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from the people-are-DMCA-circumvention-devices-too dept.
The US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits devices and software that can be used to circumvent digital restrictions, no matter how trivial the restrictions. A new slide deck from the US Department of Homeland Security (warning for PDF) states that the overall number of copyright-, patent-, trademark-related seizures increased by 8% last year. Though much of it was from traditional counterfeit goods, there were some hints at something more problematic regarding interpretation of the rules:
New data released by Homeland Security shows that U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized significantly more DMCA circumvention devices in 2017. The seizures, which includes mod chips for gaming consoles, increased 324% compared to the year before, although the actual number remains fairly low.
[...] What we did notice is that the International Intellectual Property [sic] Alliance (IIPA) recently framed streaming boxes as possible circumvention tools. The strong enforcement focus of rightsholders on these devices may have been communicated to border patrols as well.
Again, there is no word yet on what the border staff actually consider to be circumvention technologies.
From TorrentFreak : U.S. Border Seizures of DMCA Circumvention Devices Surges
and the Washington Examiner : US customs agencies seize $1.2B in counterfeit imports as illegal goods market continues to grow.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 10 2018, @11:38PM
Wilsonham had always loved children; their innocence, naivete, and playful nature were endearing to him. For that reason, he enjoyed spending time at the park. As Wilsonham sat on a bench, he spotted a group of five children; he decided to play with them.
The children and Wilsonham began playing a game; it was a very fun game indeed. The children shouted as the game went on, and the man was having lots of fun. After Wilsonham had played with the children for about an hour, he decided it was time to leave, so he bid his farewell and departed. What a fine day it was.
That night, five figures were found lying on the ground in the park, surrounded by clothing. Unmoving and silent, the figures slowly rotted away.
(Score: -1, Troll) by cocaine overdose on Saturday March 10 2018, @11:45PM (10 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @01:27AM (9 children)
Nice to see the alt-wrong strong at work. Is this EF's new troll account? Drug + aspect of transportation + racism?
(Score: 0, Troll) by cocaine overdose on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:36AM (8 children)
As to follow up on the third sentence, I make no claims that I'm a righteous and fair person. I am vehemently racist and misanthropic. I hope this makes it worse in your mind. And women, and animals, and children, and the french. They're all terrible. On another note, what does "aspect of transportation" mean? And overdose is not an aspect of anything, nor is it related to transporation, unless you want to lump it under the already stretching "route of administration," which in the case of drugs is more close to "method of administration," than route or path or whatever other word country bumpkins decided meant "how one thing gets to another place."
If you can, and if you have one, log into your account and give me a troll modifier (or whatever you like). There's nothing worse than being neutral, not even hated.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 11 2018, @03:43AM
XBox? XBOX?! Have you no shame? Have you, at long last, no shame?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:38AM (2 children)
EF is Ethanol-Fueled, great guy, one of the best on here. Or anywhere. And maybe I'll see him on Tuesday when I go to San Diego. To look at the prototypes for my beautiful Wall. And decide which ones move on to Round 2. #TrumpTV [twitter.com]
But Ethanol-Fueled doesn't use a typewriter to write his tweets. I love the ones that are written on the typewriter. We live in the age of computer, the age of digital. But it's so nice to see documents that are written the old way. And to see our young people doing that again. Not because it's easy. Because it's beautiful. And you type very well. Great job!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:21PM (1 child)
Sorry, man. Ain't gonna happen. Gotta work. Although even more disappointingly if I could stop by it would be an easy opportunity for a photo-op since there are not a lot of people within a 30-mile radius of Otay Mesa who would shake your hand and buy you a beer. As it so happens, I will be within that radius when you are around, but too busy to stop by and shoot the shit.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday March 11 2018, @11:31PM
Thank you for your support! I don't drink beer, but they say San Diego makes some of the best. Maybe I'll try the one without alcohol, it's fabulous for the health. According to all the scientists.
We have millions of new jobs since I took office. Very easy for me to win in 2020, right? WRONG! Because our working folks, so many of them, are busy on Tuesdays. That's why my predecessors loved Welfare. You put somebody on Welfare, that person has all day to vote for you. Looking very closely into what they do in Australia, they do their elections on Saturday. But our Constitution says Tuesday. Change it, or I'll proclaim a holiday!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:48AM (3 children)
Heh, no idea about EF but you already have a psychological workup of aristarchus? I sense a balloon filled not with hot air, oh no! This one is full of fermenting doody.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:44PM (2 children)
Cocaine overdose is the up-and-coming new professional troll in his rookie season. I've analyzed the writing style and see some overlap between 1 or few others, but then again that could just be the Schizophrenia talking.
He or she is off to a good start, but as I have suggested before, a real SN troll must stand on the shoulders of SN's literary giants -- they don't need to ape our style, just have enough of their own for a 1 or 2-pager.
He or she is off to a good start with some kind of technical credibility, even if it is bullshitted. I suspect the nihilism will be a problem when trying to make journal entries longer than a few sentences, and the component of sadism needs to stay cartoonized lest it risk the potential for dividing his or her existing fanbase.
But that's just, like, my opinion; man. And I'm one insignificant shit amongst many here.
(Score: 3, Informative) by cocaine overdose on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:34PM (1 child)
Melodrama aside, your words are good, old man. But you're old and you let your guard down. There's no room for a heart-to-heart in this business. The moment you take a break from standing post, the moment you sit down, those worms will force themselves between the armor joints and latch themselves onto your energy. All that work keeping frame, and you let it slip for some sentiment. Thank you, sifu, for sitting down. I will start by standing on your shoulders, as I make my way climbing the giants. That old fart that keeps going on about having his scribblings burned is next.
With the culture of your wisdom and the nitrogen of your corpse, springs forth a disgusting fungus.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday March 13 2018, @06:39PM
Heinlein convinced me I'm the only person in existence. Because sometimes all of you go away, but I'm always here.
Now that I think about it, that means Heinlein was fictional too. That's sad.
Then again, maybe I am too.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Justin Case on Saturday March 10 2018, @11:57PM (1 child)
My pencil can be used to circumvent DMCA! I just take notes on what the actors are saying while watching a movie on the totally-locked-down device I rent (never own).
Perhaps we should all gouge out our eyes and cut off our ears in submission to our overlords.
Or, you know, them first.
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Sunday March 11 2018, @12:04AM
You are a Thief! How dare you circumvent my switch with your pencil!
Oh, and please turn in your computer too. You are using it to read my precious copyrighted comment, which you have not yet paid a license for. I have not revealed the address to you and by looking it up in the list of comments you are circumventing my post's security by obscurity position encryption.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday March 11 2018, @12:08AM (4 children)
There are a number of copyrighted songs that I can sing from memory.
What's more there are numerous quotes from books, TV and movies that I can recite from memory.
What's more, I have *actual* copyrighted images in my brain too.
Is CBP issuing machetes to remove such circumvention devices at the border?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @12:34AM
They don't worry much about those things. Americans are lobotomized with social conditioning in grade school.
(Score: 3, Touché) by jmorris on Sunday March 11 2018, @01:19AM (2 children)
Oh don't worry, they would if they could.
Imagine the glorious future when we are uploaded hyperminds occupying vast tracts of computing hardware. Surrounded by even more vast machines that carefully trace chain of custody on every part of each thought we have and credit the mandated fees to the rights holders of each idea and copyrighted work we happen to think of. Copyright and patent of course being made eternal in a world where everyone is effectively immortal... and must pay and pay forever. Welcome to Hell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:56AM
Better copyright that storyline, some "AI" is gonna spew it out for a corporate bit.
(Score: 2) by Tara Li on Tuesday March 13 2018, @07:14PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFe9wiDfb0E [youtube.com] Welcome To The Singularity, Ruined By Lawyers.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @01:25AM (2 children)
All these pedantic comments, this is why nerds fail at politics.
A circumvention technology is whatever they say it is. Stop looking for reason and internal consistence where there is only Kafkaesque bureaucracy. This is how power operates.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:09PM (1 child)
Yes indeed, easy to focus on the trees and not see the forest. One tree of note is that Bernie Sanders had similar run ins with customs at the Canadian border, when he organized bus rides for seniors to Canada to get inexpensive prescription drugs at a time when the border patrol was seizing drugs, basically working on behalf of Big Pharma and not the American people.
Enforcers, no matter what branch, are prone to jack booted thuggery. The work attracts the kind of personality who aspires to be a brownshirt, loves harassing, inconveniencing, and humiliating their fellow persons. Give them the flimsiest of excuses, and they'll go nuts. If allowed, many would use torture, like at Abu Ghraib. It's a never ending problem to keep a tight leash on those impulses, and to design systems that very carefully limit the authority granted to the officials, so the power doesn't go to their heads and lead to abuse. A major feature of the infamous Stanford prison experiment was a lack of clear rules to limit the power of the people randomly assigned to positions of authority.
The part I wonder about is the extra judicial channel, the private line, that lets special interests dog-whistle in enforcers' ears. I would guess that points directly to senior officials taking not-a-bribe bribes, you know, the cushy industry jobs for their nephews kind of stuff. But how to reform the Border Patrol to vastly reduce if not entirely eliminate that kind of corruption? It's a real tough sell these days to suggest the Border Patrol needs more oversight, not with all this "build a wall" fever that's been stoked. Working the other end, that is, trying to show the industry that they're fools for trying to manipulate and bribe law enforcement and persuade them that they shouldn't do it, looks rather hopeless without the threat of prison to get their attention.
Another target is of course the DMCA itself. Yeah, lots of problems with intellectual property law. The DMCA is merely one piece of the puzzle. I often feel that nothing less than a Constitutional Amendment, to revoke the Copyright Clause, will ultimately resolve matters. And that strikes me as nearly impossible to accomplish. Maybe we can instead return IP law to a semblance of sanity by rolling back the extreme expansions and extensions that have built up, like with the 2014 Alice decision that really put the hurt on the whole idea of patenting software and business methods.
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Sunday March 11 2018, @04:48PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Corp._v._CLS_Bank_International [wikipedia.org]
Thank you for mentioning this important milestone and droplet of hope after decades of software patent insanity. I somehow missed it when it happened.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 11 2018, @01:32AM (3 children)
At this point, they're going to need to ban such nefarious devices as VHS camcorders, tape recorders, VCRs, and the human retina if they want to stop "DMCA circumvention."
Of all the cases that exemplify the fact that there is no technological solution to a moral problem, this one may be the foremost. Maybe the real issue here is that the concept of copyright itself has been horribly abused. How about we put it back to 14 years?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Sunday March 11 2018, @02:00AM
They already are. They don't use the word "ban" and it is not an absolute ban. Instead propaganda campaigns have taught people these "contain hazardous chemicals", "contain hazardous voltages", not to mention "old", "unfashionable", and so on. Do your American duty and "recycle", it's good for teh planet! And manufacturer's wallets!
I'm honestly surprised that thrift stores are permitted to re-sell them. Many areas already have rules against re-selling computers or certain kinds of computer equipment (such as those "dangerous" CRTs). Point is, it is not much of a stretch to see them extend such rules to other kinds of devices.
That said, I can happily record any program from my OTA TV box to good old VHS video tape and not have to worry much about DRM or copy protection (supposedly a flag can enable macrovision crap but I have never seen it). Of course, there is nothing worth recording any more anyway.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @03:05AM
The issue with copyright and patent enforcement is that they're immoral and unemphatic. Take theft of real property by comparison: A person doens't need a lecture on why stealing someone's food is wrong. But when a starving man steals a loaf of bread from a supermarket chain, no one will tag them as immoral. Similarly 99% of the population can't afford neither patent registration or copyright litigation. So, like the starving man, they don't feel beholden to respect a right not granted to them. Worse, on a social level patents delay progress while enriching the wealthy as they force those individuals to sell out to corporations that will then keep the innovation from hitting the market until their other patents expire. So, everything from medicine to energy efficient machinery, automotive and electronics is being delayed as society suffers and who benefits from this again? Oh that's right, no one I know or cares about.
So, the good people of Corp Inc. decided to spin this and show all those poor artists that won't get a paid since no one will buy their entertainment. The problem is this is just a lie. A few ultra-famous artists and performers will get hurt, that's for sure. But a huge majority of them will benefit immensely since they won't have to compete against studio recording for events as no one will record anything new. That is, all those weddings and parties will suddenly have live musicians and performers. The people doing television and comics will focus on weekly and monthly serializing instead of DVD / reprint sales like they already do many places. The high-art painters will still work like they always have: Thanks to the grace of rich patrons that want one-of-a-kind originals hang in their living rooms. That is, put it altogether and it's the same as before: Even for art, copyright mostly serves the elites at the expense of everyone else, from consumers to producers.
Overall, from intuition to moral arguments to economic models, when everything paints copyright and patents in a negative way, laws enforcing them can only do so much.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Sunday March 11 2018, @03:22AM
Not to mention various forms of poetry [cmu.edu].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday March 11 2018, @10:48PM
Just surge, not surges.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk