[DMCA-Activists] Deadline nears for DMCA exemptions

[Seth Finkelstein]

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28590.html
 
  Deadline nears for DMCA exemptions
  By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
  Posted: 17/12/2002 at 00:04 GMT
  Wednesday's the deadline for you to make a small difference to the
  draconian DMCA, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

  One of the quirks of the Act is that the Library of Congress provides
  administrative oversight. A strange decision, since this is a job
  usually left to the courts. But every three years the Librarian gets
  to review requests and decide which cases are causing serious harm.

  And small but significant progress has been made in very selective
  areas. Seth Finkelstein scored a victory two years ago by persuading
  the Librarian that censorware blacklists could be examined, and small
  portions of them published, as fair use.

  Finkelstein is urging people affected to see if they can make a case,
  too. But with only one part of the DMCA affected, he has no illusions
  about the extent of the opportunity.

  "This is a small victory we can have - but it can be achieved at even
  smaller costs," he told us. "I'm not being blindly optimistic but here
  is a specific task where victory is not certain, but it is possible."

  What's at stake?

  "She wants to hear a factual case for harm caused by the law,"
  explains Finkelstein.

  There are three specific parts to section 1201 devoted to
  circumvention in terms of access and technology. For two of these, the
  Librarian can do nothing:- it will remain a violation to make and
  distribute tools for circumventing access to a work, or making tools
  that alter rights access.

  "This rulemaking CANNOT make distributing DeCSS code, or eBook access
  programs, into an exempt act," he writes.

  But simple circumvention is being examined, and this can still make an
  enormous difference to a lot of us. Ironically, however, Finkelstein
  says tub-thumping populism is exactly what isn't needed. The Librarian
  needs specific examples"showing that the prohibition has a substantial
  adverse effect on noninfringing uses of a particular class of works."
  So diatribes about the evils of capitalism, or the tyranny of
  government will go straight in the wastebasket. As will, alas, very
  broad arguments for fair use which might be valuable in another
  context. They don't help here.

  Quality, not quantity is what counts, and he says logical, empirical
  argument will be welcomed provided it can be justified that the
  exemption won't cause "more harm than good".

  But small victories are possible as Finkelstein himself proves.

  We asked if Seth thought that the once fiercely libertarian climate
  was warming to such civic activism:-

  "Lawrence Lessig has done a great service here. You can't ignore
  politics, because politics won't ignore you."

  And you don't even have to sell your soul to make a difference. Read
  more at the EFF's site here. His homepage, with his blog and lots of
  fine reading, is here.

  http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/finkelstein_on_dmca.html
  http://sethf.com/

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  address@hidden  http://sethf.com
Anticensorware Investigations - http://sethf.com/anticensorware/
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