Posted by nu-monet v8.0 on 04/24/06 14:38

Modemac wrote:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/zl3ox
>
> This law expands the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's
> provisions that prohibit software used to bypass copy
> protection. The new law makes it illegal to "make,
> import, export, obtain control of, or possess" any
> procedures used to get around copyright proteciton...


They are trying a scattershot approach of continually introducing
legislation with the idea that if something, anything, gets through,
they win big time.

And they're right. That's a proven technique. The only counter
is to introduce counter-legislation to halt their offensive.

This is why I propose, and hope others will advocate, a change in
copyright law to make it more like, of all things, US mining law.

That is, in mining, about anyone can stake a claim anywhere, but
they must improve that claim and show a profit on an annual basis
or they lose their claim.

In the case of copyright law, this would mean that copyright
protection would only continue for a product that is sold in
retail public sale each and every year for a particular minimum
net profit.

This would mean that the vast libraries of copyrighted material
that the media industry owns, but just sits on, never marketing
but never allowing it to be marketed by anyone else, would become
public domain, unless they could sell it, each and every year.

This goes to the very heart of copyright--the granting of a
temporary monopoly to encourage new products, but for a limited
time, to help stimulate business.

This proposed law is very fair. It just prevents businesses who
*don't* want to sell a product from inhibiting other businesses
who *do* want to sell that product.

Of course such a law would cause an utter panic in the media
industry, and they would divert all kinds of resources to stop
of from ever happening. But by forcing them into the defense,
perhaps it would make them less able to attack everybody else's
freedoms.

--
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http://slackoff.blogspot.com/
***********
"Experience has taught the FBI that there are
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