Research and commentary on digital technologies in public life
I’ll be appearing (by phone) at tonight’s “Weblogs Information and Society” event at UC Berkeley. The event will be webcast. (See the link above for webcast info.)
Other participants include John Battelle, Dan Gillmor, Ross Mayfield, Ernest Miller, Scott Rosenberg, and Donna Wentworth.
Some assertions demand a detailed rebuttal, and others just speak for themselves.
A story by Louis Trager in today’s Washington Internet Daily quotes MPAA Vice President Vans Stevenson on their next revision of the Super-DMCA:
Anyone who opposed the bills must be “against shoplifting laws that would punish someone from stealing a movie at Blockbuster,” [Stevenson] said. The measure is a test of “whether you subscribe to the moral compass this country was founded on,” he said.
One of the mysteries surrounding the Super-DMCA is what its purpose might be. The arguments in favor of it are all vague, amounting to nothing more than “If you dislike piracy, you should support this bill.”
There are, of course, plenty of laws that already ban various types of “piracy.” There are laws against computer intrusions, laws against fraud, laws against eavesdropping on telecommunications, and laws against theft of cable TV and phone services. With all of these laws on the books, what illegitimate telecom behavior is left to ban?
Super-DMCA advocates have conspicuously failed to answer this question. They have failed to put forth any specific improper acts that would be banned by the Super-DMCA and are not already illegal. At the Massachusetts hearings last week, for example, the MPAA lobbyist who spoke could not give even one example of an illegitimate but otherwise-legal act that the bill would ban.
Also notable has been the silence of the law enforcement community. The Massachusetts hearing was attended by a representative of the state attorney general’s office, who had come to testify on behalf of a bill on another topic. This representative did not speak on behalf of the Super-DMCA. Why? Presumably because law enforcement already has the tools it needs to prosecute the bad guys.
More information is now available about the lawsuits filed by RIAA yesterday against college students. Findlaw has copies of the complaints in the four suits.
complaint vs. Jesse Jordan [RPI student]
complaint vs. Joseph Nievelt [Michigan Tech student]
complaint vs. Daniel Peng [Princeton student]
complaint vs. Aaron Sherman [RPI student]
Direct and contributory infringement are claimed in all four cases.
The MPAA has drawn up a significantly revised version of its model Super-DMCA language. Although it will take some time to analyze the new language, it’s clearly an important step in the right direction.
