Our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently filed a lawsuit challenging Section 1201 of the US's Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which provides legal reinforcement to the technical shackles of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). Defective by Design applauds this lawsuit and agrees with the EFF that Section 1201 violates the right to freedom of speech. We hope that excising Section 1201 from US law can be the beginning of the end for DRM.
DRM is regularly cracked, or "circumvented," by skilled technologists. Many of them make tools to automate the process, which, in the hands of the public, can be used to defang DRM on a mass scale. Frustrated by this challenge to their authority, the media lobby and their friends in government created anti-circumvention laws like Section 1201 and others around the world, to make it illegal to circumvent DRM or share tools for circumventing it. Since the 90s, these laws have propped up DRM. Hopefully, when 1201 is gone, circumvention tools will spread more widely and it will be so difficult to restrict users with DRM that companies will just stop trying. To make this a reality of course, others around the world will have to take up the torch from EFF and eliminate anti-circumvention laws that play the role of 1201 in their own countries.
It's certainly easier to implement bad security and make it illegal for anyone to notice than it is to implement good security.
Bruce Schneier
Copyright © 2006—2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 license (or later version) — Why this license?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:48AM
DMCA is bad. We all knows it!
Feels so goooood to agree with the groupstink.......yeeeeeaaaah!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:07AM
I'm looking forward to TISA [personalliberty.com]. That'll fix up any holes that are caused by this lawsuit if TPP or TTIP don't. Once those three are in place, Disney will have a protocol to sue the US in a secret corporate court and force it to add a DRM amendment to the constitution that also clarifies "limited times" as meaning indefinitely.
It's so hard being hipsters like us, constantly bucking the trend and sucking the cocks of our corporate masters. Oh, that makes me hot and bothered just thinking about it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:01AM
As bad as the conspiracy theories about treaties are, I really wish people would stop spreading the FUD that they somehow override the Constitution. The Constitution is very clear as to what preempts what, and is even more clear on how the Constitution is to be amended.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jelizondo on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:02AM
You can wave most of your constitutional rights by entering a contact with another party. For example, your right to free speech is curtailed by a non-disclosure agreement, into which you entered freely.
Contracts and agreements can be made by any parties, be they persons, corporations or States.
Once a number of States enter into an international agreement, their local laws, including their Constitutions, are no longer relevant. Only the letter of the agreement counts.
The trouble with TPP and TTIP, is that they provide for arbitration by international bodies, composed of corporate lawyers, and their judgments can not be appealed.
In this context, the Constitution and the normal law creation process goes down the drain and so does every right we hold dear, because the State has surrendered its sovereignty by freely entering into this contract with other States.
It is not FUD. It is fact based on international law. And yes, I’m a lawyer. (Also an engineer, but the lawyer bit applies here.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @07:58AM
Once a number of States enter into an international agreement, their local laws, including their Constitutions, are no longer relevant. Only the letter of the agreement counts.
The US Constitution is the highest law of the land in the US. It can't be overridden by treaties, and can be changed by constitutional amendments. The government can't "agree" to violate the Constitution if the Constitution does not give it such a power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:05PM
Not anymore. These trade agreement blow it away.
Bend over.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:16AM
This is one of those funny moments where you both are absolutely right. So how exactly do we accommodate both viewpoints? Of course the old way as we always do. It's the golden rule, whoever has the gold makes to rules. So big superpower does what it likes (because 'constitution') and the rest of us do what we're told (bacause international agreements)... A Smith&Wesson always beats four aces, always has always will.
I think US attitudes will change as China becomes more and more powerful (ironically enough mostly thanks to US actions) towards superpowers being allowed free reign. But then it might be too late. And as much as I hate US, I have little hope the Chinese era will be more civilized and humane...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:14PM
No, that is not even close to correct. The only reason that treaties have any power at all is because the Constitution says they do. Or, as stated in Reid:
No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or any other branch of government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution. Article VI, the Supremacy clause of the Constitution declares, "This Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all the Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land...’ [...] There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification which even suggest such a result.... It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights – let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition – to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power UNDER an international agreement, without observing constitutional prohibitions. (See: Elliot’s Debates 1836 ed. – pgs 500-519). In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and Senate combined.
But, before I waste any more effort on correcting someone wrong on the internet, do you think that, as a matter of legality, if the TPP or any other treaty made slavery legal that the US would be required to make slavery legal?
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:29PM
Once a number of States enter into an international agreement, their local laws, including their Constitutions, are no longer relevant.
Can you point out where the Constitution gives the power to the states to cancel the Constitution?
Wouldn't this effectively be the (yet another) root password to the Constitution? Texas and Saudi Arabia could enter into an agreement that yes, we can kick the shit out of our citizens and there's nothing anybody can do about it.
I'm not arguing it isn't there. I am asking for you to share your expertise.
Thanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @05:34PM
Expertise that isn't there my friend. Just because someone is a lawyer, doesn't mean they know anything about a certain area of law. Just like being a programmer doesn't mean you know anything about a particular language.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jelizondo on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:29PM
Indeed, the Constitution provides a mechanism, namely Art. VI [cornell.edu], second paragraph:
So you see, treaties made under the authority of the U.S. (by the Executive Branch, i.e., the POTUS) shall be the supreme law of the land, therefore, such treaties need to be ratified by the Legislative Branch to become binding.
The problem is that a facilty (fast track) to sign and ratify commerce treaties is being used to impose a new law order on the U.S. (and all other signatory countries) without Congress or the Senate being able to really review what the hell they are ratifying. Such an extensive treaty, with significant impact on the body of law, needs to be reviewed by Congress and the public, not be a closely guarded secret.
Being a secret treaty, the only rational action is to oppose it.
Background info
In the Montijo Award, the arbitrator stated that 'a treaty is superior to the constitution, which latter must give way. The legislation of the republic must be adapted to the treaty, not the treaty to the laws.' [Case of the 'Montijo': Agreement between the United States and Colombia of August 17, 1874, award of 26 July 1875, in John Bassett Moore, History and Digest of International Arbitrations to which the United States has been a Party (Government Printing Office Washington 1898) vol 2, 1421, 1440. (1875)]
The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) found that 'a state cannot adduce as against another state its own Constitution with a view to evading obligations incumbent upon it under international law or treaties in force.' [PCIJ, Treatment of Polish Nationals and other Persons of Polish Origin or Speech in the Danzig Territory, Series A/B, no 44 (1932), 24 ]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:47PM
So you are citing arbitors and courts outside the US for what the US law is? Even though the US has ignored treaties that violated the Constitution and has specific case law firm the US Supreme Court. But that doesn't mean that the US gets away with no consequences for violating a treaty. But maybe you became an engineer to avoid having nuance in your life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:52PM
You know you are citing language about how they preempt state law and ignored the post that showed how the Supreme Court interprets it in relation to the rest of the Constitution.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Saturday August 20 2016, @11:49PM
1.
This Constitution
2.
and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof
3.
and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land;
Interesting. Thank you. (I've read the Constitution but I don't have every clause memorized.)
So there are potentially three sources of supreme law here.
But #2 says "in pursuance thereof" which would seem to say that laws NOT made "in pursuance thereof" are not superior or even equal to the Constitution. As I would expect. Thus the Constitution still retains supremacy over other laws.
For #3 it says "under the authority of the United States". Now where exactly does the United States get authority to do anything? From the Constitution, no? So while not quite so clear, this would still seem to assert Constitutional supremacy.
I don't give a rats ass what various courts have ruled. They are obviously corrupting the original language, which, as already cited, is superior -- even to their rulings, because the Constitution established the judiciary in the first place!
Again, if we were to accept that an agreement between states can overrule the Constitution, doesn't that pretty much let lawmakers out of the fence the Constitution was written to create? In other words, any law is fine, as long as you can get your buddy in some other country to agree he wants to rape his citizens too. That doesn't seem credible as original intent.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Sunday August 21 2016, @01:02AM
Bingo!
The powers-that-be have found ways to do whatever they want to make a profit and to hell with me, you and everyone else.
Don't believe it? How come Gitmo was created? How come we have torture by government agents? How come now it is harder and harder to use copyrighted material in what used to be called "fair use"? They don't give a rats ass, as you say, but their saying it is stronger because they have power.
The language of the Constitution can be interpreted to mean the Constitution, the laws and the treaties are at the same level but in practice, laws and treaties deal with matters on which the Constitution is silent, for example, how much taxes you have to pay on what (think "sin" taxes) or if you need a license to drive a car.
Now, most of the stuff is not contrary to the Constitution, for example, when under the TPP copyright terms are extended and service providers are obliged to "police" their users' content for copyright violations, there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids that from happening, however the normal process of law (introducing a bill, discussing it, passing it by Congress and Senate, signed by the President) is short-circuited and bam! you get a new law saying copyright terms are extended or that ISPs have to police content.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a good explanation [eff.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:03AM
Another AC told you about this [soylentnews.org] post. The fearmongering about treaties overriding the Constitution is just that: Fearmongering.
Now, most of the stuff is not contrary to the Constitution
Some of it might be on the federal level. The Constitution lists the powers that the federal government has, as well as few things it really can't do, and so if the Constitution does not give the federal government the power to do X, then it doesn't have the power to do X. Car licenses are state matters, for example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:20AM
They are objecting to a specific part of the DMCA, you kook.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:08AM
Duh! The idiots who say the DMCA is bad can't distinguish between the bad parts of the DMCA and the good parts of the DMCA. Wait. What am I saying? There aren't any good parts, because the DMCA is bad!! We all knows it!!!
(Score: 2) by mendax on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:53AM
Something was posted here on this subject a month or so ago. So, nothing here. Move along. Move along.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:55AM
Submitted by Zak Rogoff on August 17, 2016 - 9:20am
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:45AM
I think the bot screwed up attribution. The original page quoted Bruce Schneier, but it was not written by him.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday August 20 2016, @09:35AM
Apologies - the quotation and Bruce Schneier's name should have been linked together - it is a formatting problem. I have placed them both in a block quote to make this clear. JR
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @01:57AM
I never thought I'd find a powerful e-mail service with web-mail and free registration and use - until now.
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Now I wear a horsefucker.org t shirt along with a horsefucker.org hat and people know that I MEAN BUSINESS!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:00AM
how dare you!
this is the most thrilling experience ever!
i wear a diaper and i love to sit in my filth.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:46AM
Hahahahaahaa, you sick batard.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:04AM
When laws are considered to be unjust, they should be challenged. If a challenge fails, another challenge needs to be made.
The very concepts behind DRM are wrong. "Rights holders" presumes that no one has rights, except the author and/or the individual(s) who "hold" those rights. "Intellectual property" presumes that an idea can actually be owned, once it has been made known. The idea that it is somehow "wrong" to view some "intellectual property" without the author's express permission is preposterous. The concept of restricting portability is simply insane.
The music industry, for example, presumes to "license" a song to you, but if the media on which the song was "licensed" is broken, lost, or deteriorated, then the "license" expires?
My driver's license isn't restricted to one particular automobile. Or even on particular make or model of auto. In fact, I can drive anything that is legal to put on the highway. Portabilty.
It amazes me that people simply accept that content providers have some authority to restrict the rights of the general public.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday August 20 2016, @02:20AM
When laws are considered to be unjust, they should be challenged. If a challenge fails, another challenge needs to be made.
Also, people should not cheer the enforcement of unjust laws, and should treat those who enforce them like social pariahs.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:45AM
And remember those who voted it in [senate.gov]when in the voting booth. Do you remember any of these heads erupting the words "I'll fight for you!"? Well, their head said one thing, their pen did something else.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:52AM
House passed it on a voice-vote? [straightdope.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MrGuy on Saturday August 20 2016, @03:08AM
I'm not a fan of DRM at all. And I'm very much a fan of the EFF.
That said, their challenge here seems incredibly weak, and feels like a challenge to copyright in general as opposed to just DRM enforcement. Which, OK, if you're against copyright on principle, power to ya, but copyright has never been held to be unconstitutional per se, and I don't see a unique argument here.
Here's their example, as I understand it. A broadcaster (who presumably has copyright on the content) streams some content protected with DRM. The plaintiff wants to make it possible to "mix" that content in real time with other content (for example, with a live twitter comment stream), but is prevented because of the DRM. He (and the EFF) claim this is a violation to his right to free speech.
This isn't an argument about the technology. This is an argument that the plaintiff should have the right to do whatever they want with the broadcaster's copyrighted stream on free speech grounds. That's pretty much a straight-up argument that copyright should be illegal. Because one of the rights granted to a copyrightholder is the right to decide where and how to make their content available. It's not different from arguing major league baseball's prohibition on rebroadcast/retransmission should be illegal because my first amendment right to free speech trumps the content owner's right to decide what can be done with the owner's content.
That's an argument that is only tangentially related to DRM, and has a mountain of precedent to climb.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Saturday August 20 2016, @04:32AM
I think you may have misunderstood. I believe the argument is that the plaintiff made a tool that can strip DRM from his videos, (lets say so he can transcode them into a format to play on his phone). He then wants to tell people how he did it, and share the tool so that others can do the same thing. In neither case is he looking to share anyone else's content - just the results of his own work. But, under the current law, sharing such information is illegal since it circumvents a DRM system.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hendrikboom on Saturday August 20 2016, @12:06PM
The trouble is that DRM can prevent copying that is explicitly permitted by copyright law.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 20 2016, @06:51PM
The one with the most money wins, and the EFF is not it.