If I tell you that I'll have to kill you: Red Hat fights the DMCA [Digital Millenium Copyright Act]

The Register USA ^ | 10-16-2002 | John Lettice

[TechJunkYard]

Reckon how a Linux user is supposed to know whether he needs to apply the specified patch?

Just wait for some Anonymous Criminal to post it on Slashdot.

(Don't click on that link! I'm warning you!)

[dheretic]

Is Oracle really that bad?

Nahhh they're still in the nut-squeezing stage, not the knee-cap-busting-with-baseball-bat stage. That being the case, the government has little power to go after them :)

[altair]

Is Oracle really that bad? ;-p

They invited impeached, disbarred ex-President Clinton to speak; they hired one of his top aides as a consultant. Oracle is really that bad.

[altair]

I don't like Microsoft, but I despise Oracle. Anyone who will pay six figures for disgraced, impeached, disbarred ex-President Clinton to speak is despicable. In my opinion.

[Bush2000]

Has anyone been prosecuted successfully under this law?

[JameRetief]

Has anyone been prosecuted successfully under this law?

Yes. Universal v. Reimerdes (a.k.a. the NY DVD case).

Eight major motion picture studios brought a suit under the DMCA against 2600 Magazine to enjoin it from publishing or linking to DeCSS, a computer program that circumvents the encryption on DVDs, called CSS. DeCSS was developed to help enable DVDs to be played on computers running the Linux system. It also allows the constitutionally protected fair use of DVDs, which is otherwise prevented by the encryption.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) moved for an en banc hearing in NY, but was denied.

[TechJunkYard]

There was also some guy busted in California with more than 4500 bootleg video cassettes.

Then there's Felton and Sklyarov, who "almost" got pinched.

[Bush2000]

I was actually referring to individual criminal prosecutions but thank you.

[Bush2000]

The California case has nothing to do with information disclosure. It's all about overt copyright infringement. As for Felton and Sklyarov, the government dropped the case.

[TechJunkYard]

The California case has nothing to do with information disclosure.

He was convicted of "circumvention of a technological measure used to protect a work", which is the heart of the DMCA. There's also a reference to a second case in Nebraska which involved mod-chipping a Playstation. That answers your original question, "has anyone been prosecuted successfully under this law?"

There aren't any convictions under the "disclosure" interpretation; but remember that Sklyarov was charged with trafficking in circumvention technology, even though he personally distributed no software, only information, and that is what has everyone so concerned about the possibilities.

[Arthalion]

Red Hat may me making an important mistake here...publishing this information in OTHER countries may not protect them from prosecution. Many anti-DMCA'ers tend to forget WHY the DMCA was drafted in the first place, and why this problem isn't confined to the US.

In 1996, the World Intellectial Property Organization, a subset of the World Trade Organization (WTO), got together with the intent to streamline copyright enforcement laws, penalties, and extradition rules. The result of this was the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty, which was signed by Clinton and approved by Congress. The DMCA is simply the WIPO Treaty codified into U.S. law. Why is this bad? Because it means that copyright violators in ANY signatory country can be extradited to ANY OTHER signatory country to be prosecuted for copyright violation. It also means that if Red Hat's "non-U.S." readme is read in another signatory country, they can be prosecuted right here in the U.S.!

Current signatory countries include:

Argentina
Belarus
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Croatia
Czech Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Gabon
Georgia
Guinea
Honduras
Hungary
Indonesia
Jamaica
Japan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Mali
Mexico
Mongolia
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Republic of Moldova
Romania
Saint Lucia
Senegal
Slovakia
Slovenia
Ukraine
United States of America

I do find it funny that the US and Japan are the only first world countries on the list, and that NO E.U. nations signed it.

[Smile-n-Win]

Red Hat may me making an important mistake here...publishing this information in OTHER countries may not protect them from prosecution.

Well, no U.S. official that respects copyright law can possibly know they published it...

[Smile-n-Win]

Oops, sorry, I didn't read the end of your post. (Still, I don't see how evidence could be presented to a U.S. jury without violating the copyright.)

[Bush2000]

He was convicted of "circumvention of a technological measure used to protect a work", which is the heart of the DMCA. There's also a reference to a second case in Nebraska which involved mod-chipping a Playstation. That answers your original question, "has anyone been prosecuted successfully under this law?"

Sure, but the primary complaint being registered by people on this thread is that they can't even talk or write about security issues. The California and Nebraska cases don't support that theory at all. In both of those cases, the individuals in question implemented copyright workarounds. They weren't merely exercising their right to free speech. It's analogous to talking about how to steal a car and actually doing it.

There aren't any convictions under the "disclosure" interpretation; but remember that Sklyarov was charged with trafficking in circumvention technology, even though he personally distributed no software, only information, and that is what has everyone so concerned about the possibilities.

It may have you concerned; however, disseminating non-copyrighted information is guaranteed by the first amendment. Sklyarov and Elcomsoft, if I understand correctly, actually implemented circumvention technology for Adobe eBooks. Sure, they may have talked about it; however, it was the actual implementation that truly got them in trouble.

[gitmo]

Isn't the United States the country that has that "freedom of speech" thing?

[TechJunkYard]

disseminating non-copyrighted information is guaranteed by the first amendment. Sklyarov and Elcomsoft, if I understand correctly, actually implemented circumvention technology for Adobe eBooks. Sure, they may have talked about it; however, it was the actual implementation that truly got them in trouble.

Okay; I'll agree with you on that point. Elcomsoft clearly manufactured a circumvention tool and distributed it in the United States. My understanding is that Sklyarov's only culpability is that he authored the code. Suppose the government could come after me for some of the tools I wrote ten years ago? Hopefully not, since that pre-dates the DMCA.

But now lets consider the Felten case. SDMI threatened Felten with litigation and prosecution under DMCA if he published / presented his own intellectual property in a public forum. SDMI viewed Felten's freedom of speech as a circumvention device. SDMI subsequently backed off their threat, and the EFF filed suit to have the government restrain itself from using the DMCA to prosecute free speech... which suit was dismissed... the government refused to go on the record about this, even though Felten was assured by DOJ, RIAA and SDMI that he would not be prosecuted for his scientific pursuits.

Would YOU believe such assurances from these characters in the absence of a declarative ruling from a court?

.. the primary complaint being registered by people on this thread is that they can't even talk or write about security issues.

And they might be right! This is a Big Grey Area right now, and nobody wants to be THE test case.