[pdkl95]

> Copyright Abolitionists

Only a small subset of people against DRM and the problems in the DMCA are against copyright.

Also, as zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC already pointed out, the FSF is fine[1] with for-profit software. This confusion often derives from an assumption that you have to deny distribution rights to your customers to sell them anything. That isn't always true.

> study the implications

What you seem to be missing (in general) is about the EFF's fight against Section 1201 is that this isn't about copyright. The EFF is fighting the ban on bypassing "technological measure[s] that effectively controls access to a work"[2]. This ban makes some types of security research illegal, because the law treats security researchers announcing a DRM bug the same as someone exploiting the same bug to copy a movie.

Right now you are probably using a browser that contains a 3rd part black box CDM ("Content Decryption Module"). Every day you use that browser you're betting that nobody has found an exploitable bug in that black box. Bugs are particularly dangerous when they are hidden in a black box; it's easy to ignore bugs that nobody can see. This concern isn't hypothetical: a bug in Chrome's Widevine CDM was discovered recently[3].

[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html

[2] 17 U.S.C Sec. 1201(a)(1)

[3] http://boingboing.net/2016/06/24/googles-version-of-the-w3c....

[6stringmerc]

Using your reasoning, only a small subset of people are genuinely affected by the Section 1201 implications - security researchers in particular. Again, you also in some ways prove my point by mentioning that DRM work-arounds are nearly a daily occurrence in certain arenas. My essay argues - vehemently - that academic exemption that passes the Four Factor Fair Use test absolutely deserves to be codified into the Section 1201 going forward. This is not hard to understand.

What you are missing, which is extremely important, is that Copyright is a synthetic construct and therefore absolutely useless without any protectionist mechanism. AKA "the right to make copies" - DRM is just that - a mechanism to protect the right of the originator to, under Copyright law, retain power over the "Intellectual Property." I believe it's counter-productive, or maybe even logically dishonest, to claim that destroying DRM isn't extremely intertwined with Copyright as we know it.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Using your reasoning, only a small subset of people are genuinely affected by the Section 1201 implications - security researchers in particular.

Using your reasoning, only a small subset of people would be genuinely affected by a ban on medical research - medical researchers in particular.

Security researchers don't do security research for the sake of it, but to make information technology more secure. When they find a security problem that allows criminals to compromise your system, to steal your data, to break into your bank account, whatever, they publish those findings to allow you to protect yourself, and to allow people building those vulnerable systems to fix them (and to pressure them into actually fixing them, as vendors usually don't fix vulnerabilities without the threat of them becoming public). So, the current state of the DMCA means more security vulnerabilities in everyone's computers/smartphones, including your very own, and in the servers that you rely on and store your data on. So much for only affecting a small subset of people.

> Again, you also in some ways prove my point by mentioning that DRM work-arounds are nearly a daily occurrence in certain arenas.

Which doesn't really make it a good idea to keep them illegal? Just because it's usually not enforced, doesn't mean there is no risk for those using the workarounds.

> What you are missing, which is extremely important, is that Copyright is a synthetic construct and therefore absolutely useless without any protectionist mechanism.

First of all, much of the legal system is a synthetic construct. But most of the legal system works just fine without "protectionist mechanisms" of the severity of DRM. Is it illegal to stab people with a knife? Yes. Do we forbid passing on knowledge about how to create a knife? No. There is no mechanism that actually hinders people from stabbing other people. It's only a synthetic construct and punishment if you don't follow the rules.

But also, it's just not true. Copyright was not useless before DRM or the DMCA. There were more than enough cases of people being successfully sued, or even prosecuted and convicted, for selling unauthorized copies of works.

It's a basic principle of a free society that you don't do everything that would technically be possible to enforce the law, but you rather accept that the reach of the law is limited, in order to achieve freedom. The law is that you aren't allowed to murder people. It would probably be technically possible to prevent almost all murder by chaining everyone to their beds. But we don't do that. We instead accept that some murders will happen that could be prevented this way in order to gain freedom. That does not mean that the law against murder is useless.

> AKA "the right to make copies" - DRM is just that - a mechanism to protect the right of the originator to, under Copyright law, retain power over the "Intellectual Property."

Yes, it is, and it is a highly unfair and overreaching mechanism. It's a mechanism to retain power at a high cost to the other/controlled side. It's taking away everyone's power and freedom in order to enforce that one interest.

> I believe it's counter-productive, or maybe even logically dishonest, to claim that destroying DRM isn't extremely intertwined with Copyright as we know it.

I don't think anyone has ever claimed otherwise? Destroying (aka abolishing) slavery was extremely intertwined with property laws as we know them. That does not mean that property law, or copyright law, cannot work without slavery, or DRM.

[6stringmerc]

Interesting perspective, and unfortunately I do not even remotely share the "scope" of the effects being claimed, which is why I time and again argue for effective reform. You've framed this as an incredible societal harm, which I simply don't see from a practical standpoint. I'd feel a lot better about your perspective if you would agree that "effective reform" can be possible in this instance without over-arching slavery and murder insinuations. Equivocating DRM with murder is ludicrous to me, it just is from a rhetorical standpoint.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Equivocating DRM with murder is ludicrous to me, it just is from a rhetorical standpoint.

Except I didn't say anything of that sort? I mean, I didn't even compare DRM to murder. So what the heck have you been reading?

[6stringmerc]

Yeah, you did in arguing that just because some Murders happen doesn't negate the utility of a law, but you've conflated Copyright which is a Civil matter in trying to discuss freedoms in a grand philosophical sense. I see you and I view the practical implementation of Copyright in the modern era from different perspectives. As in, you work from the premise that Copyright is sufficient in and of itself without the DMCA & DRM, and I patently believe that they were a response to Copyright being exposed as insufficient when something like basic Blu-Ray encoding was broken in seven (7) days. Discounting the dark-side capabilities of technology is, apparently, inherent in your premise. On this we are not in agreement.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Yeah, you did in arguing that just because some Murders happen doesn't negate the utility of a law

OK. Your claim was that I equivocated DRM and murders. So, given what you are saying here, that would mean that I have said something to the effect that "just because some DRM happens, doesn't negate the utility of (copyright?) law"? Could you please provide a citation of where I said that?

See, I would be happy to discuss your actual arguments, but I won't even try if you insist on strawmanning my position.

Also, if you want this discussion to go anywhere, I expect that you refrain from derailing it by insisting on discussing form over content. If you understand an analogy, I expect you to discuss based on what you understood, instead of starting a discussion on how I should have expressed my argument to make you like its form better. I write what I write in order to be understood. Analogies aren't perfect, that's what makes them analogies. The point of an analogy is to show commonalities, despite all differences. If you understand an analogy, it has served its purpose, and any argument as to how I should have expressed myself instead therefore is completely pointless and only serves to derail the discussion. If you actually don't understand what I mean to say, ask, and I'll be happy to try and explain. If you disagree with the content, explain why you disagree with the content.

[dragonwriter]

> Yeah, you did in arguing that just because some Murders happen doesn't negate the utility of a law, but you've conflated Copyright which is a Civil matter in trying to discuss freedoms in a grand philosophical sense.

You seem to confuse analogy with equivalency, as well as failing to recognize that, like homicide, there are both civil and criminal remedies for violation of copyright; neither is a purely civil or purely criminal matter.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> Discounting the dark-side capabilities of technology is, apparently, inherent in your premise.

This, BTW, pretty much betrays that you don't understand the arguments of the other side at all.

The core of the opposition to DRM and in particular to the criminalization of the bypassing of DRM is precisely because of the dark-side capabilities of technology.

There are more dark sides to technology than the ones that you are considering. It's not that people aren't aware of the dark sides that you are thinking of. It's not even that they don't care about them. It's that they think that the other dark sides are way, way scarier in their long-term consequences.

edit: typo