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Activists want to repeal DMCA, but Washington, DC still

------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 10:28:49 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com Subject: Activists want to repeal DMCA, but Washington, DC still loves it

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45522,00.html

Congress No Haven for Hackers By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)

2:00 a.m. July 25, 2001 PDT

WASHINGTON -- Even as the world's geeks march against the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, key legislators and lobbyists are dismissing concerns about the controversial law as hyperbole.

The law that led to the arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov last week and an immediate outcry among programmers continues to enjoy remarkably broad support on Capitol Hill. No bill has yet been introduced in Congress to amend the DMCA for one simple reason: Official Washington loves the law precisely as much as hackers and programmers despise it.

"The law is performing the way we hoped," said Rep. Howard Coble (R-North Carolina), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property.

The FBI arrested Sklyarov last week in Las Vegas for allegedly "trafficking" in software that circumvents the copy protection techniques that Adobe uses in its e-book format. Under the DMCA, selling such software is a federal felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $500,000.

"As far as I know there have been very few complaints from intellectual property holders," Coble, the chief sponsor of the DMCA, said in an interview Tuesday. "I am also encouraged by the Department of Justice's actions in this matter to enforce the law."

When Congress approved the DMCA in October 1998 after about a year's worth of little-noticed debate and negotiations, it was hardly a controversial bill. The Senate agreed to it unanimously, and a unanimous House approved it by voice vote, then bypassed a procedural step that would have delayed the DMCA's enactment.

Since the House procedure says attempts to rewrite copyright law must start in Coble's subcommittee, the odds of a DMCA rewrite in Congress' lower chamber seem remote.

Coble's counterpart in the Senate, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, feels the same way.

"We need to protect copyrights and this law was designed to do that," said Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on technology. "She's not looking to change it."

[...]

But in the world of Washington politics, geektivists are woefully outnumbered by the natives who populate and influence confirmation hearings: Corporate, nonprofit and trade association lobbyists.

"We believe that a careful effort was made by Congress to balance the rights of intellectual property owners and the rights of intellectual property consumers," says Allan Adler, vice president at the Association of American Publishers, which applauded Sklyarov's arrest last week.

[...]

The Free-Dmitry movement argues that programmers should not be prosecuted for creating software that can circumvent copyright protection -- since such tools have many legitimate uses, such as reading an e-book on another computer, as well.

But DMCA aficionados say there are precedents for broad prohibitions on selling devices that can have both legitimate and illegitimate uses.

Current federal law makes it a felony to own, distribute or advertise for sale bugging or wiretapping devices that are "primary useful for the purpose of surreptitious interception of wire, oral or electronic communications." That applies even to parents who might want to monitor what their young children are doing, or to other commonplace uses.

You're also not allowed to possess hardware or software such as cell phone cloning devices that let you "obtain telecommunications service without authorization" -- even if your motives are pure.

[...]

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