back to article EFF declares anti-piracy DMCA unconstitutional in new legal showdown

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has launched a lawsuit claiming that a controversial anti-digital-piracy law in the US is unconstitutional. Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) – which became law 18 years ago – has long been controversial due to its heavy restrictions on what people are allowed …

  1. Sebastian A
    Holmes

    So what you're saying is that knee-jerk overreaction laws put in place by tech-illiterate politicians after being heavily lubricated by parties with a vested interest can sometimes not be that great?

    Say it ain't so...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But it is so and always will be with bought politicians.

      The only way to combat it is to make it illegal for politicians to accept money and/or services other than their pay while they are in office and for 10 years after.

      1. Dadmin
        Thumb Up

        The problem here is those ideas are great, as is my TAX THE CHURCH message, but we are but three small people in a big bribery-laden world. At least the EFF is on the case. They are on my donations list for sure. Good folks doing good work, even if you can't agree with it all. Nor should you. That's how life works.

  2. cd

    Wonder what Google wants to do...

  3. veti Silver badge

    I am so, so glad that someone coherent has finally stood up and said exactly what is wrong with DRM in general, and the DMCA in particular.

    I made this point to the NZ parliament, almost ten years ago now, and it got translated into a clause that specifically excludes legal protection for measures that overstep their bounds:

    for the avoidance of doubt, does not include a process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that, in the normal course of operation, it only controls any access to a work for non-infringing purposes (for example, it does not include a process, treatment, mechanism, device, or system to the extent that it controls geographic market segmentation by preventing the playback in New Zealand of a non-infringing copy of a work)

    ... which is a legal formulation I'd like to commend to our American cousins.

  4. The Packrat
    Coat

    Wow!

    A copyright article that wasn't penned by Andrew Orlowski... Think I'm gonna go lay down for a bit now.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wow!

      There, there.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wow!

      Indeed! Was about to say the same thing!

      I clicked the title, expecting to have to close the article without reading it, (to save myself from several pages of biased lobbyist trash), and was delighted to see that it was by someone different. And an interesting + good article. First time I've been able to read something about copyright on TheReg for ages.

    3. Daniel B.

      Re: Wow!

      There have been quite some articles on copyright that aren't written by Orlowski and that are very critical of the current state of copyright. It's just that Andrew usually gets dibs on some of those topics and then it gets all ruined (as an example, the FunnyJunk vs. Oatmeal one, where AO actually sides with the copyright infringers!)

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