IP: DMCA, SSSCA, and the Copy Machine Control Act

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 15:59:58 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: DMCA, SSSCA, and the Copy Machine Control Act
>
>
> Dave,
>
> I'm not being factitious with the Subject line above.  A couple of
> years ago in the PRIVACY Forum, in the issue located within the archive at:
>
>    http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.08.18
>
> I reported on "invisible" IDs that are imprinted on a wide variety of
> xerographic copier output, unknown to most users.  The ID is encoded using
> digital watermarking techniques (more broadly an application of
> "steganography").  Many modern digital copiers also contain systems to
> detect attempts at copying currency and taking appropriate preventative
> action.
>
> When I originally reported all of this (even though I had it all straight
> from the mouth of a Xerox spokesman) many people simply refused to
> believe it -- it seemed so far beyond the pale.
>
> Let's look a few years ahead and extrapolate from the current trend of
> criminalizing any activity that attempts to "subvert" any "rights control"
> systems, however defined.  If the "copyright lobby" continues to hit home
> runs in the political system, there's no good reason why they won't move
> onward to copiers and scanners in due course.  The technologies I described
> above could easily be used to define a system that would refuse to copy any
> document, book page, photo, or whatever that included hidden watermarking
> information.  Hell, you could go all the way and even report the attempt to
> a central authority in the case of Internet-connected equipment.  About a
> thousand dollars for "research" and a few million for lobbying and you're
> all set!
>
> Of course, this really is largely our own fault.  We technologists have had a
> dandy time building our equipment, software, and systems, then handing them
> over to the powers-that-be -- the folks who in the copyright arena are on
> their way towards owning everything in the store, the store itself, and the
> ground the store is sitting on.  We moan and complain to each other in
> mailing lists, while the organized big boys chuckle all the way to the bank.
>
> Unless enough of us change our ways of approaching these issues and come down
> from the ivory towers, we'll continue to be squashed like bugs.
>
> --Lauren--
> Lauren Weinstein
> lauren () pfir org or lauren () vortex com or lauren () privacyforum org
> Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
> Co-Founder, Fact Squad - http://www.factsquad.org
> Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
> Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy



For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/