Activists want to repeal DMCA, but Washington, DC still loves it

Declan McCullagh declan at well.com
Wed Jul 25 10:28:49 EDT 2001





http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45522,00.html

   Congress No Haven for Hackers
   By Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
   
   2:00 a.m. July 25, 2001 PDT
   
   WASHINGTON -- Even as the world's geeks march against the Digital
   Millennium Copyright Act, key legislators and lobbyists are dismissing
   concerns about the controversial law as hyperbole.
   
   The law that led to the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov
   last week and an immediate outcry among programmers continues to enjoy
   remarkably broad support on Capitol Hill. No bill has yet been
   introduced in Congress to amend the DMCA for one simple reason:
   Official Washington loves the law precisely as much as hackers and
   programmers despise it.
      
   "The law is performing the way we hoped," said Rep. Howard Coble
   (R-North Carolina), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on
   intellectual property.
   
   The FBI arrested Sklyarov last week in Las Vegas for allegedly
   "trafficking" in software that circumvents the copy protection
   techniques that Adobe uses in its e-book format. Under the DMCA,
   selling such software is a federal felony punishable by up to five
   years in prison and a fine of $500,000.
   
   "As far as I know there have been very few complaints from
   intellectual property holders," Coble, the chief sponsor of the DMCA,
   said in an interview Tuesday. "I am also encouraged by the Department
   of Justice's actions in this matter to enforce the law."
   
   When Congress approved the DMCA in October 1998 after about a year's
   worth of little-noticed debate and negotiations, it was hardly a
   controversial bill. The Senate agreed to it unanimously, and a
   unanimous House approved it by voice vote, then bypassed a procedural
   step that would have delayed the DMCA's enactment.
   
   Since the House procedure says attempts to rewrite copyright law must
   start in Coble's subcommittee, the odds of a DMCA rewrite in Congress'
   lower chamber seem remote.
   
   Coble's counterpart in the Senate, California Democrat Dianne
   Feinstein, feels the same way.
   
   "We need to protect copyrights and this law was designed to do that,"
   said Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Feinstein, who chairs the Senate
   Judiciary subcommittee on technology. "She's not looking to change
   it."

   [...]
   
   But in the world of Washington politics, geektivists are woefully
   outnumbered by the natives who populate and influence confirmation
   hearings: Corporate, nonprofit and trade association lobbyists.
   
   "We believe that a careful effort was made by Congress to balance the
   rights of intellectual property owners and the rights of intellectual
   property consumers," says Allan Adler, vice president at the
   Association of American Publishers, which applauded Sklyarov's arrest
   last week.

   [...]
   
   The Free-Dmitry movement argues that programmers should not be
   prosecuted for creating software that can circumvent copyright
   protection -- since such tools have many legitimate uses, such as
   reading an e-book on another computer, as well.
   
   But DMCA aficionados say there are precedents for broad prohibitions
   on selling devices that can have both legitimate and illegitimate
   uses.
   
   Current federal law makes it a felony to own, distribute or advertise
   for sale bugging or wiretapping devices that are "primary useful for
   the purpose of surreptitious interception of wire, oral or electronic
   communications." That applies even to parents who might want to
   monitor what their young children are doing, or to other commonplace
   uses.
   
   You're also not allowed to possess hardware or software such as cell
   phone cloning devices that let you "obtain telecommunications service
   without authorization" -- even if your motives are pure.

   [...]




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