DMCA: Ma Bell Would Be Proud

wired news ^ | 1.20.03 | Lauren Weinstein

[freepatriot32]

Get out your wallet. Big business has found another way to tighten the screws on customers, in league with its new partner: the notorious Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Just as naysayers predicted when it was enacted, the DMCA's anticompetitive impact is reverberating widely beyond the entertainment and software industries, with potentially devastating effects on consumers.

[Support Free Republic]

Interesting.

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[trebb]

Very interesting...

[Still Thinking]

It's not just a matter of cheap toner or compatibility issues. The same restrictive rationale and techniques can be applied to limit safety and reliability inspections for a vast range of critical products -- everything from electronic voting machines to security systems to computerized car-engine controllers.

When applied to consumer products, the closed nature of the systems also raises the possibility that the digital systems are doing something averse to your interests, despite the fact that you paid for them and are entitled to be sure they are not working against your interests.

[Dimensio]

Where's Bush2000 to defend the DMCA and the anticompetitive practices that it allows?

(Oh, and people are aware that the Tom Daschle pic used in that fundraising advert is fake, right?)

[ShadowAce]

I think you gotta ping him if you want him...

[Bush2000]

Where's Bush2000 to defend the DMCA and the anticompetitive practices that it allows?

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! What histrionics! This case hasn't been adjudicated yet. Until it has, it's all just speculative crap. Go hug a tree or something.

[Bogey78O]

To defend Bell (as I usually do). The phones back then were the equivilant of the cable box. Bell owned the equipment and access to the lines and people simply leased it. As such you had no right to modify it.