RE: [dvd-discuss] New DMCA case: ACLU sues filtering software maker N2H2

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

I noticed something in that report ... a terminology
thing again.

"Copyright protection systems".  Well, who could argue
against those?  We all support copyright, right?

The thing is that these _aren't_ _copyright_ protection
systems ... they are _content_ protection systems, blindly
protecting content sometimes even in violation of copyright
law.

A small thing, perhaps, but significant when setting
the tone of the discussion, especially before the court.

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

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


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Declan McCullagh [mailto:lists@politechbot.com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2002 7:39 AM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: [dvd-discuss] New DMCA case: ACLU sues filtering 
> software maker
> N2H2
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://news.com.com/2100-1023-946266.html?tag=politech
> 
>    ACLU lawsuit targets copyright law
>    By Declan McCullagh
>    July 25, 2002, 6:30 AM PT
> 
>    WASHINGTON--The American Civil Liberties Union plans to 
> file a lawsuit
>    on Thursday in an attempt to overturn key portions of a 
> controversial
>    1998 copyright law.
> 
>    The suit asks a federal judge to rule that the Digital Millennium
>    Copyright Act (DMCA) is so sweeping that it unconstitutionally
>    interferes with researchers' ability to evaluate the 
> effectiveness of
>    Internet filtering software.
> 
>    By suing on behalf of a 22-year-old programmer who's 
> researching the
>    oft-buggy products, the civil liberties group hopes to prompt the
>    first ruling that would curtail the DMCA's wide reach.
> 
>    After the DMCA was used to intimidate Princeton professor Ed Felten
>    and his colleagues into self-censoring a presentation last 
> year, the
>    law became an instant magnet for criticism. But so far, every judge
>    has upheld the DMCA's broad restrictions on the "circumvention of
>    copyright protection systems."
> 
>    This case will be different, the ACLU hopes, because it features a
>    sympathetic plaintiff, Ben Edelman, and because it involves the
>    socially beneficial act of critiquing software that is 
> frequently used
>    in public schools and libraries. Edelman had testified as an expert
>    witness in a case the ACLU brought against a federal law that
>    compelled public libraries to install filters.
> 
>    [...]
>