RE: Clarification (RE: "Fair Use" Is Getting Unfair Treatment)

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Rick's response below is the argument used by the intellectual property
industry. It doesn't make much sense to me.

You bought this to play on a CD player and got home and learned that it
wouldn't work on the one you have because that's how I designed it-- Why
that's too bad. (usually you can't return them once they've been opened).
Marking the rim with colored ink makes it usable in your CD player--Go to
jail.

What house have you broken into with your magic marker? Why is this action
subject to a criminal penalty?

You just wanted to play it on your player, and I will put you in jail if
what you bought from me is played on a gizmo I don't approve of.

This law is nonsensical and designed by a buncha people who not only want
you to buy their product, but want to put you in jail if you use it!

Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Anderson [mailto:rickand@unr.edu]
Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 1:59 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Cc: Hamaker, Chuck
Subject: RE: Clarification (RE: "Fair Use" Is Getting Unfair Treatment)

> If the database owner has taken technological steps to restrict me from
> fair use actions, then it is illegal to circumvent those technological
> protections in order to make fair use of the content of the database. IT
> is illegal to circumvent adobe's security even if the use I want to make
> of the content is legal.

Right.  It's also illegal for you to break into my house, even if all you
want to do is copy a page from my phonebook.  Your proposed use of the
information is fair; your proposed mode of access is not.  Now: should
publishers be allowed to lock up information the same way I'm allowed to
lock up my house?  I don't know.  That's a tough one.

> That is what the DMCA does, removes the test of
> fair use from the equation.

That's not the same thing as changing the criteria for fair use.  Fair use
guidelines say what you can do once you get your hands on the content; the
DMCA says that not all ways of getting your hands on the content are OK.
(I'm not arguing that the DMCA is a good law, just pointing out the
difference between laws that regulate modes of access and laws that regulate
one's use of the content once it's accessed.)

-------------
Rick Anderson
rickand@unr.edu