Boing Boing: EFF explains the law on AACS keys
Fred von Lohmann, expert and attorney at law, lays down the law of the land in relation to the HD-DVD decryption key… and it’s disheartening:
This is the law of the land, and it stinks. If there was ever an example of why the DMCA needs to die, this is it. The idea that a sixteen-digit number is illegal to possess, to discuss in class, or to post on a news site is offensive to a country where free speech is the first order of the Constitution. The MPAA and RIAA are conspiring to unmake America, to turn this into a country where free expression, due process, and the rule of law take a back-seat to a perpetual set of governmental handouts intended to guarantee the long-term profitability of a small handful of corrupt companies.
I don’t mean to sound pessimistic — I got Fred to sound pessimistic for me. Anyway, to understand the finer legal points, read the linked article. Von Lohmann answers the following questions brilliantly:
- What is the AACS-LA’s argument?
- Who can sue over the posting of the key?
- What about just linking to a place where the key is posted?
- What about the DMCA safe harbors?
- Is the key copyrightable?
For ecuadorians like me, the situation is “just a little bit” harsher, since there’s no takedown procedure — local “intellectual property” law basically says spread a “technological protection circumvention device”, go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
May 7th, 2007 at 12:15
The country I served 12 years in the military for, that educated me and gave me a better life than my parents had, is no longer. Bush’s America is govt. by and for big money and corporate interests at the expense of that desperate and disappearing Middle Class. The one country in the world where everyone used to have a chance to succeed no longer exists as we knew it. First, they let the Chinese pay off politicians for special treatment, outsourced our jobs, exported our basic and strategic industries, opened our borders to a flood of cheap labor and refused to enforce any law that big business didn’t want (like overtime). Now they are devaluing our dollar until it is worthless while corporations keep their money overseas. Personal liberty no longer exists. Gestapo storm troopers can smash down your door, scan your phone calls with computers, and ship you off to Guantanamo Cuba for years without charges or legal recourse. It is time to start over from scratch. My America is long gone.
May 7th, 2007 at 20:46
It seems (at first sight) that there is no flagrant violation to the law. I recently read Digg’s TOS and it seems that they are entitled (as they indeed proved in your case) to do whatever they want without any particular reason - the final suspension of your account falls within that scope - and without asking anything at all. Is it worth y enough to keep on digging anymore?
May 7th, 2007 at 20:51
And what is more, FLPCGuy is right! for decades the US were the best example of a living, healthy democracy. Now it seems that the basic rights of the human beings are no longer so valuable as they were in the past. In the name of the New American Project - which by the way deals with the life of people as simple statistics - Bush UnGovernment has destroyed the confidence in the system that many people worked hard to build. Nowadays, it’s rather more important the growth of the lobbys and multinational firms than the clear, sharp respect for the rights and freedom.
May 10th, 2007 at 0:06
hahaha… “do not pass Go…” funny way to describe it.
anyway, as a law student, l would advise you to keep cool, it´s very unlikely that anyone would start a lawsuit against you, and in case they would, they would need a specific crime to claim on you, which they don´t, as our law is very soft and lacks specific “software crimes”.
May 10th, 2007 at 0:46
Crime would be trafficking in unauthorized devices with the purpose f defeating technological protections. I looked it up in ecuadorian law. It’s not soft at all.