The DMCA is being used to silence researchers, computer scientists and critics.
Corporations are using it against the public. Public/College radio stations can no longer afford to webcast.
Canadians: HOWTO stop the Canadian DMCA, act now!
From Michael Geist: For the past 30 days, Michael Geist has been listing reasons why Canadians should be alarmed at Canada's proposed new copyright law, which will bring the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Canada's lawbooks. The DMCA has been roundly criticized as terribly upsetting the copyright balance, resulting in researchers being jailed and threatened with lawsuits, an unchecked expansion of the copyright monopoly into areas unenvisioned by law (region-coding, limiting compatibility), and a chilling effect on free speech.
Canada's DMCA, Bill C-60, is slated to be one of the first orders of business for the new Parliament. Today, Geist has posted a list of thirty things you can do to fight Bill C-60 in Canada. This is the make-or-break moment, when Canada decides whether it is going to follow the US down the same tiger-pit it fell into in 1998, giving American media and technology companies the legal tools to clobber Canadian culture and industry, or whether Canada is going to learn from America's mistakes and produce a copyright law for the digital century that promotes new forms of expression and creativity.
The NEW DMCA: Bill the Hollywood cartels don.t want you to see
From IPac: Many of you have seen or heard about the new amendment to the DMCA
being sent to Congress by the Dep. of Justice. We've gotten a copy of
the proposed bill and it's worse than we could have imagined.
This
is a concerted effort to escalate Hollywood's war on America by
creating a generation of criminals and sending them off to jail. That's
right: the "Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006" (IPPA) would
double the authorized prison terms for existing copyright infringement,
create a host of new offenses, and establish a division within the FBI
to hunt down infringers. The Members of Congress in the pockets of the
Hollywood cartels want to divert $20 million a year and FBI agents from
fighting real criminals so they can go after people without computers.
France about to pass the an anti-DMCA law?
France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer Inc (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker's popular iPod player.
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Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format.
It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management -- the codes that protect music, films and other content -- if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another, said Christian Vanneste, Rapporteur, a senior parliamentarian who helps guide law in France.
Trio Charged With Modifying Xboxes To Pirate Video Games
Techweb is reporting that three men are charged with conspiracy
to commit criminal copyright infringement:
Two store owners and a third man were charged on Monday in a federal copyright infringement case for allegedly selling modified Microsoft Corp. Xbox consoles that allowed them to play pirated video games copied onto a multi-gigabyte hard drive.
The game consoles were modified with a new control chip and a 250 gigabyte hard drive. The embedded software on the chip creates a new start menu. "Turn on the Xbox, and the software comes up with the name of the modification chip," said Thomas Loeser, assistant United States attorney in Los Angeles. "You'll page through a menu similar to Windows browser to select any internal game to play it."
The government is proposing that devices (consumer electronics, computers, software) manufactured after a certain date respond to a copy-protection signal or watermark in a digital video stream, and pass along that signal when converting the video to analog. The same goes for analog video streams, to pass on the protection to the digital video outputs.
So, essentially, the government wants your future TV, TiVo, computer, cell phone, Final Cut Pro, (input your favorite analog signal viewing / converting device here) to respond to the Bat Signal.
FedEx accusing box-furniture maker of DMCA violations
Jose Avila makes stuff from old FedEx boxes. Somehow
FedEx thinks this is a DMCA violation:
Jose Avila has always been a FedEx fan. He uses Fedex for all his shipping needs because he considers the packaging to be a high-quality, sturdy product, and the shipping service to be superior to competitors. So, when financial hardship inspired Avila to build furniture from FedEx packing materials and post photos of his antics on his FedexFurniture.com website, he never expected FedEx's legal department to come after him. "From day one I wanted to be pro-FedEx and give some support to FedEx while at the same time displaying the artwork." Avila said, with noticeable disappointment over FedEx's legal reaction.
The Reg: Cracker education site ICE resists IBILL pressure
Administrators of the cracker education Web site Icefortress.com have undergone a change of heart since we reported their plan to fold under pressure from Internet billing-service provider IBILL, which has threatened a copyright infringement suit under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), claiming that the Icefortress site did it harm by supplying information and tools which could enable visitors to hack its protected sites and thereby violate its copyrights.
