Stephen Withers
Thursday, 01 March 2007 05:16
IT Policy -
Regulation
Page 1 of 2
Proposed US legislation restoring at least some of the traditional 'fair use' rights to consumers acquiring copy-protected content have been met with predictable opposition from the RIAA.
The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing US Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) bill - who thinks up these names? - introduced with cross-party support provides exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
The DMCA overrode traditional though limited rights to make copies for purposes including teaching and research, as it made it a crime to circumvent a technological protection measure applied to a copyrighted work, even when it is done to exercise rights under other laws.
Not surprisingly, the RIAA is outraged, claiming "The difference between hacking done for non-infringing purposes and hacking done to steal is impossible to determine and enforce."
Isn't that a bit like saying that it's impossible to tell whether a key is being copied for the legitimate use of the building's owner or occupier, and therefore all key duplication should be illegal, and that if we want a new key we should be forced to purchase a new lock with the required number of keys?
Among other provisions, the bill protects hardware manufacturers from liability for products that have "substantial, commercially-significant non-infringing use", but apparently does not extend the same protection to software vendors. What else does it allow?
