My wife is a speech therapist and uses a system that is designed to help people who have had strokes regain their voice.
It comprises a piece of software that comes with a "specially calibrated USB microphone". The microphone is actually a Samson laptop USB mic that had the voice improvement systems logo stuck on it.
The system came with lots of legal warnings about not copying, not telling unqualified people about how it worked and not to use an unapproved microphone. The DMCA was specifically mentioned.
One day the mic failed (the program requires patients to shout aggressively at the mic) so my wife went off looking for a replacement. We had a few USB mics that we tried and and the application refused to acknowledge their existence even though they showed up in Windows. It became obvious that the software was checking the USB device ID. My wife went to the company that ran the system to get a replacement, but they said she had to buy a new copy of the software as well - total cost $659. So we took a chance and ordered a new Samson USB mic from Amazon for €30.00, but when it arrived it didn't work. It was the same model, but was a few generations ahead and therefore had a different USB device ID. My wife has some colleagues with the same package so I tested their mics and they had different USB device IDs and it became obvious that when Samson released a revision of the mic the company offering the system simply recompiled the code with he new device ID baked in and then re-branded the mic.
So, not wanting to shell out $659 for a whole new package I took the old and new mics apart desoldered the cartridges from both mics and put the new one in the body of the failed mic. It worked! Now technically this would be a violation of 1201 in the sense that the individual copy of the software they sold you was tied to the specific mic they sold you at the same time - they said so in the EULA. But lets be honest that's just nonsense. They were simply trying to sell more stuff - a tactic that seems fairly common in various fields of professional therapy.
This is the sort of problem caused by 1201. If we lived in the US we would have been in breach of the DMCA even though we copied nothing.
Would be easier to do a hex search on the binaries, find the device id of the old mic, and patch in the device id of the new mic. I'd be surprised if they had bothered to obfuscate the id in any way.
permanently modifying the hardware is the more portable solution. it will always work with unmodified software i.e. at a colleague's location. i presume your wife works with others that use the same platform.
>permanently modifying the hardware is the more portable solution. it will always work with unmodified software i.e. at a colleague's location.
No, as OP mentioned, the software was compiled to match the device ID of the mic it was shipped with. So it would only work with versions of the software that were the same as OP's.
I think you misinterpreted. It's the USB device ID, which contains a unique to the model ID and the vendor ID, so any software would work with any device if it has the same model ID. There isn't a such thing (at least not standardized) as a unique device ID.
What he's saying is that there might be V1, 2 and 3 of the microphone in question. The software is tied to a single version of that microphone so any microphone of the same version is indistinguishable to the software.
>the software was compiled to match the device ID of the mic it was shipped with.
Since there isn't a "device ID", only a "Model ID", there isn't a new compiled version for everything being shipped. There's maybe 3 or 4 versions of the software total and there's probably one version that's more prolific than the others.
He may not have been able to buy one of those USB Microphones off of Amazon that had the same VID and PID but the old model that he repaired is one of the few versions that the manufacturer used so there's a pretty decent chance that the fixed one will work as is with another computer with the software on it.
Although, did you get any of the other legitimate mic's to work? Its possible that the device has a serial number burred in one of the USB descriptors and is using the mic like a hardware dongle (or worse a robust DRM scheme).
But, if you hack the binary, its probably worthwhile to spend a little extra time and completely remove the id check. That way you can use any random mic you find.
Alternatively, would be fun to get the OS to lie about the USB device ID. This would definitely be possible on Linux (probably with a kernel module, but perhaps you'd have to modify the USB core) but no idea how flexible Windows is on this kind of thing..
Should be possible with DLL injection or function hooking since I would guess they just check the USB id and then use the normal mic access functions so you would only have to intercept 1 or 2 calls.
I'm wondering if that's "more illegal" than fixing the hardware component (which is silly because changing the ID can be simpler). In hardware you can just say you've replaced a broken part even if it's 99% of the hardware, right?
Every now and then I get a compliment on my speaking, my very Irish relatives call it "the gift of the gab". What they don't know is that I grew up with a small but not insignificant speech impediment that among other things prevented me from saying most words that included the letter 'r'. I remember having to consciously blacklist words from my vocabulary because I couldn't pronounce them.
Anyways I was fortunate enough to belong to a school district that had a speech therapist who rotated through schools. After three years I had improved enough to 'graduate' and have been saying words with 'r' ever since. I haven't thought about it in years but the actions of that therapist, and of the district to provide her, have greatly effected my life.
So tell your wife thank you for what she does, and please ask her if she is aware of any philanthropic organizations where people can donate time or money to the worthy cause of speech therapy. I can only imagine all the inner city schools in America without a speech therapist, and what that must do the the kids.
And this is WHY you should be able to do work like this because of crappy software. Fixing things that are broken should not be a crime (a microphone, a computer, a tractor) Glad to see you found a solution to someone else shortsighted software protection!
I think you should copy the USB device ID. If the software only rely on that and the mic fail again I'm pretty sure there is a way to make the software believe it's talking to the old mic with that.
I did consider that but I didn't want to take the risk of messing things up even further. I figured the cartridge exchange was a safer option.
Incidentally when I called Samson support looking to buy a specific model revision I told them what the mic was used for. When I mentioned it was for people shouting mouth open wide at the top of their voice the support rep said "But that mic is for stuff like Skype and maybe recording a little bit of singing not for shouting at".
How much does your wife charge as a therapist? Everyone needs to make money. HN is a weird place to bemoan prices when many here are seeking unicorn valuations while disrupting industry. Everyone hates laws until its in their best interest to have said laws.
She barely takes home minimum wage and she is self-employed. Most of her peers are in a similar position. It is not a vocation you get in to for the money.
Edit: A common problem in her sector, and other therapy sectors, is that all the recognised diagnosis and treatment systems get bought by the likes of Pearson and other big technical publishers who will demand recurring payments to use the system. For example Owls, a common speech therapy system requires her to use their pre-printed forms to take notes. The basic diagnosis pack costs over $700, but she has to keep buying the forms at $60 for 25 - even thought he system rarely changes.
How much do you think it'd cost to replicate the software as an open source tool? I've written grants before for funding open source projects, and this anecdote boils my blood.
Taking on Pearson and other companies that use similarly predatory tactics to extract value from society's most disadvantaged is exactly the sort of "disruption" that the world needs more of.
That said, I doubt one could go at it alone with no support or with only a grant -- building up mind share, fighting off BS patent threats, and doing enough sales to break even on these non-development costs aren't the sort of things that a government/ngo grant will typically support. And even if you could find the money, you'll still need access to a network of experts.
Someone should setup a fund that force-multiplies government/NGO grants for societally beneifical OSS with funding and access to expertise for these other things (legal/marketing/etc.). The aim could just be breaking even on non-grant-funded costs by selling support/branding/etc. to institutional players like hospitals and large chains.
I mentioned Owls above. You wont believe what it is... just clipart in a nice easel book form. I'm not joking, its just page after page of clipart, accompanied by a manual and 20 page copyright warning booklet.
The thing is Pearson has convinced governments, schools, charities, hospitals etc that this system is the best way to diagnose speech issues. My wife and a lot of her colleagues would beg to differ.
Tangent: Pearson sells curricula to a lot of school districts. These are the people that in part control what your children learn, and what their teachers can teach.
Agree re: disruption. I've thought about this type of thing a lot, and I wish there was a way to fix the root cause instead of what I consider the symptom (dodgy overpriced software for a specific niche, especially when it targets non-technical users and/or has to do with medicine / HELPING HUMANS PHYSICALLY). I came to the conclusion that it's Very Hard to disincentivize greed. Anyone have any ideas for what could be done to help curb behavior like this by companies (companies which are really just people who are making these kinds of decisions -- never forget that)?
I’m not sure there’s any overt greed exactly. A company saw a market and launched a product for that market. But like most companies and products, especially in the case of a de facto monopoly, they’re not very good. When there’s no competition, why spend the money to innovate or improve? Your customers are still going to buy your shit.
The best way to improve the status quo on a case-by-case basis is to introduce competition, say by developing a better product, marketing it well, and basically out-predating the theretofore market predators. The marketing is easy if you can get enough momentum behind it:
“FooCorp wants to sell you these materials for $absurd. We made these better alternative materials. You can print the basic set yourself for free, or order any of our wide, high-quality selection, starting from $reasonable.”
I don’t think there is a general solution to the underlying cause, though.
Out of curiosity, are there effective and significantly cheaper systems in other countries outside of the US that people could purchase from? Or do they have industry associations and such eating out of their hand to mandate their use?
This is exactly the kind of thing I'd love to see China come in and drive the price down to commodity levels on.
Its really simple software, essentially a VU meter.
The therapy involves getting patients to shout in a certain way and try and reach certain volume levels or follow certain volume patterns. E.g. shout gently for five seconds and gradually ramp up the volume over 10 seconds.
It would be really easy to replicate. I reckon the most time consuming part would be testing and calibration.
But you should look into Max/MSP ( https://cycling74.com/products/max/ ), where you could build and bundle a simple audio app like that in minutes and have it tailored to your specific needs.
Another business that does this is the hearing aid racket. An audiologist examines a patient, comes up with a patient's profile (some kind of EQ / convolution map), and then loads that into the hearing aid using proprietary programming cable and software.
There are other settings more under the preferences category than DSP, like what profiles go on what switch setting, beeps, things like that. But these are all guarded jealously.
The aids are very expensive, more than $5k, for what's now ancient tech. They've only recently gotten BT and only then at the high end, more like $8k for the BT models.
We really need open hardware and software, so home users can get an audiologist to compute their profile and then do what they want with it.
I saw this kind of predation secondhand when my maternal grandmother (I know her as “babcia”) went in for hearing aids. Her main problem was actually earwax buildup, not general hearing loss. But there’s no money in giving a patient a script for ear drops, so they managed to convince her to drop thousands in insurance dollars and no small amount of her personal dollars as well. <sigh>
But, she can hear, and she’s happy. I guess that’s how these companies get away with it—you can satisfy a customer without doing a whole lot of actual good for them.
My father who is in the age group now pretty much confirmed all of this when recently shopping for one. As it was covered by his health care they were trying to flog him one at a ridiculous price.
As I understand it, the audiologist prescription includes an EQ map as well as few different types of filters for different situations: music, conversation in crowded room, 1:1 conversation, etc. Hearing impairments are not totally amplitude dips but also comprehension ones. SO I suspect aids have a few extra DSP filters available to the programmer that IEM's don't, while IEM's probably have wider range and better reproduction for the musician's taste.
Can you say a bit more about the process of writing grants for open source projects? I have some long-term education related projects that I'm considering grant funding to support. I have some ideas how to go about it, but I'd love to hear what you've done.
How does she barely make minimum wage as a speech therapist? My mother worked in the school system for 20 years making nothing. Now works in skilled nursing, people that just had strokes and other trauma learning to speak, eat, or breathe correctly again. She makes around 80k and regularly picks up side jobs at other facilities for $50+ an hour.
I have another friend from college who works in a hospital and makes 70-80k. Although there isn't much increase over the years in a hospital.
Just curious because I'm familiar with the field. Are things different in Europe?
Could a professional organization of speech therapist come together and fund a competitor? Obviously you would need to deal with the free rider problem somehow.
I hear much of the same. I don't think I've ever seen Snapchat mentioned here without an oogle of 40 somethings complaining about how useless and unintuitive it is.
I'm really apprehensive about replying to this because I don't feel like what I said was spurious (and I feel like this comment might have the same unintended message as the first) in any way when I try to recall[1] the threads[2] I've read[3] and participated[4] in. How should I less spuriously describe my experiences here?
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11075336 (about 33-33-33 of completely dismissive, completely bewildered, and then simply trying as hard as they can to explain to the previous two groups)
Many of your comments are great --- including this one --- but the one Dan marked off-topic was not. I don't know if it was actually off-topic, but it made a sweeping generalization and wasn't a high-quality comment. I read through the threads you linked here, and I didn't see much evidence that 40-somethings were complaining about Snapchat's interface. There were many people who were bemused and confused by it's popularity, but I didn't see any clear correlation with age.
So I think Dan was right to consider your "oogle of 40 somethings complaining about how useless and unintuitive it is" to be a spurious putdown. I think your "first" comment makes the same point about Snapchat's utility, but in a more acceptable manner. So please keep posting other comments, even controversial ones, but if possible avoid such generalizations unless they are well-supported and central to your argument.
Thanks for helping me understand both of your viewpoints. I can definitely see how that comment can be seen as spurious now and will try to avoid those sweeping generalizations.
I usually feel for people getting downvoted because they speak their mind, but... No people don't have to make money this way. There are plenty of ways to make money and it is not important that she doesn't happen to make a lot, even if she made a lot, I don't think this makes any difference.
People aren't complaining about the price, they're complaining about the fucking stupid way that price is enforced and the gouging that happens when the inadequate hardware fails.
Though I don't necessarily agree with you, I'll upvote you as I think you bring up a good counterpoint that's not being discussed.
It's possible that this company's business plan assumed the replacement by obsolescence model - instead of a high upfront cost to recoup their R&D, they expected users to replace it every few years at full cost.
This is no different than the vast majority of the bait & switch type schemes the tech industry and every other market uses. If one is acceptable, I don't see why the other is not, just because a small percentage of the population on HN understands how to replace the electronic components of said hardware.
Should a chemist be able to manufacture patented pharmaceuticals in his garage simply because he/she knows the procedure? What if the drugs cost $10K a month because the company spent billions developing and marketing them? Now what if the chemist decides to make the expensive drugs for his family? And his friends. And their friends. Where does it stop?
The DMCA has been abused, but it isn't so cut and dry.
In the case of the drug, we as a society (and I use "we" very loosely here; in this case it means "mainly people who benefit directly from this opinion") have "decided" that a "person" (company) who invents a useful drug "deserves" to gain tons and tons of money, and operate in a way which prevents others from duplicating the drug, even if that behavior leads directly to the needless suffering of potentially millions of individuals.
In the world I want to live in, this type of thing would be given to society due to the benefits of it. "But it's an investment; how will they recoup R&D money?" some will say. My response is that we as a society should recognize that the "free market" approach here can be quite inhumane for many people and figure out a way to either publicly fund this research (and address the related problems such as fraud and embezzlement) for the benefit of everyone.
Yes, most actual scientific progress comes from government-funded and/or non-profit institutions. As the saying goes: socialise the losses, privatise the profits.
this company has not taken action to enforce DMCA or any other licensing gripe with the guy, so as yet he hasn't forced to pay obeisance to anything, and he didn't, so that issue is not really on the table.
you are essentially taking the position that the company should be forced to sell its software unbundled with hardware because you would prefer it that way.
Under your logic, the unicorn Uber could be forced to provide their software independently too, why should I have to use Uber's cars if I just want to use their software for scheduling and other market clearing tasks that I want to undertake, including scheduling competitive ride sharing. My headphone broke; I didn't like my Uber driver; how dare they bundle them together.
Now, I actually believe that Uber and other unicorns should not be allowed to become unicorns the way they do because I think we could achieve the same level of innovation in the public interest without monopoly prices. But I don't attempt to get my way by sneering at people and downvoting them.
Your argument is a non-sequitur. Bunnie's lawsuit, and this guy's situation, are not about using something they haven't paid for. In fact, they are about having the full rights to use something they HAVE paid for. You, as someone off the street who would like to use Uber's software, haven't paid for that right. Nobody here is suggesting that businesses should have to sell off their proprietary systems to anyone who wants to buy them.
They didn't sue him, yes. But they did specifically mention DMCA, and that they believe what he did to be illegal. So, at the very least, it was an implied threat. Which he ignored because "<b>if</b> we lived in the US we would have been in breach of the DMCA".
I also don't see anything in that comment saying that they should be forced to decouple software from hardware. What it says is that they shouldn't be allowed to legally prohibit their users from doing said decoupling on their own, if they have the resources and the expertise to do so.
Now, this position does result in their business model being non-viable - if working around such technical restrictions is not illegal, and it's cheaper than not doing so, then there will be a market in workarounds. But I think that is fair - there's no inherent right for some arbitrary business model to be viable, so the market sorts it out. Companies can still try to make it work by utilizing more sophisticated protective schemes that require more effort to break, raising the cost of such workarounds. But if it doesn't work for them, well, they will have to look for a different business model - sell the device at a higher price, say, to mitigate losses from savvy customers that cannot be milked; or rent it out instead of selling.
As to patents and copyrights - these are, indeed, legal tools that enable specific business models. They exist because we as a society (i.e. majority consensus) believe that these are necessary to stimulate creation of certain goods that would otherwise not be created at all - so we have established them as a kind of explicit social contract. One could argue that their present form (terms, especially, and domain of applicability) is not actually agreed upon by the majority; but I think most people agree with the basic principle. They also have some important exemptions, such as fair use, which are also there to ensure a balance between keeping the business model viable, and protecting other social interests.
I don't think that a similar consensus exists with respect to DMCA protections. If you take a random person off the street, and explain them a situation that DMCA makes illegal, as the original post in this thread, the most common reaction is "WTF? This is insane". And I think it's for a good reason - DMCA doesn't really enable any business models that are uniquely suited to producing goods and services that the society needs, and that cannot be produced through any other business model. All it does is provide some opportunity for extra profit. I don't think that most people would consider extra profit for a few businesses to be sufficient justification for very heavy-handed legal restrictions that defy common sense.
look, I am in favor of open systems, right to repair, right to modify, etc. Hell, I'm in favor of the GPLv3 which puts me way to the free-open-copyleft side of 90% of HN. So yes, I am against the DMCA.
What I am objecting to in this thread is the tone of everybody that this one little anecdote concerning the bad luck of one guy with a copy protected system is somehow egregiously bad behavior on the part of one little company. It's not. It is further evidence that we could have a better system without the DMCA etc.
What I'm saying is, when I drive a car, sometimes I speed, and if I get caught, I take my ticket like a grownup, I don't start pissing and moaning about cops, The Man, how I was treated, "we shouldn't have speed limits" etc. which many people I know do. Even though I've seen a lot of bad behavior by cops, I see a lot of bad behavior by a lot of people, many of whom have jobs that I don't want myself.
This thread should be a celebration of somebody's diligent hack around some arbitrary rules. It's not a poster child for the evils of corporate ethics.
People whose blood is boiling over what happened here? I hope they don't own guns or feel like I sped past them too fast on the highway, because I think they're *.ragers, is the argument in favor of rationality I'm trying to make.
I want to use Uber's software, just like this guy wants to use the software that came with the hardware that broke.
Look, I agree that I don't like what this company is doing. But I don't like what the unicorns are doing either. I'm arguing for consistency of viewpoint; and in terms of damage, what this company is doing is far less damaging to the economy (and I'm not referring to the damage Uber is doing to taxis, I'm in favor of that, I'm just in favor of a herd of Uber's competing, rather than a single player monopoly run by a sleazebag)
As I understand it, technically, in the United States patent infringement is patent infringement; no mitigating circumstance. In the UK or Europe there's an exception for personal use.
If their business model is based on assumed replacement, then they should make that explicit when someone buys their product; tell them that they are buying X years of service. A customer has the right to know what they are agreeing to, and having a secret expiration date is not a fair business transaction.
Any business model is fine, as long as all the people involved in the transaction know what they are agreeing to. Bait and switch is NOT acceptable, and just because others do it does not make it acceptable.
If you are going to hide the fact that you expect your product to break in 2 years and the customer will have to buy a new one, then you don't get to complain if someone bypasses your business model and fixes it themselves. You can't use the law to enforce your trickery.
This post about the damage inflicted by 1201 reminded me of another 1201: Halon 1201, banned because it depletes the ozone layer. A serendipitous coincidence, with this post talking about 1201 like an ecological threat.
The second paragraph is probably enforceable, but I'd be interested to hear from someone suitably informed whether the first paragraph has any basis. How far can it be taken?
For example, one of the most insidious things about the Blu-ray format is that unlike DVD and HD-DVD, commercially pressed video Blu-rays are obliged to use AACS. Theoretically non-AACS discs could be pressed and work, but the replication plants aren't _allowed_ to print non-AACS video Blu-rays. This has caused some consternation where people want to distribute Creative Commons/etc. video on optical media, more than can fit on a DVD. I think I recall Archive Team talking about just having to resort to putting video files on a data Blu-ray instead.
If someone made a film, put "Neither this work nor any derived work can constitute an effective technological measure for the purposes of the WIPO copyright treaty or any corresponding legislation" in the credits, and then someone else got AACS'd Blu-rays made of it, would 1201 thereby not prohibit breaking AACS specifically in the context of that Blu-ray? It seems rather dubious.
I'm not a lawyer either, but I doubt that clause has much effect, if any. The DMCA defines "effective technological measure" as follows:
> [A] technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
This seems like an objective metric, not something the copyright holder can arbitrarily "deem".
However, in the usual case people worry about, where a user is "circumventing" by modifying software on their own device, one could argue that given the "Installation Information" clauses and the other parts of the GPLv3 aimed at ensuring the user has the ability to modify the software, it does not "in the ordinary course of its operation" require permission from the copyright holder. The "no covered work shall be deemed" clause could be seen to clarify intent.
There are other cases, like if the GPL software was, say, a web server that someone had configured to password protect files they had copyright over, and a hacker bypassed the password protection. This would normally be covered by the CFAA and other hacking statutes, but the DMCA could apply too. In this case, the GPL's "waive any legal power to forbid circumvention" clause wouldn't apply because the hacking wouldn't be "effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work". But if the "no covered work shall be deemed" clause is effective, it would close off using 1201 against the hacker anyway...
CSS encryption on DVDs doesn't "effectively control access to a work" because it is easy to crack. That doesn't stop copyright holders and the DMCA from deeming that DeCSS is illegal.
No, the law means "effective" in the sense of "has the effect of controlling access" not in the sense of "does a great job at it." CSS clearly does have an effect of controlling access to people trying to copy DVDs even if the encryption is weak.
What's kind of cool about this issue is that it attracts support from citizens of all political stripes - whether you're a farmer who just wants to be able to fix his own damn tractor, or a hacker who wants to futz with proprietary hardware, the law is patently bogus.
Unfortunately, farmers and hackers have far less political influence than corporations. Hopefully by pursuing this through the courts and with adequate resources from the EFF some progress can be made that couldn't be in congress.
Just as a point of fact, farmers have huge political power. Look at farm subsidies, look at Ethanol mandates.
To be more accurate, I would say the number of farmers that want to work with code/electronics to fix tractors is a small subset of "farmers." Try cutting a farming subsidy and you'll quickly see how powerful farmers really are.
Ted Cruz was the only candidate who dared challenge Ethanol mandates -- while campaigning in Iowa. Most political pundits considered that suicide. He won Iowa despite that, but it does show that farmers actually have disproportional power in national politics. However, the "hack my tractor" crowd is not necessarily exercising that power. Perhaps in the 2020 election, this will become a marquee issue (as ethanol has been in elections past.)
No, farmers have very little power. Agri-corps, big business which collects the majority of those subsidies, have power. These laws keep little guys down.
Exactly re: influence. Laws like this are de-facto evidence of the power of the will of the people vs. the power of the will of financial interests by other people who deem that more important (in terms of their bank accounts and short-sighted profit motives).
Really, if you're a farmer who wants to fix his own damn tractor, you're probably a hacker (in the traditional sense of the word). You don't have to work with computers in order to be a hacker.
Circumvention by itself definitely shouldn't be illegal, and it's probably unconstitutional to make building and researching circumvention mechanisms illegal. But I don't buy Step 2.
> EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to make innovative uses of their paid video content, such as captioning a presidential debate with a running Twitter comment field or enabling remixes of high-definition video. But using or offering this technology could run afoul of Section 1201.
It definitely should be legal to build those products. Maybe it should be legal to distribute that captioned video as fair use. But why should Twitter profit from a user captioning a video CNN created?
That's the part I have trouble with here. Fair use is fine and good, but there is a large universe of very profitable companies that don't make content of their own, but profit from other peoples' content. Of course they have a huge interest in weakening copyright protections under the guise of promoting fair use.
Um, if I am a content consumer that has legitimate access to content streams from two different sources, why am I not allowed to multiplex those streams in a way that is useful to me?
This is not about Twitter, or CNN, but the users ability to consume content that they have legitimate access to in the way that they choose.
Replace twitter in this example with the ability to feed an audio stream into a speech recognition and translation service to translate audio streams on the fly and suddenly no one can argue the value to the consumer, but both cases are legitimate uses to different users.
Another example of a simple consumer service that could take advantage of this and already exists: RiffTrax. Right now they have to use the "the customer has to use two different players, figure out the audio settings, and get the timings right themselves" method.
The point you're missing is that the ability to dynamically remux Blu-Ray contents is legally blocked by the DMCA, but if it wasn't there could be, for example, software that injects extra commentary tracks into the processing of a disc you have.
Which is why I said circumventing copy protection shouldn't be illegal. You should be able to make that video and use it for your own purposes. My problem is with Step 2 of the article's hypothetical: instead of feeding the video into a speech-to-text machine for your own use, you put it on Twitter where Twitter makes a bunch of money off something that was mostly CNN's work.
I don't think you understood what his product does, it's a FPGA to defeat HDCP in realtime and then adds various overlays to the picture, e.g. a live twitter feed in the right corner.
This trend of making things illegal before any harm is done is insidious.
Imagine if someone has their Blu-ray player playing on a TV. They design a system that flashes physical flashcards in front of the TV with a twitter feed. That shouldn't be illegal, right?
Now, what is the difference between that and overlaying a digital twitter feed? You are legally allowed to view the content. Why shouldn't you be able to consume it in any way you deem fit? If you copy or distribute it, that should be (and is) a crime, but until you have done that, in my opinion you have done nothing wrong.
Corporations have successfully lobbied to erode the whole basis of our legal system by taking away the presumption of innocence at every turn.
I have a little trouble understanding your point, is it that he suggested Twitter as a captioning/commentary outlet? I have to think that was just an example, but also that Twitter's position as a commercial entity does touch on wider issues.
I don't think Bunnie is looking to develop products that redistribute video.
If you've seen his previous NeTV project[1] he's looking to inject video overlays into the HDCP stream and let you do things like he described in his letter. His method of getting into the HDCP stream[2] via a MITM attack is probably what's running afoul of the government.
While it's not something I agree with in principle, you do know that doing such a thing outside of the specific Four-Factor Fair Use test is an instance of Copyright Infringement? I'm not happy with the way the law is written, but I don't think this avenue is altruistic in the least.
The real problem, of course, is that the Internet today consists almost exclusively of private companies profiting from other people's content. Twitter doesn't pay its users, it makes money off their tweets AND by having them look at ads (yes, this is work). Similarly with Facebook, or with any review aggregator (Yelp, Amazon, Google+), monetizing the free labor of others.
The DMCA protects certain forms of property very jealously, but other forms (e.g. a review) aren't even recognized as property, and the idea of users being appropriately compensated (as we'd expect each nickel to be accounted for a song owned by EMI) is practically absurd. (Note that I do not want the world where we monetize everything)
At the end of the day, which forms of digital property we create and enforce are going to be what determines who can amass wealth - the existing regime was obviously set in place to benefit corporations, billionaires, not joe user.
Some people seem to be downvoting you because they disagree with your view point.
I'm not sure I agree with you but your views are valid and a positive contribution to this thread. Just want to call out that I'm a bit disappointed with the rest of the community for targeting you.
That's very common here. I'll usually have it in waves: I post on internets state, some criticism, sysadmins take a lunch break and my post is voted up, then front end guys go out for a coffee and that's reverted, when startup founders start midnight hacking it's flagged etc. :) this is annoying, though I do understand that the comments that one disagree seem more likely to be spammish to them, and that this instinct is hard to overcome.
Twitter exists as a platform that allows politicians, entertainers, businesses and more communicate more quickly and cheaply with people interested in them than ever before. The profit a user gets out of Twitter depends on what is put into it.
What you're describing as profit is a diffuse social value, public discourse, not a narrowly-defined piece of property that can be monetized and sold (views/impressions/clicks).
I would like to suggest out that the latter is a heavily-defended form of property (belonging to the platform, not the user who does the work of viewing/clicking) that is monetized into the billions, while the former does not directly, probably just because it cannot be defined by terms of contract, and would be exercised on behalf of users, a diffuse unorganized source of power, and not the corporation, a narrow, organized source of power with specific intent.
We might despise users for not having their shit together, and watch happily while large corporations cart off billions and build giant systems of surveillance to further probe us, but this sort of 'vae victis' attitude is I think why 2016 is the debacle that it is.
Twitter has a market cap of $13 billion mostly because of content produced by its users. The only possible way it can make money is by showing ads to users (getting them to do free labor).
I didn't down vote you because I don't agree with anonymously down voting people when I disagree with a comment like a sneaky coward, but maybe I can shine a little light on a possible disagreement.
Twitter is made up of it's shareholders and workers. The workers have been receiving a salary(profit essentially). Twitter shareholders make money when the market cap goes up(profit essentially). It's likely a semantics discussion about what "profit" specifically means to each person more than anything.
I fail to see how your quoted text has anything to do with twitter making a buck. The target here is the end user being able to do more with their paid content, including overlaying other content. Substitute a wikipedia entry as the example if twitter is causing a hangup. There are already limits on fair use when profit is involved... this is more about letting users use content in ways that are not prescribed by the big content producers, and being able to develop the devices to do so without breaking the law.
If I'm reading the OP correctly, the video isn't being distributed. Just an alternative media stream with some form of captioning that could paired up with the video at the user end.
> But why should Twitter profit from a user captioning a video CNN created?
It appears that you are saying you can create something that incorporates fair use of a protected work, but you can't disseminate it, except maybe by some non-profit internet samizdat. That makes fair use a nullity.
Twitter isn't profiting from a work CNN created. They are, indirectly, profiting from user-created content, some of which is based on fair use, by creating a communications medium.
That was the notion that I was operating under as well, as a content creator, and got torn to shreds so I backed out of this thread mostly.
I went ahead and wrote an article that might be of interest to you, and seeing as you're an astute and recognized authority, I'd appreciate criticism as well.
What we need is the legal right to fork any IP. An open licensing model where no one needs permission. They just need to maybe pay an IP tax that trickles up to the previous contributors that helped produce what was forked.
IP is completely flawed because it grants a monopoly on the fruits of specific knowledge or a work as if they are static end products, whereas in reality anything that is not evolving is dying. So the law restricts progress to the owners of the IP even when we could all contribute. And when there is incompetence or negligence by the owners, we have a situation where something good is ruined or withheld, with anyone fixing it being illegal.
Removing IP is impossible because it's about profit, which is also a right. What we need is a new revenue system based on new principles of an expectation of progress and open contribution. Open source software and hardware is this, but just without any standard profit model backed by law.
This is just one scenario, but you can imagine a system where the person who profits over any IP would pay IP tax, which would then get distributed upstream to previous registered contributors. IP producers would need to be tracked, but this is something that systems such as github already do extremely well, and credit card companies already run systems that process fees for every single transaction.
Producers will announce themselves anyway, in hopes that their content will generate as much value as possible. Contributors would announce themselves in exchange for the right to use any IP.
So say DJ Foo remixes a Michael Jackson song and uploads it to YouTube. YouTube will withhold the IP tax from the ad revenue paid out, and hand it over to the IP revenue service with the copyright profile. Michael Jackson will get paid for DJ Foo's remix automatically.
Say DJ Foo does an original song and uploads it to YouTube. The same thing will happen, but DJ Foo will get paid from the IP revenue service since the IP is tied to DJ Foo as the originator.
And imagine if all this information was open and public. We could lookup any product or work and see all of its activity and history as if it were open source code on github.
In exchange for everyone paying an IP tax, anyone creating anything or adding something will be guaranteed to get paid for their contributions based on the maximum value society can generate from it. Violators will be shamed just by manipulating the system because they'd be doing it in public, and it would be in the IP creators best interest to police their work and report violations. Violations don't even need to be criminal. They just need to be fines that disincentivise those actions enough, much like parking tickets. An example violation would be uploading someone else's song without changing it or false claims regarding ownership.
not that i'm necessarily agreeing, because it's complex but pay what you want entertainment works quite well so people are willing to support when they don't have to. also people create plenty of FOSS and creative commons software, so the incentives to create don't have to be monetary and the incentives to support don't have to be legal
plus... does anyone except the rich celebrities really think they're worth as much as they make? they could afford to have a bit less anyway ;) and they'd still keep creating
Ah... You miss an important point. There doesn't need to be an incentive to create anything. Creation is the reward. Creative minds will create no matter what.
The trick is to create a society where creators get fed, and that still remains compatible with capitalism because we are in love with capitalism.
Just to add, this is the creator's side. You can imagine a consumer side where everyone decides to put in X dollars like public radio, but watch their donation get equally distributed based on the content they consume. For both sides, the idea is to remove the profit motive from the platform itself, make it as automated and hands free as possible, make it fair, make it as open and data driven as possible, and to let creators focus on creating and nothing else.
And maybe just anyone who wants to join is good enough. By joining, creators will get paid automatically just by publishing content that generates income for themselves or anyone else.
If something isn't done about this very soon, people will never remember or know what used to be. Most (many?) of us here have used VCRs, tape recorders and CD burners, etc, and understand what he is talking about when we remember the days when we had freedom to own information.
Today's kids have been well trained by Apple, Google and Netflix and hardly even understand what we are talking about.
"Oh, you don't have an iPhone anymore? Just buy it on Google Play and you will have it again on your Galaxy." is a quote I have heard more than once...
Unfortunately I believe that even if the suit was successful, we would just see more purchases become 'perpetual licenses', skirting the updated law. IIRC, Tesla was very heavily against letting anyone tinker and went to some extremes to stop it. It wouldn't surprise me in the least to see them make buyers sign a EULA in the future when you go to 'purchase' a vehicle.
I can imagine tinkering with a Tesla could cause some heartburn for Elon. There are safety issues, which are real. What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice? Also interesting, recently heard about a guy who can reprogram some diesel trucks to get better performance (probably at the expense of NOX emissions, like what happened with VW). Still thought it was pretty cool that the truck was not locked down to prevent tinkering in this manner.
NOTE: I am talking about what the company's perspective may be, not my own view of the risks.
What happens if I tinker with a regular car and put a nitrous oxide engine? The safety issues, which are real, could allow someone to plow into minivan on its way to Little League practice. It could explode. It could cause a massive fire. It could go way faster than the speed limit, bypass the limits of the breaks, and go against any number of laws.
So... does this mean I could sue Ford if someone modified a Ford car with a nitrous oxide booster? Could Ford sue the modifier for ruining the reputation of Ford when they crashed a modified Ford car? Will the state sue Ford for allowing such modifications, commonly used in street races? Can there be a civil suit against ford for anyone harmed by such modification?
To me, all those questions has a clear answer, and that answer is No. It also has a historical proof, as there hasn't been any lawsuits against Ford for failing to prevent such modifications. If the owner of a car modify their own car, then that person is fully responsible of any consequences of that action.
I would argue self-driving car software is different. If license terms permit modification, and a modified version is running in a car that causes damage, then there will be an argument as to whether the modifications caused the wreck, or whether it was the underlying software and thus the manufacturer who is responsible. Tesla, quite rationally, would not want to give users a permissive license, given this obvious liability problem. Even if, nod nod wink wink, they might approve of owners playing around with it.
I'm sure we all could come up with compelling arguments for both sides of this debate.
"It is the socially responsible thing for Tesla to make guarantees about their car software performance and prevent tampering in order to keep our streets safe."
and
"It's my product, I own the car; I have the right to tinker with all of it."
I observe that we constantly have this same debate: can we be responsible and take care of ourselves or do we need some ruling class to take care of us and micromanage our decisions for us? Or philosophically, can mankind be perfected through laws?
Half-measures and exceptions in the self-determination debate always strike me as lacking wisdom. Culturally, we should be strongly predisposed one way or the other.
How about using the same tactic many smartphone makers use:
"We're allowing you to unlock your bootloader, but if you do, you're voiding your warranty."
Similarly car makers could say as soon as the user unlocks the car's systems for modification, the company is no longer responsible for any accident that might happen.
No, car companies are sued when defective equipment causes an accident. They would have to take measures to ensure that consumer-modified equipment that causes an accident is not blamed on them.
Except for failures not caused by poor maintenance or poor/reckless driving. Like if your rear diff falls out because the bolts weren't done up at the factory, etc.
I'm sure user modification of functional systems would void the warranty. That is a separate issue from third-party liability, though, because the third-party victims are not party to the warranty.
> What happens when some maniac changes the software to make autopilot into full self driving, then plows into a minivan on its way to Little League practice?
We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation.
What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!?
What if we let people tinker with their toasters and somebody uses one to electrocute a pool full of kids!?!?
> What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!?
I know this was said in jest, but given the (generally unfounded) fears some people have about microwaves and cellphones I want to point out that exposure to unshielded microwave radiation isn't going to cause cancer (at least not any more than anything else that heats you up could somehow cause cancer) because microwave radiation is non-ionizing; you would need at least ultraviolet light for that (and UV-C or X-rays would be most effective).
The biggest danger with strong microwave radiation would be boiling your eyeballs as they lack the cooling most of your body has but contain significant amounts of water.
If that's not a weird joke, I really want to hear why you think marrow is going to absorb more microwaves than any other part of your body. Because it won't, it's an overall heat like sitting in a sauna. At low power it's warm, past that it's unpleasant, past that you have heat stroke.
I should have chosen my words to be more focused, I suppose. You can damage certain organs. You will not be cooking deep internal organs with an unshielded microwave. Not without cooking everything else.
Pretend my original comment ended with "Past that, you basically fell in a fire and it doesn't matter what is heating you." Is there anything wrong with that? Or the rejection of the idea that bone marrow is at risk?
50 GHz is still significantly less energetic than visible light, which is in the hundreds of terahertz. The sun bombards us with a lot of visible light, but you have to get into the blue/violet/ultraviolet region before it's energetic enough (high enough frequency) to cause damage. Barring some strange and previously unknown special biological interaction with a particular radio frequency, radio signals which have lower frequencies and lower intensities than visible light from the sun are not going to cause cancer any more than exposure to red or green light would cause cancer.
>We can't let these hypothetical worst-case scenarios be an excuse to stifle innovation.
Well, given that the Earth could be wiped out at any moment with the nuclear weapons and stuff we stockpiled, long term this idea might prove to be laughably wrong.
Very true! We should be concerned about worst-case scenarios. Probably an isolated car crash is not a worst-case scenario, except for a PR-obsessed tech company.
The parent argument is that the magic words we should stop using are "what if". So let's stop the qualitative pontification and have a quantitative discussion of cost vs. benefit for various parties.
I'm sorry Mr. Wright, we have several, accounted ways of flying and they all led to death. Maybe you should try something a little safer. No, of course you cant experiment with only yourself as test person- this government cares about its subjects.
Still dont see the point why the third generation of the of Wrights should have a right to cease control over new forms of space travel.
No reason why the descendants of the inventors wife and the patent-lawyer, shall hold back the creatives of today.
It might be easier than you would think. It's possible Tesla (or other vehicles with self-driving features) have latent capabilities already in their software, which just need to be switched on. A hacker playing around in his garage might feasibly jailbreak the car and flip this switch. Whereas I would agree with you to the extent that writing self-driving software that uses all the various data inputs and maps to pilot the vehicle, from scratch, is not something very many people are even capable of doing.
But if this suit is successful, it would mean that Section 1201 violates your First Amendment rights which in turn means that EULA also violates your First Amendment rights.
No. The First Amendment limits what the government can do to restrict your right to free speech. The DMCA, and Section 1201, is the Government limiting the power of freedom of speech, and so the First Amendment is applicable.
By signing a EULA, you are accepting a limitation of your freedom of speech and (along with other factors - e.g. money) gaining some compromise instead (a car). That's not First Amendment territory in the same way that moderation of an online forum isn't.
The First Amendment prevents laws being made, not contracts being signed. It means it's not illegal, not that it isn't a breach of contract.
Sort of. We can't make a contract to do something that would otherwise be illegal. A very simple example is that I cannot put into a rental lease that I can evict a tenant in 5 days. That would be in conflict with the law that says I must go through a 30 day process. Even if I put it in a contract and you sign it, you can still sue me for not going through the 30 day process.
Right, there are laws that govern certain types of contracts. I think the problem there is that a lease is regulated, rather than contracts in general. As a counter example, the contracts that members of sober living houses sign indicate that they can be expelled for relapse without going through a formal eviction process. These contracts are governed by a different federal law (the 1988 amendment to the federal fair housing act, IIRC).
I am curious why, if they actually believe they have a good chance of success, this is only being filed now rather than in prior years? Has something changed?
I may be reading the actual complaint incorrectly, but I believe it's because in the 2015 update, the Library of Congress failed to adequately address previously protected exceptions of the DCMA:
>"The Library of Congress failed in its October 28, 2015, rulemaking to grantexemptions from the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision, 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(1), for speechusing clips of motion pictures, for the shifting of lawfully-acquired media to different formatsand devices, and for certain forms of security research.SeeLibrary of Congress, “Exemption toProhibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access ControlTechnologies,” 80 FR 65944 (Oct. 28, 2015) (“Final Rule”). The Librarian’s failure to grantthese exemptions violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”),5 U.S.C. § 702.Case 1:16-cv-01492"
As is such, the EFF needed time to compile a case, file it, and also find plantiffs.
> I am curious why, if they actually believe they have a good chance of success, this is only being filed now rather than in prior years? Has something changed?
You need standing and money to sue. Based on the EFF release:
> EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to make innovative uses of their paid video content, such as captioning a presidential debate with a running Twitter comment field or enabling remixes of high-definition video. But using or offering this technology could run afoul of Section 1201.
> EFF is also representing plaintiff Matthew Green, a computer security researcher at Johns Hopkins University who wants to make sure that we all can trust the devices that we count on to communicate, underpin our financial transactions, and secure our most private medical information. Despite this work being vital for all of our safety, Green had to seek an exemption from the Library of Congress last year for his security research.
They have two people with reasonable reasons for wanting the regulation changed and are affected by it now would be my guess. Oh, and these people need the EFF to cover the legal costs.
So you're telling me Andrew Huang's business model is to make derivative content devices, for profit, without permission or compensation from the original creators and/or rights holders?
I don't find this litigant to be sympathetic in the least (the second one, Green, is much more reasonable - though redundant to the John Deere case going on).
My initial impression is that I might actually want Huang to lose, if the implications of what he wants are as stated. He's trying to justify "remixing" for profit without compensation to the original rights holders. That's hot garbage in my personal opinion as a content creator.
I don't see the problem. I paid for some content, why shouldn't I be able to view it in my manner of preference? If I want to watch it mixed up with some funky third-party subtitles, or a chat window with my friends, why not? You're assuming that Andrew Huang's business model requires sharing content.
Here's a practical application: Due to travel, sometimes my wife and I are apart when the latest Must Watch Episode of something comes out. We will fire up skype and hbonow/netflix and watch it together. Dorky, yes. But also a pain in the ass to keep synced when pausing for bathroom breaks, snacks, etc. Someone should invent an app for that! Oh... but it would be illegal under DMCA.
The problem with your initial paragraph is that you assume making derivative content is legal in one's own home, DMCA not withstanding. Outside of "actual" Four-Factor Test Fair Use, it's infringement. Making a device to enable it is highly suspect as a motivation for an outright repeal of the legislation.
You do know the app you describe wouldn't be illegal under the DMCA if your program was licensed by the rights holders, right? That's what we're getting to here. If Huang's post described how he went about trying to negotiate and make deals with the content providers his device wants to piggy back on, and they were terrible in response, that's a different game - I'd be a lot more sympathetic then, no doubt. Show me where he did the due diligence and crunched the numbers, really!
It certainly doesn't change the basis of argument being asinine when realistically DMCA protections don't get in the way of day-to-day Fair Use. It just takes some effort, not buying some Bunnie Studios box off the shelf so he can make a profit. That's what is so stupid about trying to digitally steamroll protections - any time a human can SEE or HEAR something they can find a way to jack it and do something. It's just reality.
> So you're telling me Andrew Huang's business model is to make derivative content devices, for profit, without permission or compensation from the original creators and/or rights holders?
You realize a TV fits that description, right?
There is no reason for every device in the pipeline to kick back money to the content creator. You only need to pay for it once.
You apparently don't realize watching TV is not an act of creating derivative content, which is the stated goal of the device.
You only have to pay for it once when you're consuming, you have to pay for it in a different way if the intent is to allow someone else to consume a variation of what you've paid for. That's how copyright works. Questions?
I can pull up twitter on my laptop while watching a video and tweet about what I'm watching, and if others are watching it at the same time, I can see their tweets about the same video. Why is putting that twitter content onto the same display as the video somehow different than when it was on my phone display, especially when injected between the player and the display? It would be different if Huang was taking video, modifying it with a twitter stream, and then distributing the resulting derivative work, but that's not what he's doing.
If I sold a transparent LCD display that displayed twitter content, and told buyers to put it in front of the video while it was playing. Would I still be making derivative content for profit? If not, why is compositing the video and overlay physically meaningfully different from the compositing happening between the player and the display?
If you can't tell the difference between adding subtitles and making hard edits to video content then I'm sad for you, because it's a very easy distinction to make in the basics of how content, Copyright, and Fair Use work. Not /s
There are a large number of situations where you have to break protection mechanisms on content you've legally purchased in order to exercise your previously existing and legal rights to use it as an owner.
...and it happens day in and day out, and until I see drastic legal cases of enforcement going out and ruining companies and individual people and families I don't believe that the threat is particularly concerning. It exists, okay, and cleaning up 1201 would be great, but we're talking more about First Sale here in principle.
Define new development - the security researcher has extremely valid standing, but "editing and chopping video" isn't new development in the phrasing this case presents.
And that merely makes you a copyright maximalist. Others feel differently, and the law itself is essentially an encoding of policy because here are no natural rights for retaining ownership of all derivative works in perpetuity.
It shouldn't make a difference. I don't think there is a statue of limitations in challenging a law and sometimes it takes some time to understand the implications of a law anyway.
I'm not an American and do not live in America but the problems with American (copyright) laws unfortunately affect the world on a global scale. I sincerely wish you all the best in your efforts and hope that other organisations as well as the (fantastic) EFF back you.
A quick summary for those who don't want to click through without knowing what the lawsuit challenges:
Section 1201 contains the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions. These infringe upon fair use activities like format conversion, repairs, and security research.
Yes and that should worry people, that so often laws are taking into effect that nobody wants and you have to sue to get it undone, correcting HOPE you can get it undone, which i don't remember many cases of that it actually worked out the way people wanted it.
Don't get me wrong, great that a person can, but that shouldn't even be needed... in my opinion, utopia
The people, citizens. Though i'm curious what kind of laws are rolled back in the US because a citizen decided to sue to government. Do you have any nice examples (preferably of some law effecting many but sued by just one person?)
"Roe (P), a pregnant single woman, brought a class action suit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas abortion laws. These laws made it a crime to obtain or attempt an abortion except on medical advice to save the life of the mother."
ah yes that was a great case, thanks for the reminder. I'm not from the US but i have heard about that. But that does kind of shows what i meant, afaik that was a big and hefty case? And all because some people decided what another person could do with (mostly) her body. (hoping to get it undone).
But this one has economic (money) aspects, i fear this might be a bigger struggle (while people may differ about whats more important).
This is a pretty big part of what the Supreme Court does, although I guess the majority of the time it's because of an appeal or a lawsuit against some other entity and not a lawsuit against the US government directly.
Usually it's a lawsuit against some state government. Which shouldn't be surprising, since most laws affecting day to day lives of citizens are state laws, rather than federal laws, due to constitutional limitations on what can be enacted on the federal level.
and pick any case titled "{Person} v. United States" or "{Person} v. {State}". If the winning party is {Person}, chances are good that it repealed some law or another.
The UK government is trying to push for OSS as the default for all government software. As a default for all "societally beneficial"'software is a better goal and one highlighted here.
Now my attempts so far are stymied by this weird half world. Most government contracts basically want either bums on seats contractors or to fundamentally hire "someone who has done it before" (effectively the same as wanting to buy off the shelf)
So there is almost no way to seed fund the initial OSS development.
Down thread people talk about a fund for starting OSS projects to provide things like this. Plover is an example of people trying it on their own - but a funded system that basically follows current gov work seems better.
Can someone do a tl;dr? This is upvoted very highly but it's assuming a ton of context I don't have. All I get is that someone wants to be able to tinker, but today that necessitates breaking some legally-enforced protections on the product.
That's a valid point but I don't see how it's gotten to 1000 points, so I think I'm missing something. What's the lawsuit? What's the egregious use case?
DRM. I assume you know of it, and that it's massively hated. It's "copy protection" software mechanisms that is meant to control how you use and copy media that you have. It's a pain. Nominally, it's there to prevent you from copying the media in illegal ways, but it often also prevents you from doing perfectly legal things with it.
However, it's not just a pain to be worked around. In the US, since the DMCA section 1201 became effective in 1998, it is illegal to try to work around DRM. Mostly.
Every couple of years, the Library of Congress gets to make a list of exceptions to 1201, of specific situations where you can work around DRM without it being illegal. Most recently was October 28, 2015.
Many people still objected to section 1201 on principal that it prevents tinkering, but the Library of Congress' list of exceptions has generally kept people placated.
As for context of their specific case: I'm not totally sure. User csydas suggested that this case became possible because of certain exceptions being removed from the latest version of the list (then some time for the EFF to compile the case). This seams reasonable to me, but to know for sure would involve legal details about the case that we don't have yet.
I'm familiar with DRM and the related DMCA criticism. I just don't get what's so special about this case. It's like when you see a really boring scene in a movie and everyone is laughing at references and subtext you're not getting, or on the edge in suspense.
Like, if the scene is some dinner party, but right before you started watching someone had set a bomb under the table or something. What's the bomb here?
You should be excited about this case because it seeks to overturn the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. It is notable because it's backed by the EFF, notable researchers, and a top law firm. If it succeeds, it would be a huge win for our right to hack--many have posted stories about how those provisions affected them.
Practically all of mankinds knowledge is a result of freely mix and match creation and ideas of others, be it in the domain of language, arts, science or technology.
Copyright has gone out of control. Luckily not yet the whole planet bows to USA's demands. Let's hope that that will never be the case.
You know, no one asked you tech people from getting involved in law making. Nowadays, a law maker can't seem to do anything at all without some techie crying foul. Their argument always is some nonsensical technobabble, which the courts can't really understand anyway, often giving in to their demands just to get them to go away.
And it's such a shame, too, since those laws were bought and paid for by lobbyists, and what does it say about the rest of the country if one can't expect to get what one pays for when lobbying at the highest level of government?
Doesn't the US dismiss most lawsuits filed against it out-of-hand? Wasn't that why that class-action on behalf of the Japanese concentration camp survivors was such a landmark case?
Great. DMCA-1201 was always unconstitutional and was in practice used to stifle free speech. Good to see EFF actually bringing it to legal fight. It should be repealed completely.
The problem is this new business model where they don't just sell you things/stuff, rather they also sell you "specific rights" along with the stuff. The usual things like you cannot do this or that with the stuff that you bought from us. The sole purpose is to keep earning money even after the one time deal of buying the stuff.
IME many US people do not resonate with the creativity arguments, but do with the freedoms. The land of the free lately doesnt feel like it and I think many US people are feeling it too. It may help to phrase your arguments in the wording that the constitution is meant to protect -- in terms of freedom.
This entire cause is a sham, beyond belief, a cause that seeks to degrade the value of creative thought and intellectual property.
Before we get into socioeconomic barrier discussions I am a former disabled homeless person who is how the founder of one of the most powerful environmental activism groups in the country. I started out with nothing and worked myself to where I am, using original and creative thought and at no time have I ever needed anyone’s intellectual property to build myself to where I am.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, that supports this complete bullshit erosion of the rights of content creators everywhere, does nothing in this world but fight for causes that continually reduce the market value of original ideas.
They claim to fight for things like “free speech” but what they really fight for is the rights of anonymous hate groups to steal your photos and write nasty messages on them. They fight for the rights of the meek to inherit the Earth so they can then destroy it with their abject failures.
Look to the recent lawsuit Google v Oracle, where Oracle sued Google over the use of their software in Android. Google avoided billions in liability and it was all thanks to the work of the EFF, who suck off the teat of Silicon Valley and protect their billionaire buddies from financial liability, and then they support “little guys” like this so they can continue their 1% supporting ruse.
I look forward to watching this mad grab at free intellectual property get slapped down by Washington DC. This is not about fighting the government, this guy is a puppet being used by the power that be in Silicon Valley in order to allow companies like Google to continue to rob, loot, and pillage other people’s intellectual property without financial liability.
his "above statement" is not at all absurd, it reflects the thinking of somebody who is drawing a parallel because they are clearly educated in the Nobel prize attracting (i.e. hardly obscure) field of microeconomics; if you can't see that, am I right in guessing you have not studied micro? Cuz if you did, you missed a chunk of it.
| HN is a weird place to bemoan prices when many here are seeking unicorn valuations while disrupting industry
HN is a place where many seek unicorn valuations which are only achievable from monopoly rents. Monopoly rents are what the headphone USB trick is attempting to collect (see bundling). That's what makes it pertinent to state "weird place to take this side" especially so vociferously... well, weird side to take unless you are not educated about econ and are unable to decode what's actually happening.
If the software producer did not try to enforce copy protection through the USB scheme, they would presumably face the problem of people copying the software and buying aftermarket headphones. In a large scale industry like operating systems (Microsoft Windows) such rent seeking behavior is to be deplored because prices of individual copies of the software should approach their very-inexpensive marginal cost. But the marginal cost of a niche piece of software such as this ADA software is complicated by the difficulty in earning back the development costs. This is the justification for patents, etc. whether you believe in it strongly or less strongly or not. I am less strongly a believer, but I'm not a pussy who downvotes people who disagree with me.
I did not intend for it to be insulting. I often see posters complain about laws that prevent them from shoehorning them into and industry start making money, and defending similar laws when it's in their best interests. My original comment was a merely to argue the other side of the argument because HN has a tendency to be two-faced when it comes to topics like this.
you were downvoted because HN is not the friendly place it pretends to be: they don't like what you said. You only get to sneer at people if you drink the KoolAid. They hide behind the "it was the way you said it" excuse when they don't share your POV.
I don't share your POV btw, but I got downvoted because they don't like that I defended your right speak because your POV is unacceptable here. And this, to move the topic further afield, is why codes of conduct don't work: it's just another flavor of Turkish Pres Recep Erdoğanian "thin skin to disagreement", or "I don't like your opinion in one area, so you'd better shut up about everything else"
I do appreciate the effort to protect everyone's constitutional right. I wish best of luck to the pursuit.
However, I feel like there is something very very wrong about method and intention of this type of actions/complains.
One thing always bugs me about Americans: despite the liberties that they enjoy, despite the very real capacity to impact change in their government and laws, they all hate "the Government." Who is "the Government"? Wait, ain't them the very candidates that you the people vote into offices?
Like this idea of "suing the US government." Who are you suing? The executive branch? Why are you suing them? This is over a law. It's a piece of legislation. The executive branch merely, you know, execute the laws. Why not sue Congress? Oh wait, why sue Congress when you can simply vote them out of office? Oh wait, why "stop enforcing" the laws when you can, you know, CHANGE the laws?
This kinda reminds me of the libertarians' ideas of obstruction of legislation so that "the government does not spend more." If not spending is the right thing to do, why not educate people that. Even if one believes that 47% of the population is "takers," 53% is still a majority. So teach, advocate, change minds. But no, they prefer to obstruct their country, risk the centuries of their national reputation, put t heir fellow citizens to starvation. You know, if this happens in schoolyards, we probably call it "bullying." But if a bunch of libertarians do it, it's "principles."
Obviously, I agree with the plaintiff here. However, the method is still wrong. And different from above, there are very few "takers" here. Mostly, it's faceless businesses that (let's be frank here) few people like. So why not take the high road? Why not educate your fellow citizens on the danger of the laws? Why not change minds? Why not raise money for candidates who will change the laws appropriately?
In short: why not be a citizen rather than a rebel? Why not change the system for the better rather than obstruct it? Why not make your society/country a better place rather than simply fight it?
This is how the checks and balances of American government work, or are supposed to, at least.
Legislation is inert. The Executive exists to execute the will of the people expressed through the Legislature. The Judiciary interprets legislation, particularly the interactions and priorities of various laws, ranging from the Constitution, to legislation, to case law. This in turn informs the Executive as to how to execute the legislation.
Therefore, if a citizen is of the opinion that the Executive is doing a bad job of balancing concerns in enforcement (in this particular case asserting that 1201 is unconstitutional due to the 1st Amendment), they sue the Executive. Again, this is entirely in keeping with the structure of checks and balances American government is founded on. When it works, it works well.
> "Oh wait, why sue Congress when you can simply vote them out of office?"
That can be radically difficult because of gerrymandering.
That aside, launching a public campaign, garnering votes, and voting on a _single issue_ is often the wrong way to elect a representative.
For instance, I think the 2nd amendment is actually a good idea to prevent invasion of a foreign force (an armed population is very hard to rule over). However, I pretty much never vote for candidates that support the 2nd amendment because they often also deny climate change, vote for private prison control, etc. I can't go with their whole platform. I don't want them representing me.
So in those cases, when you have one issue - especially when it's just part of a whole (e.g. just section 1201) - it seems like the right approach, especially when you think there's a piece of legislation (like the Constitution) that supersedes and invalidates the legislation you're looking at.
The organizations who benefit from these laws have significantly more lobbying power and popular influence than anyone else can hope to gain. Ostensibly one reason courts exist is to allow harms to smaller players to be addressed.
I could make a bulleted list of why a republic doesn't work very well to tame media oligarchs, but it boils down to control of the media and decades of experience with framing the public conversation.
I think you might have some misconceptions about the structure of the American legal system and about American politics.
> One thing always bugs me about Americans: despite the liberties that they enjoy, despite the very real capacity to impact change in their government and laws, they all hate "the Government." Who is "the Government"? Wait, ain't them the very candidates that you the people vote into offices?
Fear of government is essentially a founding value of the United States, but I agree that people often go too far with it.
> Like this idea of "suing the US government." Who are you suing? The executive branch? Why are you suing them? This is over a law. It's a piece of legislation. The executive branch merely, you know, execute the laws.
Because that's how American constitutional law works. If you believe a federal law to be unconstitutional, you sue "the United States" so the courts can rule on the matter. The Justice Department, part of the executive branch, which for all intents and purposes is the government's legal team, is then tasked with defending the law.
Also, in constitutional law cases it's common for the plaintiffs to not seek monetary damages of any kind, just for the courts to affirm the rights they're asserting and remedy the specific situation that led to the lawsuit.
> Why not sue Congress?
The only time you would really have standing to sue Congress is if it did something to you directly, like you walked into Capitol Hill and one of the security guards roughed you up for no reason. Otherwise, Congress is acting on behalf of the government, and if you don't like acts of Congress you sue the government as a whole.
> Oh wait, why sue Congress when you can simply vote them out of office? Oh wait, why "stop enforcing" the laws when you can, you know, CHANGE the laws?
A couple reasons.
One, as an American citizen, there are at most three members of Congress you vote for: your Representative, and your two Senators. That's three out of 535 members. If you don't live in a state, you have no representation at all. So even if you can energize your neighbors to agree with and vote like you, it's still hard to sway the tide of national lawmaking.
Another reason is that it simply might not be politically possible to seek relief in Congress, because you're suing for a right that's politically unpopular, or for the rights of an unpopular group. Think of all the lawsuits involving flag burning, sodomy, the KKK, and the Westboro Baptist Church.
The interests of the lawmakers are more aligned with corporations with deep pockets than with the general population (at least regarding copyright laws).
Fixing this issue via the legislative process would therefor require realigning lawmakers with their constituents, which could be done possibly by enacting laws which prevent contributions from corporations (which is itself something that lawmakers may disagree with their constituents about) or by a grassroots campaign to basically replace the entire legislative branch with non corrupt law makers.
Both of these paths are slow and difficult, if possible at all. Meanwhile, there is an argument that the law is unconstitutional which means that it could be repealed immediately. We are still completely within the realm of being a citizen. This is the whole point of the checks and balances system.
> Why not educate your fellow citizens on the danger of the laws? Why not change minds? Why not raise money for candidates who will change the laws appropriately?
Because that's incredibly inefficient when compared to taking someone to court. Most people don't care about the things you care about, and they shouldn't have to -- that's what the courts are for. Democracy is a great last resort, but it should only be used when all other options have been exhausted.
I studied section 1201 thoroughly during law school and I think this post doesn't give a fair characterization of it. The reason this statute exists is because companies were unable to devise protection for copyrighted works that hackers were not able to immediately circumvent. As a result, the government stepped in and created 1201 to make it illegal for someone to circumvent some form of access control that a company used to protect their copyrighted works. The purpose of the statute isn't to destroy <insert Internet activist claimed right> but is to make it much less expensive for a company to protect its products. I don't see anything wrong with that.
But if you circumvent copy protection for the purpose of sharing copyrighted works publicly then you were already doing something illegal before section 1201. All section 1201 does is also make it illegal to circumvent copy protection even if you don't do anything else illegal under copyright law, like keep copies of movies you bought privately in a digital collection that you can back up, or using software that you payed for when you aren't connected to the internet. If we think circumventing copy protection for the purposes of copyright infringement is extra bad, why not just add additional penalties to additional copyright infringement?
"protect" is a biased term. One person's "protect" is another's "control". You mentioned "access control"; however, copyright has nothing to do with access control. Copyright is not an unlimited right to control all possible uses of a work; DMCA 1201 turns it into one, by enshrining whatever access control restrictions a piece of software implements into law.
Ignoring fair use for a moment (which DMCA 1201 also breaks, so that's another problem), copyright restricts copying. DMCA 1201 produces a restriction on usage, which copyright does not control.
DMCA 1201 doesn't actually prevent you from copying a DVD, for instance. DMCA 1201 prevents you from reading and playing a DVD using anything other than software approved by the author of the DVD.
The purpose of legislation isn't relevant, only the effect of the legislation. And the effects are the problem; potentially any debugger could be considered a "circumvention tool". Just like scope creep has caused laboratory glassware to be considered illegal "drug paraphernalia" in places.
1201 also has the effect of banning circumvention that does not infringe copyright. Which is supposedly addressed by the weird adhoc Library of Congress exemption system, but only in a very limited set of cases.
Whether the purpose of legislation matters very much depends on a judge's beliefs regarding statutory interpretation. Enforcement of a statute is often all about the purpose of it. That said, I see your point and its a valid one. I'm just not sure I believe getting rid of 1201 will do less harm than good. I guess we'll see how the lawsuit turns out!
- Tractors that have technical measures to prevent 3rd party repairs or replacement parts. Circumventing those measures is a DMCA violation, even if all you're trying to do is repair a tractor that you own without paying an arm and a leg to the manufacturer for a repair person.
- Printer makers that use technical measures to prevent their printers from using 3rd party inkjet cartridges. It's not my fault that they want to use the "give away the razor, sell the blades" business model.
- Basically any company that wants everything relating to their product to go through them, and to prevent 3rd party companies from creating replacement parts or performing repairs.
The government shouldn't be making laws just to make certain business models viable (that are otherwise not viable). (e.g.) If you can't sell cheap printers without gouging people by selling expensive ink, then charge more for your printers. If printers are too expensive for everyone to have one at home, then so be it. They will do their printing at Kinko's (or the local equivalent).
This works in other industries. Car manufacturers have had a 3rd party parts market for a long time (though they are definitely suckling at the teat of the DMCA and trying to make newer cars as locked down as possible).
Do you really think that the US government should be making laws to shut down the 3rd party inkjet cartridge industry in order to protect HP's consumer printer business? Should the US government pass laws to make it illegal for a farmer to install a non-John Deere part on his John Deere tractor? Is this the kind of thing that the government needs to be doing?
The DRM is not in products that the company own. They sold those products, knowingly, rather than renting them out as a service. Companies should have no right to "protect" lawfully-purchased products against usage by the person who legally bought it.
If they want to sell something and still remain ownership rights, then do what every company in history did before software DRM: rent it out as a service. A car bought, and a car rented, has natural right differences which is being erased by DRM.
>The purpose of the statute isn't to destroy <insert Internet activist claimed right>
What difference does the intended purpose make if it does indeed destroy <insert Internet activist claimed right>?
If that was indeed the purpose of 1201, the the law as written has unintended consequences.
But my feeling is that they knew damn well that they were going to sweep up non commercial tinkerers as well.
These days the line between commercial and non commercial is blurred. With the internet a hacker can publish some circumvention method and software with the same reach as a large company.[1]
[1] I personally see no problem with that. BTW. The law is being used here to prop up outdated, often monopolistic, business models. That's the company's problem, and shouldn't be externalized onto all of society.
Of course not every violation of 1201 will be prosecuted, but the laws are there to intimidate people if their tinkering becomes commerciall bothersome.
I'm pretty sure everyone's aware of the stated purpose of the section. It's not like there were a bunch of execs and lobbyists sitting around going "there's too much creativity in the world."
But the intentions of the legislation don't change its consequences.
Oh they very much do. Legislative intent is a major factor that many judges consider when enforcing legislation. Intent often has a very big impact on consequence.
IANAL, but this could cut both ways, couldn't it? If the judge decides the effect is different than the intent, she could either say "the intent is valid so let's ignore the effects" (what you seem to advocate here) or "the effects are not what was intended so until the legislative branch makes a change we'll use the following interpretation in order to make the effects more like the intent". There may be a standard way of deciding between these two alternatives, but I don't know it.
I do not think the author doesn't know that section 1201 was designed to help companies create access control. The author of the blog post is talking about not just the purpose of the law, but also the effect, which he or she believes infringes on the First Amendment.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think that laws with a constitutionally valid purpose are sometimes ruled unconstitutional by the courts when they have unconstitutional effects.
I can't comment on whether I think that will be the case here.
The purpose of me setting this bush alight is not to start a forest fire; it's to cook some marshmallows. I don't see anything wrong with that [even if it does actually start a forest fire].
If a law has unintended consequences of the magnitude that exceeds the supposed beneficial intent of the law, it's a bad law.
If there's no way to write a law without such unintended consequences, it shouldn't exist.
In this case, there's also the additional orthogonal argument that the law violates the First Amendment by prohibiting speech. Even if the law didn't have unintended consequences, this alone is sufficient to justify getting rid of it - if we allow unconstitutional laws because they serve a good purpose, all constitutional protections go out of the window.
Well, sure, that is the intent. Where people disagree is whether it's reasonable to criminalize breaking copy protection, rather than the act of illegally copying and distributing copyrighted content.
The first amendment of the US Constitution states that Congress (later interpreted as the entire federal government) cannot restrict free speech. Congress passed the DMCA, part of which said that you can't tell anyone about how to bypass DRM. Therefore, Congress restricted free speech, which is contrary to established law.
Do you see the problem?
Of course, the question is does this invalidate the entire DMCA or only that specific part?
Thanks for giving some context, and sorry to see you blanked out for providing a viable and nuanced rebuttal to what the EFF is doing. They are engaging in FUD on this one. It's got questionable merit. Thankfully, the legal system will sort this out and I presume in a fashion I find agreeable, because the EFF's position is extreme and untenable.
I think this is an important topic that needs to be addressed, but suing the government is doomed to fail. The federal government has sovereign immunity, and you can't sue them unless they decide that you can. They usually decide that you can't. Most laws aren't changed in the court unless someone is criminally prosecuted. Then your appeal case can move through the higher levels of the court until it reaches a level that the law can be struck down completely, or what usually happens is a legal precedent is set regarding a specific portion of the law.
So unless Bunnie has been prosecuted for breaking the DMCA, this is likely going to be an ineffective move.
If you want to change a law without breaking it first, the right way to go about it is petitioning Congress, the lawmaking part of the government.
You skipped the part where you form a lobby group with deep pockets before petitioning congress. I'm skeptical that petitioning will be any more effective than a lawsuit without that step.
Let's take a quick look at the understanding of Copyright law that this litigant seems to possess:
>Before Section 1201, the ownership of ideas was tempered by constitutional protections. Under this law, we had the right to tinker with gadgets that we bought, we had the right to record TV shows on our VCRs, and we had the right to remix songs.
Wait, before the DMCA "we" had the right to remix songs? Okay so this case is going nowhere because the person filing really doesn't quite understand the mechanics of basic Copyright. Just kind of throwing out the concept of "remixes" does a dis-service for the real nuances of how the rights/permissions/compensation system works, has been tested in court, etc.
The subject of ownership and repair is extremely complex and this lawsuit is frivolous when the matter is being actively tested by John Deere and various farmers. Maybe this person could assist in funding that challenge to 1201. There are some glaring flaws in this whole approach, from what I understand about Copyright law and the DMCA.
Also, I don't know why the EFF continues to push erroneous information regarding how Copyright, the DMCA, and Fair Use actually work:
>This ban applies even where people want to make noninfringing fair uses of the materials they are accessing.
Fair Use always trumps the DMCA; the nature of Fair Use, however, is subject to four factor tests, if an IP owner should feel compelled to assert the Fair Use was not in the spirit and letter of the law. Sometimes it seems like the EFF and TechDirt try to claim things that aren't true just to make a point. It's something that bothers me routinely in this subject in particular.
> However, in a number of cases involving DVD decryption courts have held that there is no fair use defense in circumvention cases. In Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, 111 F. Supp. 2d 294, 322 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), the court stated that "[i]f Congress had meant the fair use defense to apply to such actions, it would have said so."[5]
Okay, that's a reasonable point. I recall that issue too, but forgot they used the DMCA as the lock-up point, re: copyright. I think the scope is extremely limited in that case though, which is an excellent point of contention (because I don't agree with DMCA > Fair Use in principle).
This case is well-planned activism. Bunnie and EFF team certainly know more about free speech and copyright than you or I do. Perhaps you don't likr the press release, but that necessarily simplifies and reduces the detailed arguments they will have to brief before the court.
We'll see about that. We can revisit this case when it goes further down the line, because I study copyright extensively and follow these cases often. It's not that I don't like the press release, it's that it contains factual errors and if you want to believe them, then that's not constructive.
You're selecting such a limited example that is so far out from what the implication of destroying DRM is that while I've made an error, I did so in a fundamentally honest fashion, which is the opposite of what the EFF is doing. They are lying about remix culture to engender support. So, which error is more egregious in the grand scheme of things?
The major objection to 1201 is that it legally precludes what would be fair use in an unprotected work. Breaking HDCP, for instance, is still illegal for a use that would pass a four factors test.
Do you have a link on the John Deere suit(s) you mentioned? That's one I'd be interested in following.
My wife is a speech therapist and uses a system that is designed to help people who have had strokes regain their voice.
It comprises a piece of software that comes with a "specially calibrated USB microphone". The microphone is actually a Samson laptop USB mic that had the voice improvement systems logo stuck on it.
The system came with lots of legal warnings about not copying, not telling unqualified people about how it worked and not to use an unapproved microphone. The DMCA was specifically mentioned.
One day the mic failed (the program requires patients to shout aggressively at the mic) so my wife went off looking for a replacement. We had a few USB mics that we tried and and the application refused to acknowledge their existence even though they showed up in Windows. It became obvious that the software was checking the USB device ID. My wife went to the company that ran the system to get a replacement, but they said she had to buy a new copy of the software as well - total cost $659. So we took a chance and ordered a new Samson USB mic from Amazon for €30.00, but when it arrived it didn't work. It was the same model, but was a few generations ahead and therefore had a different USB device ID. My wife has some colleagues with the same package so I tested their mics and they had different USB device IDs and it became obvious that when Samson released a revision of the mic the company offering the system simply recompiled the code with he new device ID baked in and then re-branded the mic.
So, not wanting to shell out $659 for a whole new package I took the old and new mics apart desoldered the cartridges from both mics and put the new one in the body of the failed mic. It worked! Now technically this would be a violation of 1201 in the sense that the individual copy of the software they sold you was tied to the specific mic they sold you at the same time - they said so in the EULA. But lets be honest that's just nonsense. They were simply trying to sell more stuff - a tactic that seems fairly common in various fields of professional therapy.
This is the sort of problem caused by 1201. If we lived in the US we would have been in breach of the DMCA even though we copied nothing.
Also, the software is as ugly as sin.