Tue, 27 Aug 2002
Berman-Coble HR 5211
In an article in the News and Record linked from an article on scripting news, I read Howard Coble's remarks on Ed Cone's condemnation of the entertainment industry's beloved HR 5211: "It only allows a copyright owner to look at files that a peer-to-peer user makes publicly available to millions of other network users. Moreover, copyright owners can only disable the distribution of infringing files. A copyright owner is not permitted to alter the original file itself."
Copyright owners can only disable the distribution of infringing files? There's only one problem Howard. How are copyright owner's expected to "only disable the distribution of infringing files" without violating the rights of the device owner? You seem to be such an expert on law and technology. Why don't you tell us? Could it be that perhaps there's no solution that won't infringe on the rights of the device owner? I think so.
Howard goes on, "The bill explicitly provides network users with legal redress against any copyright owner who acts beyond the scope of what is permitted by the legislation."
Beyond the scope of what is permitted by the legislation? What is permitted by the legislation certainly looks like a violation of my rights. I need some help on the legal research side. I'm no attorney, but when I was a card carrying member of the National Motorists Association, I recall seeing a precedent-setting court case in which a judge declared something to the effect of, "Americans have a right to know when they are being surveyed." Further, I recall that having an effect on radar detector cases at the time or perphaps it was detector detector cases. If I'm remembering this correctly and indeed there is some basis for this in law, wouldn't that defense against this bill make sense?
If you walk into my living room unannounced at 2AM, it's likely that a shotgun will leave a gaping hole in your chest. In a similar fashion, if you go digging around my network unannounced, it's likely that I'll take all manner of redress against you at the point of entry, and very little of that redress is likely to be legal. If Hollywood thinks it's got problems now, wait till HR 5211 inspires hardworking tax payers like me to start reading 2600 and listening to Rage Against the Machine. Hollywood should think long and hard before it picks a fight in the schoolyard of the technologists. I, for one, am betting on the technologists.
Posted at: 08:41 | permalink
