FC: Competitive Enterprise Institute warns of "state DMCA" bills

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Subject: CEI's C:Spin - 'Super DMCA' Bills: Cable Companies Could Control 
Consumers' Choices
Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 15:14:33 -0400
From: "Richard Morrison" <rmorrison () cei org>


CEI C:\SPIN



This issue:  Super DMCABills: Cable Companies Could Control ConsumersChoices



This week's c:\spin is by <http://www.cei.org/dyn/view_bio.cfm/212>Hanah 
Metchis, Research Analyst, <http://www.cei.org/>CEI, May 23, 2003.



            Lets begin with a little pop quiz. Suppose you are redoing 
your kitchen, and you hear about a fantabulous new electronic gadget. It 
attaches to your refrigerator and monitors the contents by scanning the 
barcodes and measuring the weight of each item. When youre running low on 
something, that item is displayed on a small screen, and an internal modem 
allows you to order more with the touch of a button using a grocery 
delivery service such as <http://www.peapod.com/>Peapod. Thrilled by this 
exciting new convenience, you rush out to buy one. Heres the question: 
Whose permission do you need to install this item? (a) The manufacturer of 
your refrigerator, (b) The phone company, or (c) None of the above.

            For most of us, the answer is none of the above. But if you 
live in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, 
Virginia, or Wyoming, the answer is the phone company. And if you live in 
one of the <http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/superdmca.html>nine other 
states where super-DMCAbills are moving through the legislature, you might 
soon need to ask your phone or cable company for permission every time you 
buy a new piece of hardware and in some cases, software too.

            Despite the moniker, the super-DMCA bills are not much like 
the 
<http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/hr2281_dmca_law_19981020_pl105-304.html>Digital 
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which became federal law in 1998. They do 
deal with the same issue the protection of copyright in an age when digital 
devices make piracy an easy task but the state bills use much broader 
language. (The state bills differ in their details, but are all based on 
the same <http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/states/mpaa_3apr.pdf>model 
legislation.) They outlaw any communications deviceused without the express 
consent or express authorization of the communication service provider.That 
means your phone company, cable company, and ISP get to decide whats legal 
and whats not. This is not a good idea for the future of tech competition.

            Internet providers are probably not particularly interested in 
barring the installation of hardware that monitors the content of your 
kitchen. Their most likely immediate target is digital video recorders. 
Cable companies have brought 
<http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/3531_929601>lawsuits 
against manufacturers of TiVo-like devices, but now they offer their own 
<http://www.timewarneraustin.com/services/cable_services/dvr.asp>proprietary 
products and services that do the same thing. Under a super-DMCA law, cable 
companies would have the power to declare all DVRs and even VCRs made by 
competing companies to be unauthorized devices. And the legislation is so 
broadly written that it could even let your cable company, phone company, 
or ISP decide what brand of computer you can have and what software you can 
run on it. This would give communication service providersunprecedented 
control over consumer choices and the fates of entire industries.

            In addition, provisions in some versions of the super-DMCA 
laws forbid users to conceal certain types of online activity. This could 
turn users and manufacturers of ordinary security and networking software, 
such as 
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5789219.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp>firewalls 
and <http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3668,a=40258,00.asp>routers, into 
criminals. Any law this 
<http://www.publicknowledge.org/reading-room/documents/policy/super-dmca-analysis.html>extraordinarily 
overbroad is certain to stifle innovation.

            The problem of protecting copyrights is a real one, and it is 
difficult to solve. But the super-DMCA bills, in their attempt to counter 
vague threats with vague language, create more problems than they solve. 
Theft, fraud, and copyright violation are already illegal. Making every 
communications devicesuspect and every consumer a possible criminal is not 
the way to prevent piracy.



C:\SPIN is produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.






-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------