Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #DMCA1201
Most recents (6)
They said it was impossible. After decades of #antitrust cases over #PredatoryPricing - selling below cost to kill or prevent competitors - the #ChicagoSchool of neoliberal #economists "proved" predatory pricing didn't exist, so courts could stop busting companies for it.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fak…
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pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fak…
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Predatory pricing - the economists explained - was illegal, but it was also imaginary. A mirage. No one would predatory price, because it was "irrational." Even if someone irrational enough to try it, they would fail. Stand down, American judges - predatory pricing is solved.
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Last week, a seeming miracle came to pass: @JohnDeere, the #BigAg #monopolist that - along with @Apple - has led the Axis of Evil that killed, delayed and sabotaged dozens of #RightToRepair laws, sued for peace. 1/
They announced a Memorandum of Understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation to make it easier for farmers to fix their own tractors:
fb.org/files/AFBF_Joh…
This is a move that's both badly needed and long overdue. 2/
fb.org/files/AFBF_Joh…
This is a move that's both badly needed and long overdue. 2/
Deere abuses copyright law to force farmers to pay for official repairs - even when the farmer does the repair. That's possible thanks to a practice called #VINLocking, in which engine parts come with #DRM that prevents the tractor from recognizing. 3/
The DMCA was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1998. It has a weird history. Its inception came from Bruce Lehmann, Microsoft's chief copyright enforcer, whom Clinton tapped to serve as his Copyright Czar. 1/
This was back in the "Information Superhighway" days, when Al Gore was holding hearings on the demilitarization and commercialization of the internet. 2/
Lehmann presented Gore with a proposal that was so utterly bonkers that it made subsequent net.lunacy ("series of tubes," etc) look reasonable by comparison.
eff.org/files/filenode… 3/
eff.org/files/filenode… 3/
Last Oct, the @RIAA launched a bizarre campaign of legal bullying against #youtubedl, a free/open library that lets people save Youtube (and other) videos for a variety of purposes, including critical analysis, offline viewing, archiving and remixing.
pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/120…
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pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/120…
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If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2021/08/01/bal…
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pluralistic.net/2021/08/01/bal…
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The RIAA attacked youtube-dl under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (#DMCA1201) a 1998 law that indiscriminately bans helping people remove DRM, even if no copyright infringement takes place.
pluralistic.net/2020/10/28/tru…
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Late last week, the @RIAA sent a legal threat to @Github, claiming that the popular (and absolutely lawful) tool #youtubedl (which allows users to download Youtube videos for offline viewing, editing and archiving) violated Section 1201 of the #DMCA.
pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/120…
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pluralistic.net/2020/10/24/120…
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Even by the heavy-handed standards of the RIAA - a monopolist's "association" dominated by only three members - this was extraordinary. The law in question derives much of its efficacy from its vagueness, which chills software developers from risking its severe penalties.
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#DMCA1201 is an "anti-circumvention" law, banning the distribution of tools that bypass "effective means of access control" for copyrighted work, with a $500k fine and a 5-year sentence for a first violation.
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I hate DRM. A lot. And while I started off hating DRM because of the ways it restricted fair use, the more I worked on the issue, the more I realized that this was just the tip of the iceberg.
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DRM is not really a technology - it's a law. The digital locks on your devices can generally be removed, because preventing the owner of a device from modifying it is really, really hard.
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Which is why DRM was a longrunning joke - the subject of a million snarky warez crack-screens - until 1998, when the USA enacted the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (#DMCA), whose Section 1201 makes it a felony to provide someone with DRM-removal tools.
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