Copy-control Senator sleeps while fair-use rights burn

War Anonymous-Remailer at See.Comment.Header
Sat Sep 22 01:25:43 PDT 2001


Copy-control Senator sleeps while fair-use rights burn

By Jack Bryar, NewsForge.com

Posted: 22/09/2001 at 00:04 GMT



Picture a future where distributing Linux is a crime punishable by a hefty
fine and a prison sentence. If that sounds ridiculous, then you haven't run
into the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act. It's the very latest
- and most bizarre - word in political back-scratching from one of South Carolina's
U.S. senators. And he'd rather not talk about it, thank you very much.



It is unlawful to manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide or otherwise
traffic in any interactive digital device that does not include and utilize
certified security technologies that adhere to the security systems standards
adopted under section 104. This is the heart of the new Security Systems Standards
and Certification Act (SSSCA), a draft of legislation proposed by U.S. Senator
Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina.



Yes, it is vague, and perhaps intentionally so. The SSSCA raises a number of
questions, none of which its politically powerful sponsor feels compelled to
answer.



Repeated calls to Hollings' office were routed to voicemail or message-takers,
and on two occasions, an individual who was unable to do anything - including
providing his name - other than repeat the phrase "I'm simply not qualified
to comment on this matter," to any question I asked until I hung up the phone.



What is the ominous-sounding section 104, with its security systems standards?
According to the draft legislation, the companies that make digital devices
and the companies that own copyright content are expected to sit down together
and, within 12 months of the SSSCA's passage, come to an agreement on copy-protection
standards.



If what these two camps agree on passes muster with the Department of Commerce,
eventually compliant copy-protected devices will be created using those standards.
If, after two years (Commerce can extend the deadline by another 12 months)
the two parties can't agree, then the Department of Commerce can create its
own legally-binding standards.



When calling Hollings' office, I merely wanted to know the answers to the following
questions:



- What, exactly, is a digital device? Are we talking about just computers,
or are we talking about computers, plus MP3 players, television sets, and VCRs?
Are we talking about everything digital, and does that mean that the next alarm
clock I buy will have to prohibit copying, even if was never intended for that
use in the first place?



- How will this affect fair use provisions that currently allow copying of
recordings I own for my personal use? Will the argument be that I'm still allowed
to make such copies if I can find a pre-SSSCA device, but if I buy such a device
from, say, a secondhand store, will that land the shopkeeper (not to mention
me) in jail?



- And yeah, what about Linux? How do you make the operating system, where every
column inch of source code is available for inspection, SSSCA compliant?



I think this may be a self-answering question: You can't - not unless some
drastic changes to current licenses and code distribution are made. If there's
a certain level of paranoia in Hollings' office regarding the SSSCA, perhaps
it's understandable. From all perspectives, this is nothing more than a blatant
attempt to offer a return on investment to campaign donors.



As the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, one of the most important
committee chairs on Capitol Hill, Hollings has attracted quite a stable of
high-profile donors over the years. According to Federal Election Commission
data presented by campaign contribution watchdog Open Secrets, there are five
major media and entertainment companies in the top 20 list of Hollings' most
generous campaign donors. They include AOL Time Warner ($33,500), the Murdoch-owned
News Corporation ($28,224), Viacom's CBS ($16,632), the National Association
of Broadcasters ($22,000), and Walt Disney Co. ($18,500).



The individual donors from those companies include a flock of high-ranking
executives from various News Corp/Fox subsidiaries, Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone,
and Ted Turner from AOL Time Warner. Since 1995, employees from companies producing
television, movies, music, and other media content have sent Hollings $287,534,
making the entertainment industry his second most generous supporters. Those
individual donations look like small potatoes, especially when you find out
that they cover the past five to six years of campaign contributions.



It's illegal for corporations to spend money on federal elections, and individual
donors aren't allowed to to contribute more than $1,000 to a candidate for
federal office, or more than $20,000 per year to a political party. Not that
this stops anyone from doing it, and doing it legally through something known
as soft money.



Soft money has been around since 1978, when a Federal Election Commission made
an administrative ruling that allowed money to be donated to political organizations
for the purpose of building party structure. The activity and the money that
fueled it was never intended to be used to influence the outcome of a federal
election. The only problem is that the FEC has no power to investigate where
soft money is applied once it enters the political machine.



And it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, hard to figure out what AOL
Time Warner and Disney want when each donated over $1 million last year to
the major American political parties. Nor does it take a cluster of Linux supercomputers
to figure out that such money may eventually wind up being spent by the more
connected members of that party - the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee,
for example.



Even with such staunch support from the nation's media giants, they're only
number two on Hollings' list of top givers broken down by industry. The top
spot goes to a combination of lawyers, law firms, and influential lobbyist
groups. Individual supporters include legal eagles from Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard,
McPherson, and Hand ($28,508) who represent virtually every major sports league
and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher, and Flohm ($2,500), who currently have their hands full with representing
Compaq's side of its $25 billion merger with Hewlett-Packard.



And then there's Tony Podesta's high-profile lobbying firm, which represents
such friends of fair use as RIAA and the MPAA. Taking up the rear are individual
donations from lawyers, many with experience in technology and intellectual
property litigation. It's important to remember that the SSSCA is a draft of
a bill that may or may not be introduced in both houses of Congress. Unfortunately,
it's a draft that's just gained a sponsor in the House of Representatives.
The good news from many watchdog groups is that the bill, in its current state,
isn't expected to get past committee. The bad news is that some parts of it
will likely survive or be resurrected in any number of other bills that could
be introduced in the next Congressional session.



Now sure, I can understand that perhaps our Congressional leaders are little
preoccupied, what with last week's events. And I don't mean to vulgarize or
trivialize that tragedy, but it's times like these when our elected leaders
should be under the most intense scrutiny. Unpleasant regulatory surprises
have a way of sneaking in the back door when the voting public is otherwise
engaged.





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