Write Your Congressman
Here's the fax/email that I sent to Brian Higgins via the EFF's DMCRA action campaign page, with helpful hyperlinks added just for you, dear readers.
Dear Rep. Higgins:
I am writing as one of your constituents to urge you to support HR 1201, the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2005. This bill addresses much of the excesses of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) and would help bring a more proper balance in copyright law between copyright holders and the public good. Specifically, HR 1201 would ensure that consumers will not be prosecuted for circumventing copyright-protection devices in pursuit of lawful activities (like creating a backup copy of a legally purchased music CD, or loading such music onto a digital music player, or creating DVD player software for Linux, or publishing evaluations of consumer-market cryptography).
This sort of consumer protection against overzealous copyright lawyers was enshrined in the famous Betamax decision in 1984, but in recent years has been under attack by said overzealous lawyers and their friends the big-media lobbyists, who wave the banner of "copyright protection". Their clients in the movie and record industries have not only imposed technological barriers to copying of any kind, but legal barriers (i.e. the DMCA) to activities long recognized as perfectly legitimate. This has included the RIAA and its allies threatening Edward Felten and his fellow researchers at Princeton and Rice Universities to prevent publication of their paper on the weaknesses of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), or the prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov (who faced up to 25 years in prison and a $2.5 million fine) for selling software that allowed users to print Adobe eBooks. The DMCA has made it legally risky for someone who buys a copy-protected CD from a record store, for example, to draw a circle in permanent marker around the edge of that CD so that she is able to use it in her car stereo. HR 1201 corrects this problem, and would also codify the substance of the Betamax decision, thus making clear that developers of new technology cannot be held responsible for any copyright infringement committed by their customers, as long as those products are capable of noninfringing uses. The Betamax decision is what has allowed consumer technology such as the VCR, the CD-R drive, and the iPod to develop and flourish, and it is critical to the continued technological development and innovation that will be of benefit to all of us in the future.
I urge you once again to support HR 1201 and become a co-sponsor. I would greatly appreciate a response from you regarding this issue. Thank you for your time.
Writing your Congressional Representative is fun and easy, and everyone should try it. (Technically, you don't even have to be American, although it won't really be "your" Representative that you write to. In that case, just pick one that seems especially sexy/gullible/infuriating/nearby.)
Dear Rep. Higgins:
I am writing as one of your constituents to urge you to support HR 1201, the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2005. This bill addresses much of the excesses of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) and would help bring a more proper balance in copyright law between copyright holders and the public good. Specifically, HR 1201 would ensure that consumers will not be prosecuted for circumventing copyright-protection devices in pursuit of lawful activities (like creating a backup copy of a legally purchased music CD, or loading such music onto a digital music player, or creating DVD player software for Linux, or publishing evaluations of consumer-market cryptography).
This sort of consumer protection against overzealous copyright lawyers was enshrined in the famous Betamax decision in 1984, but in recent years has been under attack by said overzealous lawyers and their friends the big-media lobbyists, who wave the banner of "copyright protection". Their clients in the movie and record industries have not only imposed technological barriers to copying of any kind, but legal barriers (i.e. the DMCA) to activities long recognized as perfectly legitimate. This has included the RIAA and its allies threatening Edward Felten and his fellow researchers at Princeton and Rice Universities to prevent publication of their paper on the weaknesses of the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), or the prosecution of Dmitry Sklyarov (who faced up to 25 years in prison and a $2.5 million fine) for selling software that allowed users to print Adobe eBooks. The DMCA has made it legally risky for someone who buys a copy-protected CD from a record store, for example, to draw a circle in permanent marker around the edge of that CD so that she is able to use it in her car stereo. HR 1201 corrects this problem, and would also codify the substance of the Betamax decision, thus making clear that developers of new technology cannot be held responsible for any copyright infringement committed by their customers, as long as those products are capable of noninfringing uses. The Betamax decision is what has allowed consumer technology such as the VCR, the CD-R drive, and the iPod to develop and flourish, and it is critical to the continued technological development and innovation that will be of benefit to all of us in the future.
I urge you once again to support HR 1201 and become a co-sponsor. I would greatly appreciate a response from you regarding this issue. Thank you for your time.
Writing your Congressional Representative is fun and easy, and everyone should try it. (Technically, you don't even have to be American, although it won't really be "your" Representative that you write to. In that case, just pick one that seems especially sexy/gullible/infuriating/nearby.)