p2pnet - rss feed: Fair Rights bill gets a hearing
p2pnet.net News:- The Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act (DMCRA) gets a Congressional hearing on May 12.
"Representatives Rick Boucher and John Doolittle re-introduced the Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act (DMCRA, H.R. 107), which would enact labelling requirements for usage-impaired ‘copy-protected’ compact discs, as well as several amendments to 1998’s infamous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)," as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) states it.
Or, as 321 Studios founder and president Bob Moore sums it up, HR 107 "would re-affirm consumer fair use rights and balance the otherwise one-sided protection afforded copyright owners under current interpretations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act".
Moore, who’ll be testifying, developed and was selling DVDXCOPY DVD backup software, now banned in the US after Hollywood sued 321 and two federal judges decided DVDXCOPY was in violation of the DMCA.
"I had never heard of the DMCA when I started this company," says Moore. "I assumed, like most Americans do, that if I can make a cassette recording of my old LPs, tape a favorite television show or make a mix of an audio CD to play in my car or my IPOD, that I also have the right to make a simple backup of my DVDs for my own personal use."
May 5th, 2004 at 6:01 pm
IMHO we need to support this bill. Write your representatives! The big 5 record labels and hollywood are killing fair use for everyone. This along with privacy bashing and other erosions of constitutional rights at the hands of content “owners” MUST stop. These things will ultimately affect much more than music and movies. If you like the idea of digital fascism, sit back and do nothing…
May 5th, 2004 at 6:41 pm
agreed, stop it in the states before your government cow tows Canada into something as vile.