RE: [dvd-discuss] Would this consistute circumvention.

[Richard Hartman <hartman(at)onetouch.com>]

You could make the same complaint about the
"us a gun, go to jail" laws.  Those impose
harsher penalties when a gun is used in the
commission of a crime than the crime alone
would incur.  (i.e. if you hold up the 7-11
with a knife you aren't in for as much time
as you would be if you use a gun).

Likewise, if you have to bypass a digital TPM
to commit your infringement you could be
liable for harsher penalties than infringement
alone would incur.  

You might be able to argue whether or not digital
deserves additional protection of this nature,
but it is not entirely redundant.

-- 
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael A Rolenz [mailto:Michael.A.Rolenz@aero.org]
> Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 10:06 AM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: RE: [dvd-discuss] Would this consistute circumvention.
> 
> 
> Good points But if you change it "for the purposes of copyright 
> infringment" it becomes an irrelevant law since that is 
> already a crime.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Richard Hartman <hartman@onetouch.com>
> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> 11/09/01 09:51 AM
> Please respond to dvd-discuss
> 
>  
>         To:     "'dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu'" 
> <dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu>
>         cc: 
>         Subject:        RE: [dvd-discuss] Would this 
> consistute circumvention.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: John Zulauf [mailto:johnzu@ia.nsc.com]
> ...
> > PS.  You know, if they just added "for purpose of copyright
> > infringement" to the "primary designed to circumvent" 
> > language the DMCA
> > would be alot less dangerous.
> > 
> 
> Absolutely.  The legislation was written to protect
> the _mechanisms_, not the _material_.  Since the focus
> was wrong to begin with the entire law is fundamentally
> flawed.  If you corrected the basic error the rest might
> not be so bad.  The focus should be on the _material_
> not the mechanisms that some half-assed programmer dreamed
> up that might-or-might-not a) do the job of protecting
> the material at all and/or b) overreach and protect beyond
> the bounds of the rest of copyright law (i.e. preventing
> fair use as well as infringement) 
> 
> 
> (although some people might believe that 'a' and 'b' above
> are mutually exclusive, we here all know that CSS is an
> example of a protection mechanism that manages to be
> both ineffective and overreaching)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> -Richard M. Hartman
> hartman@onetouch.com
> 
> 186,000 mi./sec ... not just a good idea, it's the LAW!
> 
> 
>