encryption used on a e-book reader made by the Adobe Corporation (not much more difficult than Pig Latin), he wrote a program used to decrypt eBooks encrypted with Adobe's program. A company he works for then sold it over the Internet. Mr. Sklyarov then came to the U.S., to discuss his work at a security convention in Las Vegas. Adobe, aware he would be coming to the U.S., ordered the FBI to arrest him. As we all know, you can not deliver a persuasive speech unless you have supporting evidence. Well, Sklyarov created an application which proved Adobe had not used adequate security to protect eBooks as this supporing evidence.

Programmers speak in Code.
Mathematicians speak in Symbols.
The Deaf speak with their Hands.

What can I do?

There are a couple options.

1. Sign up for the DMCA Discuss mailing list to become more informed.

2. Add our banner to your site and spread the word.

3. Inform other people by learning about the DMCA and explaining it in terms they understand.

4. Demand the release of Dmitry Sklyarov.

5. Support the EFF.

6. Be careful who you get information from. There is much double talk about the DMCA. Read the law. Read this site and find other facts. Look at the US Trade Rep/WTO documents, especially page 13. These are laws. We couldn't make this stuff up if we tried.

What is ROT-13?

ROT-13 is Rotate 13. It is an encryption algorithm of sorts. It works like this:

Plain text:
This is your protection on Adobe eBooks.

Encrypted:
Guvf vf lbhe cebgrpgvba ba Nqbor rObbxf.

You rotate the letters in the alphabet 13 positions. 'B' the second letter becomes 'O' the fifteenth letter. Most people use it for fun, not protection.

#!/bin/sh tr 'a-zA-Z' 'n-za-mN-ZA-M'