Last week the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted a lawsuit against the US government for violations of copyright law laid out in the First Amendment – this is the freedom of speech amendment.
The case involves the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), introduced in 1998, and more specifically boils down to the DRM technologies designed to tackle piracy – or in the EFF’s view, not tackling piracy at all. The EFF believes that the DMCA and the DRMs involved are unlawfully restricting access to legally-purchased copyright material such as movies and music, as well as the software that devices and appliances are built on.
The consequences of this could be huge, as the World Copyright Treaty is based on the DMCA, so if the DMCA is forced to make changes then copyright will change worldwide – and this will ultimately remove the restraints currently in place.
Faultline wholeheartedly objected to the EFF’s harsh investigation into T-Mobile’s Binge On service back in January, but this time around we not only agree with the US consumer advocacy group, but believe that it will come out the other side with a major win under its belt – one that will rewrite the DMCA and the future of digital media technologies altogether. Although this time, there will be no frantic rush to get it done and end up making a mess of it. The DMCA was written in haste in order to crack down on piracy.
A looming question here is why has it taken the EFF such a long time to submit this lawsuit? There is no clear answer, but there’s no doubt it’s a case that has been debated, reconsidered and reevaluated countless times. Also, as a voluntary, non-profit organization there will have been issues around costs.
Section 1201 of the DMCA, which this case applies to, makes it illegal to access copyrighted material even when the intention is clearly for non-infringing fair uses such as repairing devices, converting media files to run on multiple platforms, or conducting valuable security research. Essentially the EFF states that the DMCA was supposedly designed to tackle piracy, but instead has created criminals of people trying to benefit the progression of technology by crushing and inhibiting the work of researchers and inventors.
The introduction of DRM technologies was a significant triumph in the battle against media pirates but the EFF has slammed the corporations using DRMs, claiming that there is no evidence that DRMs do anything of the sort. It believes that the DMCA has allowed DRMs to thrive as a way of helping big businesses stay successful by suppressing innovation.
Therefore, the EFF has taken drastic action on behalf of those working in technology industries to overturn the “onerous provisions” of the section of copyright laws. The organization is representing the accuser Andrew Huang and his company Alphamax in the case. Alphamax develops devices for editing digital video streams and Huang fears the company’s efforts will be wasted due to Section 1201 of the DMCA.
“Section 1201 prevents the act of creation from being spontaneous,’’ said Huang. “Nascent 1201-free ecosystems outside the U.S. are leading indicators of how far behind the next generations of Americans will be if we don’t end this DMCA censorship. I was born into a 1201-free world, and our future generations deserve that same freedom of thought and expression.”
Another plaintiff being represented by the EFF is Matthew Green, a computer security researcher at John Hopkins University, who has been conducting research on increasing the safety of devices – work which requires an arduous process of exemption applications to the Library of Congress.
The EFF has headed up the ‘Free Your Phone’ initiative since 2009, in an attempt to unlock mobile phones from the chains of a particular piece of software or service provider. It submits requests to the US Copyright Office every three years when it opens up a rulemaking to consider granting exceptions to the DMCA’s ban on sidestepping this software.
Remember Cyanogen, the Google-free version of Android that Microsoft was heavily rumored to be funding? It was projects such as Cyanogen that began looking like much more viable businesses following the US Library of Congress ruling that rooting or jail-breaking a phone was not in breach of the DMCA, and the world needs more Cyanogens to break away from the stranglehold Google and Apple have on operating systems of not just mobiles, but more serious applications such as medical devices and cars.
“The creative process requires building on what has come before, and the First Amendment preserves our right to transform creative works to express a new message, and to research and talk about the computer code that controls so much of our world,” said EFF Staff Attorney Kit Walsh. “Section 1201 threatens ordinary people with financial ruin or even a prison sentence for exercising those freedoms, and that cannot stand.”
“The government cannot broadly ban protected speech and then grant a government official excessive discretion to pick what speech will be permitted, particularly when the rulemaking process is so onerous,” said Walsh. “If future generations are going to be able to understand and control their own machines, and to participate fully in making rather than simply consuming culture, Section 1201 has to go.”
Back in April this year, the US Government’s servers “crashed” due to 50,000 responses against protecting DMCA abuse, in a campaign started by Fight for the Future and YouTube channel ChannelAwesome.