"Engineer for Haloid Corp. arrested for producing circumvention device"

[Tim May]

At 10:37 PM -0400 7/21/01, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Sat, Jul 21, 2001 at 06:46:27PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>>  Had the DCMA been in effect in the 1950s, the Xerox Corporation and
>>  its execs and engineers probably would have faced charges for
>>  producing a "circumvention device" for enabling copyright violators.
>>  What, really, is the difference between a Xerox machine and something
>>  that allows copies of electronic text?
>>
>>  (Both have alternate uses besides pirating. Backups, for example.)
>
>I realize Tim is making a general point, and I agree with his overall
>analysis (it makes sense, how could I not?).
>
>But I'll play Devil's Advocate for a moment, and argue that the
>DMCA does not make any distribution/sale of a circumvention device
>verboten. It makes these three things illegal:

Before we get to Declan's three things, let us all recall that the 
DCMA was cited by those who threatened Prof. Felten and his students 
and fellow researchers if they merely _presented_ their paper at the 
IHW.

On to Declan's points:

>`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
>circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that
>effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in
>a work or a portion thereof;

Not to beat dead horse, but I think a compelling case could have been 
made in 1965, for instance, that nearly all uses of Xerox machines in 
public facilities were for circumventing copyright. At least this is 
what I saw nearly users doing with the Xerox machines in the 
libraries near my home and then at college.

And of course there is the VCR. The "primarily designed or produced 
for" use of the Beta and VHS home machines in the late 70s was of 
course to tape t.v. shows and movies. (The Supremes accepted the 
unstoppability of the VCR, which had by the time they rendered a 
decision in Disney v. Sony become so ubiquitous that banning them 
would have caused a revolt. So the Supremes mumbled about 
time-shifting and alternate uses. The DCMA would probably not have 
allowed this "fig leaf"...and would have had the Sony engineers and 
execs facing jailing on _criminal_, not civil, charges.)

>
>`(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other
>than to circumvent protection afforded by a technological measure that
>effectively protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in
>a work or a portion thereof; or

One wonders how Prof. Felten's revelation of deep technical flaws in 
a cryptograhic scheme is construed to violate this clause. Was Felten 
in business to manufacture devices? Nope. No commercial role. In 
fact, pure science. (Well, not quite superstring theory, but applied 
cryptography.)



>
>`(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that
>person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing
>protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively
>protects a right of a copyright owner under this title in a work or a
>portion thereof.


Felten and his co-workers were not "marketing" anything.

It would be interesting to take another look at Disney v. Sony under 
the assumption that the DMCA was in place.

The larger picture is of course that the Adobe/FBI bust is intended 
to have the desired chilling effect.


My hunch is that Adobe will lose a small amount of business over 
this...but that this lost business will nevertheless dwarf the 
minuscule profits from their "e-books" micromarket.

--Tim May

-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns