[dvd-discuss] Re: Senator Brownback: "Let's Make A Deal"

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson(at)realmeasures.dyndns.org>]

This is a great development.  But it's not a deal.

No "broadcast flag."  It's wrong.

It's about having a fully-functional computer.  It's about freedom,
fundamental rights.  It's not about granting broad "rights" to static
"content" while taking away our rights to flexible information technology. 
It's not about definitively obliterating key principles in exclusive rights
jurisprudence which guard our ability to innovate, no less than our rights
as free citizens.  It's not about the interests of old world industries who
seek to preserve their market in access to privileged yet outmoded modes of
production and distribution.

How sweet it is!

All of the things Brownback lists for being written into this Bill, are
things we can already see near to being achieved via political means.  They
are already live issues that are being pressed independently in a way that
is finally at the level of having real political purchase.

Looks like we've got Hollywood running.  What a deal the guy's offering!

What we see now is that Hollywood now sees that the writing is on the wall
for most of these issues, most especially after the profound testimony that
the Copyright Office recently elicited in their transcoastal DMCA Exemptions
Hearings.  That, plus the the frenzy over the FCC's media consolidation
decision yesterday -- which means that the FCC *might* *just* *have* *to*
take the 6,150 public comments they received on the broadcast flag proposal
seriously, which nearly to a one were adamantly opposed to it.

But no, we don't want no "broadcast flag."

Give it up, it's wrong.

Don't mix all that other cool stuff in there.  We'll deal with that, too. 
Thank you very much.

Seth

> Drew Clark reports in the June 3rd Technology Daily that Senator Sam
> Brownback is preparing to introduce legislation that would:
> 
> --Bar any Federal mandate for copy-control technology.
> --Effectively reverse the District Court decision regarding the scope of the
> Section 512(h) subpoena power to compel the disclosure of ISP subscriber
> identity, as delivered in the RIAA v Verizon case.
> --Require clear and conspicuous consumer disclosures on all copy-controled
> CDs and other DRMed products.
> --Affirm that the first sale doctrine applies to digital media.
> --Require the FTC to study and report to Congress as to whether DRM
> technologies impede lawful uses of digital media.
> 
> The bill would authorize the FCC to mandate a "broadcast flag" for
> over-the-air digital TV transmissions -- but only if it preserved reasonable
> consumer, educational, and library rights; was based on objective standards
> rather than requirements to use a particular copy control technology; and
> permitted manufacturers to self-certify compliance.

-- 

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

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