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A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

fixthedmca.org

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Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#61

Post by scott_karana »

sachinag wrote: post #19
rosser wrote: post #4

If you want this to pass, don't sign the petition, and don't email or write your congresscritter. Call them . Interact with a human being in their office. Anecdotally, that has a much greater impact. (Source: my cousin and his wife were congressional staffers for several years.)

The reason this is, BTW, is that calling isn't scalable. Any idiot can fire off emails or print petitions or print and mail letters (albeit with a budget). Fielding calls is a huge pain in the ass and can be linked - via area code+prefix, among others - to a specific district.

Isn't calling slightly scalable, now that we have Twilio? ;)

Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#62

Post by wtallis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #56
wtallis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DMCA takedown procedure still gives too much power to the accuser, without sufficient penalties for improper notices. Since it implements a "guilty until proven innocent" system, there needs to be strong deterrent for false notices. Things especially need to be clarified for the case of computer-generated takedown notices - there needs to be a real person who is at real risk of disbarment or perjury charges when…

> The DMCA takedown procedure still gives too much power to the accuser, without sufficient penalties for improper notices. Since it implements a "guilty until proven innocent" system The takedown procedure is not, stricly speaking, "a guilty until proven innocent" system. Its a system that provides immunity from liability for illegally distributing copyright protected content provided that it was originally submitte…

The takedown procedure as it currently exists enables a third party to exercise power just shy of an injunction to take your website offline, without having to present any evidence or appear in court. Yes, your hosting provider has the theoretical option of assuming a ton of risk by not taking down the content, but they're basically being blackmailed by your accuser. And all this applies even if your website is completely innocent except for having some similar keywords to an infringement. And if you fight back by issuing a counter-notice, you're held to a higher standard than your accuser.

It's absolutely a "shoot-first, ask questions later" system that is strongly biased in favor of the accuser. It's okay to provide a quick way to take down infringing content, but it has to come with strong penalties and reparations for cases where the accuser abuses the power.

I'm not at all arguing in favor of eliminating the safe-harbor provisions - I just want the penalties for a false notice to be at least as harsh as the penalties for a false counter-notice.

Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#64

Post by lawnchair_larry »

scott_meade wrote: post #5

If someone has information that they only want certain people to see, would circumventing a technological measure that controls access to that information be allowed under this bill? For example, internal documents, trade secrets and documents under NDAs? If someone has information they only want licensed people to see, would circumventing a technological measure that controls access to that information be allowed un…

Why would circumventing document DRM be illegal? Nothing good can come of that.

If it's already illegal to have the document, that is the crime. Aggravators like these create perverse incentives and invite abuse.

Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#66

Post by lawnchair_larry »

scott_meade wrote: post #23
scott_meade wrote: post #5

If someone has information that they only want certain people to see, would circumventing a technological measure that controls access to that information be allowed under this bill? For example, internal documents, trade secrets and documents under NDAs? If someone has information they only want licensed people to see, would circumventing a technological measure that controls access to that information be allowed un…

What I really should have asked: Does the provision that allows you to "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to works" allow you to circumvent network and data center security measures? I'd expect not, but I don't see where the bill draws a line between devices (phones, game consoles, dvds) and other types of information stores.

The line isn't between devices and other types of information stores, it's between something that is your own property and something that isn't.

The DMCA wouldn't make it legal for me to unlock your phone without your permission, only mine.

Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#67

Post by yew »

dragonwriter wrote: post #60
yew wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that liability is in practice equivalent to a large monetary penalty because of the ease of rapid and continuous litigation. So in practice the DMCA takedown procedure provides a method of immediately (and sometimes permanently) removing content (not necessarily infringing) from any major provider. As an example, the method of removing allegedly infringing content from YouTube is not a DMCA takedown but…

> So in practice the DMCA takedown procedure provides a method of immediately (and often permanently) removing content (not necessarily infringing) from any major provider. I don't think the DMCA takedown procedure is much involved. The actual problem that causes that is the resource imbalance between content owners and individual users. Without the DMCA takedown procedure and its associated liability shields, instea…

The DMCA takedown procedure (including that safe-harbor provision) provides a special incentive towards compliance with 'content owners' (who may or may not actually own the content in question), apart from but dependent on litigation.

The situation before the DMCA was preferable because it involved only the general legal system rather than a badly-designed special case.

It's not merely the result of a resource imbalance but of a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of content ownership - the set of 'content owners' recognized in practice by the DMCA is not the entire set of owners of content.

Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#68

Post by randall »

awj wrote: post #50
sinak wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, a budget ... what I would give to have one of those :). More seriously though, I have definite plans to build a click-to-call tool in the next couple of weeks, but this news was sprung on my late yesterday, leading to a mad rush to get that page ready in time for this morning. Next time there's an action like this for FixtheDMCA, there'll definitely be a way to call. And if I build it I'll almost certainly open s…

> More seriously though, I have definite plans to build a click-to-call tool in the next couple of weeks I'm not sure how you do this on Android, but for the iPhone it couldn't be much simpler[1]. Also, most mobile devices will detect and enable any phone number they find on the page, so just putting it there and easy to find is often enough. [1] http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPh...

I think they meant to allow click to call from any device, ala Twilio.

Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#69

Post by mindcrime »

timdorr wrote: post #24
rosser wrote: post #4

If you want this to pass, don't sign the petition, and don't email or write your congresscritter. Call them . Interact with a human being in their office. Anecdotally, that has a much greater impact. (Source: my cousin and his wife were congressional staffers for several years.)

Is there a website where we can easily find our rep's phone number?

For the House of Representatives:

    http://house.gov/htbin/findrep?ZIP=$YOUR_ZIP_HERE
For the Senate:

    http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=$YOUR_STATE_TWO_LETTER_ABBREVIATION_HERE
Click through to your representative's page and you will find contact info there. Most House and Senate reps will have multiple phone numbers, a DC number and at least one number for a local office. Senators will often have 3 or 4 (or more) offices throughout their state, each with a separate number.

Note that a lot of these folks have a "request a meeting" thing were you can request a face to face meeting. IF you can actually land one, that's probably the most powerful way of interacting with them. But, while I haven't ever tried myself (hangs head in shame) I am guessing you have to be "somebody" or be fairly lucky, to actually get a meeting.

Re: A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA

#70

Post by toomuchtodo »

awj wrote: post #50
sinak wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, a budget ... what I would give to have one of those :). More seriously though, I have definite plans to build a click-to-call tool in the next couple of weeks, but this news was sprung on my late yesterday, leading to a mad rush to get that page ready in time for this morning. Next time there's an action like this for FixtheDMCA, there'll definitely be a way to call. And if I build it I'll almost certainly open s…

> More seriously though, I have definite plans to build a click-to-call tool in the next couple of weeks I'm not sure how you do this on Android, but for the iPhone it couldn't be much simpler[1]. Also, most mobile devices will detect and enable any phone number they find on the page, so just putting it there and easy to find is often enough. [1] http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#featuredarticles/iPh...

I wonder how much demand there is in the tech community for both an iOS and Android app that receives push notifications that drop you right into the UX to make the call when a campaign of calls is necessary due to pending legislation.
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