[DMCA-Activists] Re: two questions for the group(s)

[Matt]

Hello 

While I lurk about, I usually do not post to these lists.  I hope I am not
intruding. I had a few thoughts on this.  This as most things that examine
the future I am just speculating.

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Dr. John Raymond Baker wrote:

> I just have a couple of questions to try to get a consensus of the groups
> concerning these issues.
> 1) What do you think the chances of getting the DMCA repealed are, with a
> time frame of the next two years?

It depends on my next answer.  Low to medium.

> 
> 2) What do you think it would take to get the DMCA repealed (i.e. not asking
> about the mechanism by which Acts are changed in the US, just talking about
> pressure from public or critical lawsuits, or whatever.)
> 

If reform happens in near months, it will be because a prominent politician
gets sued under the DMCA for circumvention of weakly protected
"copyrighted" material during the course of his/her normal duties.  They
will have to get it in a very personal way.  This type of public 
visibility of the poisoned well could be effective when other highly
public figures or companies are victimized as well.

The copyright portfolio industry could continue to victimize it's
customers through further legislation and enforcement of non-commercial 
fair use scale copying.  A single public case could greatly increase
awareness of the uneven slant between the power the copyright resellers (not
the artists/engineers who's interest they claim to represent.) and the
public at large.

During the next few years a successful deployment of any DRM will play a
big role in raising the awareness of copyright.  The combination of the
copyright powerhouse Microsoft's instance on licensing software based on
function (user authenticated fileserver with raid 1/5 for example) rather
than concurrent users, poor quality of their software's long term
filesystem stability, and rapidly shrinking hard drive warranties will
raise fair use awareness.  This recipe for disaster will only insures that
people will endure enormous trials to restore their possibility costly DRM
video and audio libraries after a software or hardware failure, that is if
they can restore them at all.  The entertainment and software industries
will have just enough rope to hang themselves.

Expect international pressure to increase over the next few
years.  Anxiety over the US in general will partly take it's toll in a new
type of world unity exclusive to the US, mainly do to the ethical
ignorance of US voters to the effects of US policy on other countries.  There
will be a new democratic minded coalition without the US, as soon as the
world at large can verbalize the continuing US cold shoulder in a
fairminded way.  One of the first issues after wartime will be intellectual
property.  It is only a matter of time before the world realizes that it is
not in their favor to play by the US rules for IP but rather by a set of
their own with shorter durations that will free up US IP internationally
and give non-US countries a fair shot at innovation and subsequently 
wealth.  The international copyright wealth and patent wealth distribution
speak for themselves, the world only needs to seriously look at the
problem.  This may cause IP reform in the US as well.

It could take another 8-12 years for the house, senate and white house to
be purged of the soft money black wizards.  Without conscientious
politicians in Washington it won't happen without public pressure and
awareness of overall copyright issues.  At about the same time public
pressure might happen as a result of a new type of industrialization that
will begin to crop up around the end of the economic downturn.  Building
devices atom by atom rather than pouring atoms in molds and lines
will have profound social effects and amplify IP issues, as more and more
common everyday items run "protected" software.

Sooner or later it will burn the public at large, and then the DMCAs
circular logic will be crushed end reversed.  DRM could be a best friend
to fairuse in the long run, but I would never wish that on anyone.

> thanks.
> john
> 
> 
Matthew Newhall

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Newhall
President of LILUG
Long Island Linux Users Group
address@hidden
http://lilug.org
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