Sucks.


It's illegal to copy music and other digital media, but spammers are free to fill my inbox, cram internet bandwidth, and use fake email accounts.



-niko

Move to Canada.

Howdy,

The RIAA only cares about money.
The DMCA is the RIAA.

The bottom line is that ISP's will not make an effort to stop spam.
Unless they start losing a large amount of subscribers.
They wont stop spam because it takes time and money to stop it.

It's always about money.

Exactly. Once again those with the money make the rules.

Well,

The sad reality ,that it is unlikely to win a frontal battle with the spammers because they are backed by money and powerful interests, a twisted sense of free enterprise (If it makes money, then it is ok), does not mean that they cannot be beaten on their own game.

A team of savvy individuals, with some loose cooperation from self learned experts in network traffic (i.e. Hackers) can set up a campaig n of spam the spammers, clog their bandwidth, flood their mail servers. . . Guess what: The heroes doing such an act of poetic justice will be treated as criminals! But hey, it is a good idea.

I'm agreeing with you on this one, naides. The only reason spammers now get away with what they do is they hide under the title of "capitalism". In Europe they just passed a law that will fine spammers.

I've often gotten spam and the return address is not correct, so I could not unsubscribe. I also agree with you on beating them at their own game. Which actually brings me to a short blurb :

Just as it is not illegal to sell guns, but it IS illegal to shoot someone with one, I believe the DMCA has overstepped its boundaries by A LOT. For example, they have prevented numerous individuals from even just sharing information about DVD decryption algorithms the Elcomsoft E-Book format, etc. The point here being that information in itself SHOULD NOT be illegal. If they wanted to enforce a "law" then it should be the USE of the information. Even creating a software product that uses the information is still not enough, it should be seen and proven that the software is actually being used.

This leads me to my concluding argument. Would it be illegal to write an unpacker and sell it? I'm sure everyone would sound a yes to that one. Especially since one of the rules of the DMCA is to "prevent any device used to circumvent digitial protection". Even if it's only our thoughts! But that's a tangent. Really, just as any author can come up with a protection scheme, I see myself nothing wrong with another author coming up with a way to break it. Let us look at the real world again. Most doors and cars use keys. In that case, Locksmithing should be illegal. I know, I know, the locksmith only works on stuff that people already own, but hey some people might not want their program packed even though they've bought it. Once again, it's not the selling of the program (or the keys of the Locksmith, or the sale of a gun), which make something illegal. It's the USE of the foresaid product by the end user, the customer. Also, this rule of "preventing circumvention" does not follow capitalism. C'mon, how many great products out there are the result of some sort of reverse engineering? I'd say quite a few. Even reversing a fighter jet from another country during a war. Going against such a spirit prevents any improvement in the current schemes of protection, and can keep competition low. After all, if your product is truly good it should be able to stand up the crackers, right? Don't let the DMCA whine for you when your product sucks.

Elcomsoft themselves write ZIP and RAR password crackers. Isn't this a violation of DMCA? I still think that if a cracker feels the need, and has the time to invest, there would be nothing wrong with writing unpackers, for example, and selling them. It's a digitial product just like any other digitial product. It took time to write and test, etc. I'm not saying that there is any practicality to a cracker (*cough*, entreprenuer) in selling his works in the first place, but I'm just making the case of why creating such works is so deemed as "illegal". I think that is B.S. Why should the author of a protecter be deemed "God" compared to the writer of an de-protector? It's all a capitalistic venture. For those of you concerned with the moral ground, I again repeat that you can sell a gun which really has no other use but for shooting a person. You can't go hunting with a 9MM. The sale of the gun in itself is not illegal.

One last thing, the Blaster Worm eats up lots of internet bandwidth. So do spammers. Why is one illegal and the other not (or at least regulated in some manner).


-niko20

nikolatesla20,

Too many iNglish..
while i'm translating, 1 Question:

Sounds you want to support DMCA!?

lol, no I do not support it in its current form

-niko

okey, I RESOLVED from this thread following subjects:

1. Why the DMCA ... Sucks.
{But who cares about it!? Ok, you will support DMCA in its BETTER form..}

2. Why spammers can fill your mail-box.
{..}

3. Will it BAD or GOOD or ILLEGAL, if you will sell your unpacker.


I feel, this is main subject of your interests, but you started with another Title.
But feels are not args, so sorry.

LETS: make another thread(can be poll) with following title:
"Your opinions about selling unpackers(Good-Bad-iLLegal)"

& discuss subject there. I think, it will interesting.

good job evaluator , you found the question I was also asking, but since this IS the off-topic forum, I just wanted to debate the DMCA's entire principle, not just my own interests.

-niko

What about VCR's, TIVO, Video capture cards, and Settop box DVD recorders? What about recording songs from radio?

What about trademark/copyrighted graphics/text? Could DMCA eventually affect photocopiers, scanners, or cameras?

As I have always understood, recording a televised event with any device is OK; provided that the copy is for personal home use. So, logicaly, I could record MTV, VH1, or MUCH; and have not only the song, but the video as well!

So, inside of the gray areas of DMCA, is the real issue here the fact that it's EASIER (just a few clicks) for the average joe to make his copy? Someone can argue that people are downloading movies before they are released... So what? I can wait for the movie to premier on HBO, then make my copy. If they want to stop me from doing that they would ultimatly have to go after the manufactures of any recording equipment, including computers.

DMCA has crybaby written all over it. RIAA is still earning money everytime a song is played on both TV and Radio, not to mention movies, and concerts.

Has anyone noticed that when a character on TV has a birthday, they don't sing "Happy Birthday" like they used to? Happy Birthday is copyrighted now too!

Try reading the precidance of universal studios vs. Sony.
Over the beta max.

Although the majority of use could be considered "illegal", the fact that there was even a small chance of legal use, made the beta legal for sale.

tgodd

Yeah, which ties into the case of CBS vs. the democratic national committee.

Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Democratic National Committee, 412 U.S. 94, 102." Id., at 454. n8 Even when an entire copyrighted work was recorded, the District Court regarded the copying as fair use "because there is no accompanying reduction in the market for 'plaintiff's original work.'" Ibid.

I was trying to point out what a daunting task it would be to stop pirate copies. I still say that DMCA is a law formed by the government to protect the intrests of their best friend, big business. Big business is just pissed because it's so damn easy to find/make copies with the help of the internet.

simple solution: change you MAC address to DMCA's and emulate their IP address and enjoy!