SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 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.