Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets • Hacker News Board

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#11

Post by seacond » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 12:46 AM UTC

I thought the exception for DVD ripping was interesting. There are many references to "video quality" as a persuasive factor. This point might be useful in further requests for exceptions sent the Register.^1 Strategy: Complain about low quality. Apparently, screen captures are "not good enough" but Blu-Ray is "too good".

Under the exception individuals are entitled to extract a small portion of the DVD for commentary, criticism or educational purposes. What if enough individuals independently choose unique excerpts, so that together they cover the entire motion picture? Sites could be set up to catalog which portions of a DVD have already been extracted and reviewed. Commentary might be something as simple as subtitles of the type vlc or mplayer can handle; these are nothing more than text files - removing subtitles is a matter of not loading the text file. Then one simply downloads all the clips and combines them into the full film using ffmpeg.

Implausible? What do you think?

1. Why are people not organising mass mailing campaigns to the Register to seek DMCA exceptions? Am I missing something here? It seems like she only receives a relatively small number of requests for exceptions considering the large audience of people affected by her decisions.

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#12

Post by jlgreco » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 12:59 AM UTC

mmanfrin wrote: post #3

daeken wrote: post #2

What I don't understand is: how does the DMCA apply here at all? The DMCA's anti-circumvention clauses apply only to mechanisms which control access to a copyrighted work. I fail to see how jailbreaking a phone, tablet, game console, etc passes that test -- it's not controlling access to anything.

Jailbreaking/rooting generally makes piracy a lot easier.

So do other things, like having an internet connect, owning a usb cable, possessing a rudimentary knowledge of technology, etc.

There are already laws against piracy. Additional laws covering things merely leading up to that act should not be necessary nor desired.

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#13

Post by saurik » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 1:07 AM UTC

clobber wrote: post #7

Let's start calling these "smartphones" and "tablets" what they are: computers. It's not okay to tell someone what they can or cannot do with the 1's and 0's on their machines. DRM sucks and so do companies that would seek to restrict rights on how you can use your computer.

FWIW, during this same round, the Software Freedom Law Center was attempting to push an exemption covering "personal computing devices" (which I submitted supporting comments for, along with these exemptions) and failed (largely due to claims that the arguments were too speculative, and seemed quite hurt by Microsoft announcing a $99 "sign your own OS" option).

"The Register additionally observed that granting an exemption for such a sweeping class would be without precedent in the history of Section 1201 rulemakings."

One of the specific issues with relation to these classes is that they be narrowly defined so that it can be fully understood; I was at the hearing in LA when one of the people on the panel seemed almost angry, asking whether the "tablet" class applied to "e-readers", such as a Kindle he personally owned (and seemed to feel would benefit from not having such an exemption).

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#14

Post by cageface » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 1:26 AM UTC

clobber wrote: post #7

Let's start calling these "smartphones" and "tablets" what they are: computers. It's not okay to tell someone what they can or cannot do with the 1's and 0's on their machines. DRM sucks and so do companies that would seek to restrict rights on how you can use your computer.

I'm ok with DRM if it's confined to a particular application and the content it manages, like the Kindle app, for example. You can always choose not to install that app.

But I reject system-wide DRM for the same reasons you describe. More and more people interact online primarily through mobile devices so these rights are more important than ever.

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#15

Post by JoshTriplett » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 1:28 AM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #12

mmanfrin wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jailbreaking/rooting generally makes piracy a lot easier.

So do other things, like having an internet connect, owning a usb cable, possessing a rudimentary knowledge of technology, etc. There are already laws against piracy. Additional laws covering things merely leading up to that act should not be necessary nor desired.

> There are already laws against piracy. Additional laws covering things merely leading up to that act should not be necessary nor desired.

That sounds like entirely sensible reasoning, so you shouldn't find it surprising that the lawmaking process never considered it.

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#16

Post by krickle » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 2:08 AM UTC

ari_elle wrote: post #5

daeken wrote: post #2

What I don't understand is: how does the DMCA apply here at all? The DMCA's anti-circumvention clauses apply only to mechanisms which control access to a copyrighted work. I fail to see how jailbreaking a phone, tablet, game console, etc passes that test -- it's not controlling access to anything.

Quote from Wired article (linked below): "The regulators said that the controls were necessary to prevent software piracy and differentiated gaming consoles from smart phones, which legally can be jailbroken: [T]he record demonstrated that access controls on gaming consoles protect not only the console firmware, but the video games and applications that run on the console as well. The evidence showed that video games…

It's so infuriating that the lawmakers just don't get it. If I buy a console, I should be free to root it and run Linux or whatever. There are already laws against piracy, we don't need to throw freedom out to stop it.

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#17

Post by mweinbergPK » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 2:12 AM UTC

seacond wrote: post #11

I thought the exception for DVD ripping was interesting. There are many references to "video quality" as a persuasive factor. This point might be useful in further requests for exceptions sent the Register.^1 Strategy: Complain about low quality. Apparently, screen captures are "not good enough" but Blu-Ray is "too good". Under the exception individuals are entitled to extract a small portion of the DVD for commentar…

re: 1. I work at Public Knowledge, the group that requested the general DVD ripping exception. We did organize a campaign around our exemption request and included the response in our reply comments. Going forward, our plan is to push Congress to pass laws that make it explicitly clear that "space shifting" is fair use. Of course, for that we will need the help of a broad coalition of people, including here at HN.

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#18

Post by seacond » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 2:29 AM UTC

mweinbergPK wrote: post #17

seacond wrote: post #11

I thought the exception for DVD ripping was interesting. There are many references to "video quality" as a persuasive factor. This point might be useful in further requests for exceptions sent the Register.^1 Strategy: Complain about low quality. Apparently, screen captures are "not good enough" but Blu-Ray is "too good". Under the exception individuals are entitled to extract a small portion of the DVD for commentar…

re: 1. I work at Public Knowledge, the group that requested the general DVD ripping exception. We did organize a campaign around our exemption request and included the response in our reply comments. Going forward, our plan is to push Congress to pass laws that make it explicitly clear that "space shifting" is fair use. Of course, for that we will need the help of a broad coalition of people, including here at HN.

When I was typing out 1. I was thinking of the response that SOPA got. It seemed like it mobilised people to make phone calls and send emails. I think that had an impact. I'm just guessing here. In any case, it would be very interesting to see how LOC would respond to a surge in constituent participation in the DMCA exception process.

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#19

Post by ari_elle » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 2:39 AM UTC

krickle wrote: post #16

ari_elle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quote from Wired article (linked below): "The regulators said that the controls were necessary to prevent software piracy and differentiated gaming consoles from smart phones, which legally can be jailbroken: [T]he record demonstrated that access controls on gaming consoles protect not only the console firmware, but the video games and applications that run on the console as well. The evidence showed that video games…

It's so infuriating that the lawmakers just don't get it. If I buy a console, I should be free to root it and run Linux or whatever. There are already laws against piracy, we don't need to throw freedom out to stop it.

It is frustrating and at the same time one of the reasons why the traditional PC as we know it has a special position.

If you think about it, the traditional PC is one of the - and it's sad to say so - few devices where the hardware really is yours (one could argue that firmware is locked down etc, but i guess everybody knows what i mean).

There are not so many devices left that you can:

-) install custom software on

-) root without great efforts

Game consoles, Tablets, ebook Readers, and Smartphones (no matter if it's legal - still great effort to jailbreak it) - you are locked in everywhere...

Sad future ahead

Re: Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets

#20

Post by saurik » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 2:47 AM UTC

seacond wrote: post #18

mweinbergPK wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: 1. I work at Public Knowledge, the group that requested the general DVD ripping exception. We did organize a campaign around our exemption request and included the response in our reply comments. Going forward, our plan is to push Congress to pass laws that make it explicitly clear that "space shifting" is fair use. Of course, for that we will need the help of a broad coalition of people, including here at HN.

When I was typing out 1. I was thinking of the response that SOPA got. It seemed like it mobilised people to make phone calls and send emails. I think that had an impact. I'm just guessing here. In any case, it would be very interesting to see how LOC would respond to a surge in constituent participation in the DMCA exception process.

So, you make that sound hypothetical, but if you look, the EFF actually did something like that for the tablet and video game console exemptions: the number of comments filed this year was thereby staggering (sufficiently many that they missed their deadline on publishing them and had to simply put up an apology for a few days as they continued to go through it all).

I have no idea whether many or even any of these individual comments were thereby read: many were from people not even in the US, many were difficult to understand in broken English... some were blank, and one was actually "the wrong PDF" (someone's University parking pass). Before seeing the pile that was sent in, I had made it my goal this year to read everything published, but when I got through the C's I just couldn't do it anymore and stopped.

They seem to have responded to it quite well, in that it wasn't a major issue in either direction: I didn't hear anything (although I was fairly disconnected and only indirectly getting information, so I might just not know) of any complaints; it didn't seem to help, however (in that neither of those exemptions were accepted).