[Infowarrior] - EFF: 10 years of DMCA (Report)

[Richard Forno]

October 27th, 2008

EFF Marks 10th Anniversary of DMCA with Report on Law's Unintended  
Consequences
Ten-Year Legacy of Harm to Fair Use, Free Speech

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/10/27

San Francisco - Ten years ago Tuesday, the Digital Millennium  
Copyright Act (DMCA) was signed into law. In a report released to mark  
the anniversary, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) documents  
the ways in which this controversial law has harmed fair use, free  
speech, scientific research, and legitimate competition.

"Unintended Consequences: Ten Years Under the DMCA" focuses on the  
most notorious aspect of the law: its ban on "circumventing" digital  
rights management (DRM) and "other technical protection measures."  
Instead of protecting against copyright infringement, this ban has  
routinely been used to stymie consumers, scientists, and small  
businesses. "Unintended Consequences" collects reports of the law's  
most egregious abuses over the last decade. In 2003, for example,  
Lexmark used the DMCA to block distribution of chips that allow the  
refilling of laser toner cartridges. In 2006, computer security  
researchers at Princeton delayed disclosure of a dangerous hidden  
program in some Sony CDs based on fears of DMCA liability. Meanwhile,  
the DMCA has not prevented digital piracy. DRM systems are  
consistently and routinely broken almost immediately upon their  
introduction.

"Over the last ten years, the DMCA has done far more harm to fair use,  
free speech, scientific research, and competition than it has to  
digital piracy. Measured from the perspective of the public, it's been  
a decade of costs, with no benefits," said EFF Senior Intellectual  
Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann. "The music industry has given up  
on DRM, and Hollywood now relies on DRM principally to stop innovation  
that it doesn't like. It's time for Congress to consider giving up on  
this failed experiment to back up DRM systems with misguided laws."

For "Unintended Consequences: Ten Years Under the DMCA":
http://www.eff.org/wp/unintended-consequences-ten-years-under-dmca

For more on the DMCA:
http://www.eff.org/issues/dmca

Contact:

Fred von Lohmann
Senior Intellectual Property Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
fred at eff.org