Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

fixthedmca.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 108 posts

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

#51

Post by pyrocat »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #49
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.)

For someone who has never called a politician to lobby for something, what do you say when you call them up? Is it as simple as "I'd like for you back this bill?" Honest question.

Pretty much. "This issue is very important to me and as your constituent I would like you to support this bill." You can either leave it at that or continue on with why you think the bill is important.

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

#52

Post by wtallis »

mratzloff wrote: post #26
rhizome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a hidden agenda in saying that this "fixes the DMCA." It has a morass of serious issues untouched by these modifications.

Such as..? Not disagreeing, but you're begging the question.

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 those notices are false positives, especially since the penalties for a false counter-notice are that harsh.

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

#53

Post by sinak »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #49
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.)

For someone who has never called a politician to lobby for something, what do you say when you call them up? Is it as simple as "I'd like for you back this bill?" Honest question.

"Hi, My name is ____, and I'm one of Senator/Representative ____ constitutents from ___. I'm calling to tell my Representative/Senator that I think the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is affecting my freedoms as a consumer by preventing me from unlocking or jailbreaking my phone or tablets without fear of legal repercussions. I'd like to urge representative/senator ____ to join in supporting the Unlocking Technology Act, H.R. 1892. Not only would it grant greater consumer freedoms, but it would also empower security researchers, documentary filmmakers, remix artists, and archivists to do their important work without facing legal threats."

Make sure they catch and make a note of "the Unlocking Technology Act - H.R. 1892" part, as that's what they'll note down and use in their own counts of how many calls they've received.

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

#54

Post by dennish00a »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #49
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.)

For someone who has never called a politician to lobby for something, what do you say when you call them up? Is it as simple as "I'd like for you back this bill?" Honest question.

Yes, it is that simple! I have found the experience of calling my congresspeople to be very rewarding and impressive. In general I have been connected to a very knowledgeable and intelligent staffer with minutes of calling. I explain why I am calling and say that I hope the Senator will support my position and the staffer generally replies with a few questions, clarifications of the Senator's position, etc., and says that he/she will relay my comments.

Truly, I cannot recommend this experience highly enough. Call! It only takes a few minutes and you'll be glad you did.

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

#55

Post by yew »

rhizome wrote: post #44
mratzloff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as..? Not disagreeing, but you're begging the question.

Raising the question, maybe. However, for instance, in the eventuality that this bill passes, it will still be illegal to link to certain content. It only touches sec. 1201.

I definitely wouldn't say that this bill 'fixes the DMCA', but it certainly corrects some of the most gratuitous issues. The DMCA doesn't explicitly affect linking to infringing content - that's mostly on the courts that have made that interpretation, even if the DMCA has helped to enable them.

Trying to revise or remove the DMCA wholesale would be a much more difficult undertaking, and correspondingly less likely to succeed.

(I recommend reading the bill to everyone, by the way. It's only five pages long.)

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

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

wtallis wrote: post #52
mratzloff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as..? Not disagreeing, but you're begging the question.

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 submitted by someone other than the distributor, and the distributor stopped when notified by the owner of the copyright. (It, likewise, provides immunity to the distributor for claims by the submitter for stopping distribution provided that the distributor restores the distribution once the submitter provides a counternotice.)

But the takedown procedure itself doesn't create new penalties or presumptions of guilt, it just provides conditional protections from any existing penalties for certain acts provided that those acts are discontinued on specified forms of notice.

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

#57

Post by lawnchair_larry »

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.)

Do you have any insight as to how often the congressperson has already made up their mind on an issue, seemingly for political/lobbying/cronyism reasons, versus how many are on the fence and actually swayed by the calls they receive?

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

#58

Post by yew »

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 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 it is a result of that mechanism.

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

#59

Post by comex »

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…

I am not a lawyer, but-

> 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?

Among other things, this would generally be a violation of the CFAA.

> If someone has information they only want licensed people to see, would circumventing a technological measure that controls access to that information be allowed under this bill? For example, publishers of stock market analysis which is released only to licensed subscribers.

Depends what you mean. If an unlicensed subscriber tried to gain access from scratch, then the CFAA would be applicable; if a licensed subscriber leaked large portions of the document to an unlicensed subscriber, then it would at least be a (standard) copyright violation. (If they only leaked specific bits of information, it probably wouldn't involve circumventing a technological measure, but contract law would be applicable.)

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

#60

Post by dragonwriter »

yew wrote: post #58
dragonwriter wrote: post #56

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 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 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, instead you'd have content owners sending threats to sue to the content hosts, who would have to choose whether they'd like to fight the content owner or keep the affected client.

With the DMCA takedown procedure, really, its exactly the same thing, except that the host has more security that they will have no liability to the purported content owner for any past distribution if they comply with the request.

We know this to be true, becuase this was the situation that was occurring before the DMCA which led to the pressure from content hosts that resulted in the inclusion of the safe harbor provisions that include the "takedown procedure" and the related counter-notice restoration procedure.

Post reply on HN