New Zealand DMCA Moves Forward 153
nzgeek writes "The DMCA-like amendments to the New Zealand Copyright Act passed their first hurdle in parliament today, with an overwhelming 113 to 6 vote to pass the Bill to the Commerce Select Committee for further discussion. The detail-oriented can read the full debate (or rather lack of debate), and one enterprising New Zealand legal blogger has an excellent series of posts on the Bill, its background, and its implications. New Zealanders interested in fighting this legislation have until the 16th of February 2007 to make submissions to the Select Committee, before the committee makes its recommendations and sends the Bill back for a second reading."
Why does anyone need a DMCA? (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't understand the need for DMCA-like legislation when there are hard encryptions available to negate the question. DMCA is like claiming you're cracking a bank safe when all you did is slide a latch or ignore the "No Trespassing" sign.
Aren't DMCA legislations just a means of guaranteeing that companies keep using insecure technologies?
Re:Why does anyone need a DMCA? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no fan of laws that say what I can and cannot do with my own computer, but if you're going to attack them, at least be coherent.
Re:Why does anyone need a DMCA? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the work being "protected" has to actually be under copyright.
Which is bizarre. DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
A copyright "protection mechanism" has nothing to do with security.
Sorry, but that's double-think. Double-plus un-good.
It has everything to do with security. The vendor's security. Security is all about physically enforcing somebody's view of ownership in the face of other people's different view of ownership. Ownership, by definition, is simply the legal right to control something to the exclusion of others. Security in general has nothing to do with secrecy though secrecy is often used to achieve security.
In this case the vendor thinks they should be able to legally enforce their view of ownership. This happens to be in conflict with most people's view of ownership which includes the right to share. Reasonable people can dis/agree with either point of view.
---
Like software, intellectual property law is a product of the mind, and can be anything we want it to be. Let's get it right.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
"In this case the vendor thinks they should be able to legally enforce their view of ownership. This happens to be in conflict with most people's view of ownership which includes the right to share. Reasonable people can dis/agree with either point of view."
People copying and mass distributing ALSO break the 'copyright bargain', what about the copyright owner's rights of limiting distribution to people who actually
Re: (Score:2)
You are terminally clueless. Of course copyright owners have rights too: those rights are protected by a thing called "copyright".
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, a great many people here act as though they do not.
Copyright is a bargain, an agreement between Us (the non-creators) and Them (the creators). We started to break that agreement (by infringing copyright) long before They did (by implementing DRM). Now I'm not arguing whether or not Their response has on the whole been disproportionate, but We certainly seem to have brought it upon Ourselves.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. The bargain was we allow them hold a monopoly over their creations for a short term (20-30 years), at which point it becomes public domain.
We started to break that agreement (by infringing copyright) long before They did (by implementing DRM).
No.
They started to break that agreement (by perpetually extending copyright to the point where none of us will ever get to enjoy something produced in our lifetime), long b
Re: (Score:1)
In Australia and NZ for over one hundred years copyright has been the life of the creator plus fifty years. After those fifty years it becomes public domain.
'They started to break that agreement (by perpetually extending copyright to the point where none of us will ever get to enjoy something produced in our lifetime), long before We did (by infringing copy
Re: (Score:2)
I believe you have me confused with someone who wants to just read the book. I want to take some of the ideas, and to make a better book out of it. There is no such thing as originality anyway, and there
Re: (Score:1)
You can already do that. As long as you're not using the original text. [You also can't use the same characters etc. So, for instance, you can't re-write the Maltese Falcon and use Sam Spade etc. BUT, if you started basing your story on the Maltese Falcon you could use different characters and change the plot where you want it changed
I'm pretty sure the copyright for 1
Re: (Score:2)
It is the responsibility of companies and investors to understand the legal systems and constitutions of their target markets.
Canadian legislation enshrines our right to make copies of media to lend to friends, but restricts outright piracy or sharing with the general public and people you don't know personally. Australian law has similar guarantees; I don't know about other jurisdictions.
I think it's likely that Vista and DRM are illegal in Canada.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
http://user.interface.org.nz.nyud.net:8080/~gring
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why does anyone need a DMCA? (Score:4, Informative)
No they don't.
Fair use being the most obvious.
Buahahahahaha!
And the work being "protected" has to actually be under copyright.
There is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from putting DRM on public domain content. It's technically not criminal for you to strip the DRM off of public domain content, but it is still criminal for anyone to actually supply you with the means to do so.
There are no meaningful execptions to any of the DMCA laws, there is certainly no Fair Use exception, and it even effectively enforces DRM on non-copyright content.
if you're going to attack them
If you're going to defend them... Chuckle. Here's a link to the text of the USA DMCA anti-circumvention law [cornell.edu].
Note that 1201(c)... the supposedly "Fair Use" provision... note that it merely states that Fair Use defenses to copyright infringement are not affected. Fair Use is a defense to charges of copyright infringment, and only to charges of copyright infringment. Circumvention and trafficking circumvention tools are not copyright infringment, they are simply criminal. Therefore there *is no* Fair Use defense for DMCA violations. So in effect what 1201(c) really says is that a non-existant defense is not affected. That's the sort of stupid legal games you get when we allow industry lawyers to literally write the text of our laws. The Fair Use provision literally does nothing, but it sure looks pretty doesn't it? It sure creates the appearance that the law is reasonable, the appearance that it reasonably addresses and defends the public's interests. And that is far from the only example of legal tricks slipped into copyright law. The notice-and-takedown section of the has another great public interest sounding clause that doesn't actually do anything... the clause that gives the appearance that takedown orders are filed under penalty of purjury... it is effectively meaningless. Another lovely stunt they pulled was in the NET act, they slipped an apparently insignifigant single little sentence that redefined the legal term "financial gain". This redefinition of terms radically altered the very landscape of copyright law. It redefined "financial gain" to encompas almost any case of copyright infringment (especially P2P), and it took almost all fairly insignifigant cases of non-commercial copyright infringment and though the back door slammed them all under the extremely sever FELONY LAWS that were intened and designed only to apply to serious cases of COMMERCIAL copyright infringment. Individial noncommercial infringment was suddenly thrown under the laws intended to target major criminal commercial enterprice priracy. Individual non-commecial infringment which *was* considered a minor and purely civil matter was suddenly subject to 3 and 5 year felony prison terms. This is the sort of legal trickery you get when we literally allow industry lawyers to write our laws for us, and our legislators simply and ignorantly vote through that prepared text. Oops.... I'm ranting.
Anyway, the point is that there is absolutely nothing reasonable or Fair about DMCA-style anti-circumvention law. And for purposes relevant here, the various international versions of the law are effectively the same as US law. The US "free trade" negotiators forcibly cram crazy terms into every single trade deal, and those terms pretty well prohibit any meaningful softening or exemptions to the DMCA. The law would become 100% worthless if they allowed any meaningful exception at all. DRM security is 100% dependent on circumvention means being COMPLETELY unavailable. If there is any meaningful excemption at all for anything, you would need some means of circumventing the DRM available. You would need someone to be able to supply you with
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, a lovely little Catch-22 they've tried to set up there, but the earlier precedent should be a priority IMNSHO.
To my way of thinking, there are two directions to the legal timeline. Sometimes there legislation is added to clarify earlier situations, other times it's intended to replace existing legislation. But if there is no clear statement that earlier legislation is repealed, I would think
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No. As I said, the act of circumvention and the act of trafficking in circumvention are both criminal acts. Not some civil law suit.... it is criminal as in the FBI can come and arrest you and toss you in federal prison for up to a decade. (Five years on a first offence, a decade on a second offense.)
and nothing if simply opening or copying a DRMed file is not related to copyright issues, as you imply.
No. It is indeed criminal even if you do not commit copyright infri
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Everything you bring out nowadays is automatically copyrighted. Everything.
It used to be so that you had to register your copyright at an agency that kept a record of it, but that became expensive to maintain. So now every work that's put out, be that digitally, or on paper, on tape, on disk or any other means, is copyrighted.
D
Re: (Score:1)
Everything.
'
No, I think you misunderstood the parent. I think they were refering to publishing things in Public Domain [which some publishers still do]. For instance, the works of Shakespeare are in public domain. If I wanted to form a publishing company and release a book of Shakespeares Sonnets, I can. No need to pay royalties or get copyright permission. So, just because I brought out a book, doesn't mean the content is automatical
Re: (Score:2)
Everything you create is copyrighted. (btw, you are indeed correct, it's not everything you release, but everything you create)
You can, however, release it under a less-restrictive licence (Creative Commons for instance), but I don't believe the work can enter public domain from the get-go.
Re: (Score:1)
Um
If you are the copyright holder of a work, then you can certainly release your work into public domain. Copyright is just the legal ability to make copies of a work. If you write on the
But most countries don't have a DMCA (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy enough to claim "most countries that have a DMCA" when there are very few examples, and only one original.
It's as specious as the US DEA argument that there is no valid research in the United States demonstrating medical use of cannabis, while other US departments prevent any such research from being done. Catch-22. It's Schedule I because there is no documented medical use; there is no documented medical use because it's illegal to research.
Technically the viewpoint and phrasing is correct
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why does anyone need a DMCA? (Score:4, Insightful)
The difficulty prevents more casual hackers, and DMCA prevents large commercial efforts, funding expensive equipment etc. and overall makes it more dangerous to create a huge cracking effort.
Also one of the important reasons is to stomp out end-user tools. already people expect to be able to transfer CDs to the iPod, not that many expect to transfer DVDs to their HTPC, video iPod, cell phone etc. but many enough. They can tell consumers "You weren't supposed to be able to do that with DVDs either" but they'll still get a "screw you" when trying to push HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.
If you don't see what use they have of the DMCA, you must really be blind. I'm not saying that it's good uses, but if you had the RIAA/MPAAs goal of control, profits and pay per view/playing, pushing it makes good sense.
Re: (Score:2)
DRM technology is theoretically impossible to prevent the copying of non-interactive works.
For interactive works the question is more interesting, but the Starforce people try *damn hard* to prevent people from copying Windows video games, and that doesn't seem to slow RELOADED or DEViANCE down one bit.
Re: (Score:2)
So did quite a lot of things which no longer exist...
2. it exists for good reason (we couldn't have the GPL without it)
The GPL would work perfectly fine with copyright radically different from the status quo. e.g. "Ten years (3,652 days) from first publication."
3. creators have the right to control the distribution of their works.
In many cases the copyright holder is not the actual creator. The reason for this position is ment to be the pragmatic "this will promote creation
My Personal favorite DMCA abuse (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't it ironic somehow? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder how long it will be before the media people realize that it will always be a minority of people who will actually bother to copy and crack and skip commercials and never buy. This leaves the majority going along in their mainstream way taking things as they are packaged and delivered.
I'm hopeful that the experiments in dropping DRM will be as successful as the software industry was when it gave up on their copy protection schemes that involved odd and flawed formats on floppies and CDs. (Is anyone here old enough to remember the floppies with the errors in specific locations and all that?) Now they haven't given up entirely, but they have definitely become more friendly about it as they matured. I'm hopeful that the content people mature more in their new digital frontiers and realize it's all pretty much the same thing as before and that people will continue buying regardless of other options being present.
Will have a look at emailing some politicians (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They've stopped representing the public, and started governing the public instead - it's a trend of Labour I've noticed for a while now, especially since getting their second term. Still, it's damn annoying that something that affects every New Zealander is happening so quietly. The mainstream media (unsurprisingly) hasn't said a word about this one.
I'll get my pen and paper out in the morning...
Re: (Score:2)
It's worse than that.
She is:
I can see this bill negatively effecting at least 4 of her 7 portfolios, not effecting 2, and having a mixed effect on 1. I'll leave it as an exe
Democracy in Action? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is what is called Consultative Democracy, then frankly I've just become rather envious of the Fijians. Now we know why the leadership of the NZ Government was saying such condemnatory things about the actions of Cdr. Bainimarama.
We are very isolated from the Real World(tm) here in Little Ol' NZ, so don't get to hear very much about what's happening out there. Do the governments of other countries which purport to be ruled "by the people for the people" get up to these tricks?
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
It's true what Col Mitchel said on Dakara, "I guess politics really do suck everywhere."
In UK, yes, politicians always against people (Score:2)
It's certainly like you describe here in the UK as well, and I hear it's the same in US.
What seems to have happened is that politicians worldwide have now lost any intention of representing the interest of "The People" honestly, and always work against them in any way they can. The political system is only as good as its practitioners, and hence nowadays it's rotten to the core.
I don't know if it was ever any better than this. Back in the days of the Founding Fathers in th
Re: (Score:1)
I've been wondering about this for a very long time too and it's probably the same reason they voted for Hitler. They only care about themselfs and there imidiate interests and don't give a shit about anyone else. Here in the UK you can see those kind of people out every weekend getting pissed up and starting fights (There usually the ones wearing shirts). I've found them to be the vast
Re: (Score:1)
Here in the UK your lucky if the vast majority of people bother to vote at all.
Re: (Score:2)
We get less than 50% turnout [manchester.gov.uk] in the elections. (Not picking on Manchester but it's the first results google turned up)
Turnout for the local Manchester elections last year was 22% and the European was 19.5%.
If only they'd let us vote for none of the about and just leave us as we are without more draconion laws.
The States as well... (Score:2)
Current legislation is due to pass in NY concerning the downsizing of hospitals. We have a small, financially efficient, hospital in our little village that is due to be downsized... unless our legislators vote against the bill.
No vote means passing by default.
And it's over the Christmas holidays.
I suppose we'll all be driving 30 to 40 miles for the nearest hospital, or paying an extra $2k for an ambulance roll out.
Yay Democracy?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Our congress is routinely passing bills at 4 in the morning, which were written by lawyers from industry in secret committees, with copies of said 1,000-page bills distributed to congresspeople only 24 hours before the vote.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay - I realise it's unfashionable to read legislation before commenting on Slashdot - instead it's far more fun to leap into hyperbole. I at least read the general remarks that preceed the statutory changes.
This seems to be legislation that tries to strike a fair balance. It grants ISP's common carrier status [so your ISP doesn't have a legal incentive to add content filtering]. Specifically clarifies libraries, archives and education right to the work [the bill intends to continue existing standards
Only the first reading (Score:5, Informative)
Although the bill passed with an overwhelming margin, that doesn't mean a lot of the MPs will support it next time it comes up for vote. In New Zealand MPs often support a bill in its first reading because they feel it requires more thought and debate.
For example recently a bill to raise the New Zealand drinking age to 20 was passed in its first reading by a large margin before being voted down in the second - MPs back off from drinking age hike [nzherald.co.nz]
Re:Only the first reading (Score:4, Informative)
In case you're interested in writing as well, here is the list of email addresses [parliament.nz]. I strongly suggest that anyone who can write an intelligent thoughtful email to help get MPs seriously thinking about these issues should do so.
Re:Only the first reading (Score:4, Interesting)
You do realize that the history and economic reality of copyright don't really support that assertion, right? Take a look at http://www.questioncopyright.org/faq [questioncopyright.org] for some actual background on the topic.
The smart move (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no reason to expect that entertainment quality would degrade overall if the entertainment industry gave up and copyright law was abolished entirely. We'd lose out on Britney Spears songs, but with Britney's marketing dept out of the way others could produce similar product for the ad revenues from product placement in music videos. I don't think you really fear pop music getting more commercialized.
Basically the only thing that wouldn't have a funding model is really high budget movies and video g
The iTunes store in NZ. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is the odd thing. If it's now your right to be able to format shift the music you bought wouldn't any technology that prevents you from doing that be illegal?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They way it works is that you don't actually get a "right" to format shift.... they merely made it "not copyright infringment" to format shift.
And then they make it criminal to to do the decryption needed to be able to format shift. Note that they do not make it copyright infringment to decrypt, they make it just plain crimina.
So it is not copyrig
Re: (Score:2)
thanks
Re: (Score:2)
There is a difference between something being "a right" and something being "not wrong".
IANAL, but AFAICT most legal systems work on the basis that you can do anything you like as long as it's not on the big list of things which are "wrong" - but that does not prevent someone else putting barriers to stop you doing something, as long as those barriers aren't specificall
Re: (Score:1)
The sad road (Score:2)
It used to be media companies were content to simply abide by copyright law. If someone broke copyright law, the companies would go after them. But aside from that, we customers could do what we wanted with their products.
Then technology made it increasingly easy for people to break copyright law, and harder for media companies to find out who broke it and stop them. So they started implementing technology of their own: copy protection.
Natura
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
The police for example. If you call 111 (our emergency number) when, for example, somebody has broken into your house, you'll be told that there aren't any officers available, but somebody will be there to see you as soon as possible. Nevermind the fact that your life may be in danger.
The proper response in this situation is say "fine then, I'll shoot him myself" and then hang up.
You'll have cops swarming all over the place quick smart.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
That's why you have to give them an option such as "Cake or Death?". If there's enough of them, eventually you'll run out of cake and then their only option will be "or Death". A smart robber will have the chicken if it comes down to it.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Which may be fine in yor country but in the UK you can be jailed (and people have been) for using undue force in their own homes for attacking burglers.
I'm not suggesting you actually shoot someone. I'm pointing out - tongue in cheek - that if you say something like that, the place will be swarming with cops in minutes.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Please don't mod this trolling right winger up.
The NZ Police Force are actually very good. Like any organisation of size they do have the occasional hiccup, but 99.9% of the time they do an outstanding job, often above and beyond thier call of duty. I would gladly take the NZ Police Force over any
Re: (Score:2)
You sir, deserved to modded better than that. Our government has to change... the police force is one symptom of our sick leadership, and this new bill being debated is just more one of many, many other examples.
There is some good as well as bad (Score:4, Informative)
My notes I posted to mailing list reproduced on this:
Here is the major announcement from the government:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?Docu
and the actual proposed legislation is here:
http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/5A88D15B-C4
Some quick highlights as I read the act: (Note I am not a lawyer)
- Reverse engineering IS allowed under some circumstances - basically for interoperability
- format shifting is allowed but only initially for 2 years, this can be extended though (or not)
- time shifting is allowed provided you don't keep it and it's not available on demand
- ISPs are basically not liable (provided they follow take down notices)
- allowed to alter commercial software if the vendor doesn't fix problems in reasonable time
- anti-TPM (DRM via another name) is prohibited for sale or for producing (seems to cover open source). Fines of $150K or 5 years jail. Doesn't seem to prohibit if you have a copy but you can't write it yourself, sell it or tell others about it. Does make it an offence if you use it to copy copyrighted material. But you are allowed to use anti-TPM for "interoperability of software" so conceivably you could use software to play Itunes or DVDs on Linux. But this only applies if
you have asked vendor for a copy you can use and they don't supply in a reasonable time.
Overall this seems to be much better than DMCA of the USA but not perfect. It is probably better than people could have hoped for.
Ian
Re: (Score:2)
And where in there is fair use protected?
Where exactly are the provisions allowing me to make backups of the media I *paid* *for*?
DRM is a method of breaking the social contract whereby society agrees to police the rights of 'rights holders' in return for the eventual access to the created entity. Why should be put protections in place for that DRM?
It is of course already exactly as illegal to break copyright as it has always been, why are we looking at introducing another level of protection for only one s
Re: (Score:1)
New Zealand doesn't have a broad "fair use" doctrine, just specific exceptions to standard copyright law (currently including backing up computer software, and time shifitng TV shows). I'm not saying this is a good thing (beats having an indefinite "pay for a license or pay for a lawyer to argue fair use" thing though), but it's not surprising that this law has no broad fair use provisions.
Re: (Score:2)
time shifting is allowed provided you don't keep it and it's not available on demand
I regularly tape, er DVR, stuff hear that is ODable. For premium, for example.
Half the stuff I tape is for time-shifting reasons.
I wonder what the media company would say about it.
Considering they advertised time-shifting as a reason to rent the DVR I doubt they would like it.
Whether they "invested" in our DMCA I don't know but I can guess they wouldn't sell/rent many DVRs, read none, if that applied.
Hypocrisy (Score:1)
The government does not give a damn about property rights. They are just doing a deal with someone in return for something else. In this case,
Is it really a bad thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
The more I think about it, I'm coming around to the idea that the DMCA (and its ilk) might not be the end of the world.
Think about it... What would your reaction be if you were in business and your chief competitor cut their own legs off at the knee caps? Would you view it as a bad thing?
Now recast that as RIAA and friends vs. Creative Commons and friends. Surely the DMCA will only serve to drive people towards the Commons?
So in the absence of the abolition of copyright, perhaps copyright+DMCA is a better position for the producers of Free content than copyright-DMCA? Think of the DMCA as the equivalent of the GPL's "liberty or death" clause, applied to the RIAA's content. The DMCA ensures that non-free content will die, leaving Free content to take its place.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't want the public to have your art, don't publish it.
The notion that the artist has a human right to prevent their published art being copied is a myth - it is, and always has been, an artifical monopoly created out of incumbent commercial interest.
If artists wish compensation, there's noth
Re: (Score:2)
This might be the case if Joe Average wasn't an utter moron. The issue here goes further than just government and legislation. The problem is that Joe Sixpack will still continue to buy the stuff. He'll probably bitch and complain a little bit about the inconvenience at some point, but he'll continue to pay for it, validating the media companies' business models and continuing to allow them to make obscene profits and use that money to pass
Re: (Score:2)
I am thinking.
I am thinking that in ten years I haven't heard one word spoken about the GPL outside the insular domains of techie forums like Slashdot. That the "liberty or death" rhetoric so freely spun out here has no resonance with end users.
Farewell, Napster. Hello, iTunes for Windows.
I am thinking that Fr
So almost none have RTA (Score:2, Interesting)
Now when I say fair use I mean you are alowed to use cracks etc if the DRM is preventing fair use. You are can also distrubute these cracks providing you have ensured that its only going to be used for fair use provisions. Its by far the best "DMCA" i have seen. You are even able to decompile code to crea
Digital music (Score:1)
So you think this law is "reasonable"? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
All good points. And the interesting thing is that while the format-shifting exception has been there since the first discussion document in in 2001, the anti-circumventiontion stuff came in relatively late and has not been well justified. The impression is that the change is a result of lobbying from (a) music industry interests, who strongly opposed format-shifting, (b) US trade interests (there is a desi
Online petition against DMCA equivalent in NZ (Score:1)
A Few Typos in The Post (Score:2)
Should read:
New Zealanders interested in fighting this legislation have until the 16th of February 2007 to piss into the wind, before the committee rubber stamps the bill and collects their brand new sailboats from NZRIAA/NZMPAA.
The Problem is....... (Score:1)
1. That the NZ Government is basically the most corrupt that the country has ever had, including under Muldoon (for examples, look up the recent media stories on the PM forging works of art for sale, the PM dodging speeding convictions for a high-speed motorcade to a sports match that would have landed anyone else in Jail, the ruling parties blatant breach of election spending laws, and in the Auditor-Generals clear report the blatant misuse of public funds for political purposes, and using its cont
This is what happens (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Non-Kiwis of the world unite!
Re:New Zealand is a country of 4 million people. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
New Zealand is a country of 4 million people. It gets a lot of attention on Slashdot because people speak English there.
Even so, this news is obviously of interest to you, since you're bothering to post a comment. This news is certainly of interest to me, since I live in NZ. The population may be small, but there's no shortage of NZers reading Slashdot. In any case, population-size and newsworthiness don't always go hand-in-hand: if they did, nearly 20% of /. articles would be about things going on in China.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
That's what I was told when I worked in retail. The Teac and LG sales reps told me that it is illegal to import or sell DVD players that are not zone 4 in NZ, but it is not illegal to sell them with instructions on how to change the zone. Hence, every Teac DVD component comes with instructions, and from memory, it's "Eject tray, Setup, Volume Up, Volume Down, Volume Up, Volume Down, Mute". For most LGs it is eject the tray and press 1 six times on the remote.
Most Teacs had a little blue or green piece of
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I agree that Australia is over-represented. (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v11n3/beyer1 13_text.html [murdoch.edu.au] People suing and winning against a publisher in another country, over what was said about him, as it was viewed in Australia it was valid.
and how about http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/copyright-ruling-pu ts-linking-on-notice/2006/12/19/1166290520771.html [smh.com.au] and today we get no linking to copyright material.
Don't get me wrong, Australia is doing very well, but
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Speak for yourself. I like to legitimatly reverse engineer all kinds of stuff for hobby as for a living. The DMCA is the biggest source of stress in my life and i have 2 teen-age daughters.
Re: (Score:2)
Something tells me you know waaaaaay too little about what your daughters are doing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1. copyright DOES exist
It was 14 years long for books originally. You should probably look at the motivation for the original laws and compare it against publishing monopoly abuse that existed prior to that.
Are books now so advanced that a 95+ year monopoly is needed to encourage people to write them?
There is no real justification for a monopoly that last a century and/or beyond a persons life-span.
2. it exists for good reason (we couldn't have the GPL without it)
Th
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:1)