The Future End of Classic Computing

From: Doc <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
Date: Tue Apr 2 01:19:21 2002

On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, Wayne M. Smith wrote:

> > The Digital Millenium Copyright Act was no less ridiculous, and is now
> > Federal law. In the many times that law has been invoked, not one case
> > has involved the mass distribution pirates its proponents claimed to
> > target.
>
> Wrong. 4500+ copies is "mass distribution."
>
> http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/03/29/video-bootleg.htm

  Cool. I missed hearing about that.

> In any event, the DMCA was intended to address not only those who distribute copies, but those who provide "circumvention devices"
> that enable others to engage in mass distribution. Doesn't it make as much sense to go after those involved in "mass distribution"
> of the circumvention device, such as DeCSS?

  DeCSS was a huge red herring. It was originally developed to _watch_
DVD movies, not _copy_ them. The DMCA proponents raised bloody hell
about people downloading full-length DVDs to their computers and wathing
them free. Get a grip. At the time - 1998 - the price of disk storage
was more than a legal DVD, and unless you had a seriously wicked box,
the quality sucked. Besides, even at cable-modem speeds, it takes a
minute or three to download 5-1/2 _gigabytes_ of movie.

  I'm not a proponent of piracy. I do think that mass distribution
should be a criminal offense. But we already have laws for that. DMCA,
UCITA, and this new abortion all go way too far.

        Doc
Received on Tue Apr 02 2002 - 01:19:21 BST

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