[FYI] (Fwd) FC: CBDTPA bans everything from two-line BASIC programs to PCs

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Mon, 25 Mar 2002 23:00:02 -0500
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: CBDTPA bans everything from two-line BASIC programs to PCs
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com

Just in case folks haven't figured out how sweeping the
Hollings-Feinstein bill, aka CBDTPA is, well, keep reading.

The CBDTPA says that if I were to write and sell this BASIC program...

10 INPUT A$
20 PRINT A$

...after the regulations take effect, I would be guilty of a federal
felony. That's up to five years in prison and up to a $500,000 fine.
Distributing my two-line application without charging for it, either
via handing out floppies or by posting it on a website would be at
least a civil offense and, depending on the circumstances, a crime as
well.

It's no joke. CBDTPA regulates "any hardware or software that
reproduces copyrighted works in digital form." My program above does
that, especially if my BASIC interpreter permits arbitrarily long
strings.

The business end of the CBDTPA says that "a manufacturer, importer, or
seller" of such software cannot "sell, or offer for sale, in
interstate commerce, or cause to be transported in, or in a manner
affecting, interstate commerce" their code unless it "includes and
utilizes standard security technologies that adhere to the security
system standards adopted under section 3."

The FCC gets to invent those. But I can't see how my two-line program
is going to incorporate such standards. If I'm using C, must I
"#include <sys/copycheck.h>?" In Perl, will I "use Parse::DRMVerify?"
If so, who at the FCC will ensure that these modules are available for
the languages I'm using? (It is true that folks at the FCC are smarter
than the folks in Congress, though that is not saying much. FCC staff
will try to make the standards workable. But the CBDTPA gives them --
and the public -- precious little wiggle room.)

By design, programming languages are terribly flexible. The only way
to prevent software from removing do-not-copy bits from digital
content would be for Congress to ban the programmable PC. And replace
it, perhaps, with WebTV television-top boxes.

In case you're curious, the felony penalties kick in when you try to
sell your post-ban BASIC program -- not to mention any commercial
software -- and perhaps even if you're a free software developer
hoping to gain reputation capital from your code.

They say that violators "shall be fined not more than $500,000 or
imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense;
and shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more
than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense."
(http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1204.html)

Yes, this is silly. No, it is probably (I hope) not what senators
Hollings and Feinstein and their colleagues intended. Yet it is what
the text of the bill says. And this is after the good senators had
seven months of correspodnence from computer scientists and industry
representatives worried about the scope of the legislation after it
was widely circulated in August 2001.

Don't believe me? Read it for yourself:

Text of CBDTPA:
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/

Politech archive on the CBDTPA:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cbdtpa

-Declan




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