IP: CBDTPA bans everything from two-line BASIC programs to PCs

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Scott Davis <sdavis () DigitalAustin net>
Organization: http://www.DigitalAustin.net
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:02:19 -0600
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: FW: CBDTPA bans everything from two-line BASIC programs to PCs

Dave...for IP.  Thanks!
<--cut here-->


Quite interesting.  What we have here, literally, is a failure to
communicate.  Not to mention the goons who pass bills to outlaw one
thing, and accidently (or not) end up including other insignificant
aspects of something they know nothing about in the first place.


---
// Scott A. Davis            | Digital Austin
\\ sdavis () DigitalAustin net        | http://www.DigitalAustin.net
// http://sdavis.digitalaustin.net    | oderint dum metuant



Just in case folks haven't figured out how sweeping the
Hollings-Feinstein bill, aka CBDTPA is, well, keep reading.

The CBDTPA says that if I were to write and sell this BASIC program...

10 INPUT A$
20 PRINT A$

...after the regulations take effect, I would be guilty of a federal
felony. That's up to five years in prison and up to a $500,000 fine.
Distributing my two-line application without charging for it, either via
handing out floppies or by posting it on a website would be at least a
civil offense and, depending on the circumstances, a crime as well.

It's no joke. CBDTPA regulates "any hardware or software that reproduces
copyrighted works in digital form." My program above does that,
especially if my BASIC interpreter permits arbitrarily long strings.

The business end of the CBDTPA says that "a manufacturer, importer, or
seller" of such software cannot "sell, or offer for sale, in interstate
commerce, or cause to be transported in, or in a manner affecting,
interstate commerce" their code unless it "includes and utilizes
standard security technologies that adhere to the security system
standards adopted under section 3."

The FCC gets to invent those. But I can't see how my two-line program is
going to incorporate such standards. If I'm using C, must I "#include
<sys/copycheck.h>?" In Perl, will I "use Parse::DRMVerify?" If so, who
at the FCC will ensure that these modules are available for the
languages I'm using? (It is true that folks at the FCC are smarter than
the folks in Congress, though that is not saying much. FCC staff will
try to make the standards workable. But the CBDTPA gives them -- and the
public -- precious little wiggle room.)

By design, programming languages are terribly flexible. The only way to
prevent software from removing do-not-copy bits from digital content
would be for Congress to ban the programmable PC. And replace it,
perhaps, with WebTV television-top boxes.

In case you're curious, the felony penalties kick in when you try to
sell your post-ban BASIC program -- not to mention any commercial
software -- and perhaps even if you're a free software developer hoping
to gain reputation capital from your code.

They say that violators "shall be fined not more than $500,000 or
imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both, for the first offense;
and shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned for not more
than 10 years, or both, for any subsequent offense."
(http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1204.html)

Yes, this is silly. No, it is probably (I hope) not what senators
Hollings and Feinstein and their colleagues intended. Yet it is what the
text of the bill says. And this is after the good senators had seven
months of correspodnence from computer scientists and industry
representatives worried about the scope of the legislation after it was
widely circulated in August 2001.

Don't believe me? Read it for yourself:

Text of CBDTPA:
http://www.politechbot.com/docs/cbdtpa/

Politech archive on the CBDTPA:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cbdtpa

-Declan

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