[wordup] okay now i'll shut up ...

[Adam Shand]

if you believe in the below statement that the dcma is a poor law, please
visit this web site and sign the declaration.  i don't think i've seen
that many free/open source advocates agree on a single thing in a long
time.

adam.

URL: http://www.dibona.com/dmca/index.shtml

Free Speech, Free Sklyarov

A Community Declaration:

Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian academic, has been imprisoned after presenting
a scientific paper at the DEF CON computer security conference. His talk
covered the restriction mechanisms used to prevent people from reading
electronic books. He was formally charged with distributing software that
could be used to circumvent copy protection.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act attacks freedom of speech and
assembly and damages the economic health of the United States.

Sklyarov was arrested by the FBI outside his hotel as he prepared to go to
the airport. The arrest was instigated by Adobe Systems Corporation.

It is ironic that a Russian national is being held without bail in the US
for what is essentially a thoughtcrime. Through the passage of the DMCA we
have criminalized speech and scientific research about the structure of
computer programs as well as other simple acts such as reading of books
and other media.

The DMCA goes far beyond the need to protect from illegal copies of books
and other media. Since it criminalizes not only the act of copying but
even development and possession of programs which are capable of reading
these media for legitimate use. For example, the DMCA criminalizes used
book stores, in that the DMCA helps publishers lock up books so tight that
the electronic analog of a used book store would be impossible.

This is not the first time that DMCA has been used as a weapon against
legitimate scientific research. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has
brought suit on behalf of USENIX and Princeton Professor Edward Felten
after the Professor and his research team were threatened with DMCA
prosecution by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). This
threat was delivered after it became known that Professor Felten was
presenting a paper showing the insecurity of a method of protecting music,
just as Sklyarov was arrested after presenting a similar paper about
electronic books.

The DMCA, in spite of its supposed exception, punishes reverse
engineering. Bans on reverse engineering the BIOS ROMs in the 70s would
have made the PC revolution (and companies like Compaq, Phoenix and Dell)
illegal.

The extremism of the DMCA provisions prohibiting research, development and
publication of tools for distributing and displaying copyrighted works
must be eliminated. These provisions drop an Iron Curtain on the United
States of America. It should never be illegal to make or discuss such
tools.

Noted Signatories(see 5672 other signatories to the declaration):

Larry Augustin - CEO and Chairman, VA Linux Systems
Jeff Bates - Executive Editor, Slashdot.org
Brian Behlendorf - President, Apache Software Foundation, CTO Collab.net
Chris DiBona - Grant Chair, Linux International
Miguel de Icaza - Co-Founder and CTO, Ximian Inc.
Nat Friedman - Co-Founder and VP Product Development, Ximian Inc.
Marty Garbus - Attorney, Frankfurt, Garbus, Kurnit, Klein & Selz, PC
Jon "Maddog" Hall - Executive Director, Linux International
Ed Hernstadt - Attorney, Frankfurt, Garbus, Kurnit, Klein & Selz, PC
Lawrence Lessig - Board Memember EFF and Professor of Law, Stanford University.
Nils Lohner - President, Software in the Public Interest
Rob Malda - Founder and Editor, Slashdot.org
Don Marti - Technical Editor, Linux Journal
Bruce Perens - Primary Author, "The Open Source Definition"
Eric S. Raymond - President, Open Source Initiative
Lawrence Rosen - Attorney, Rosenlaw.com and Executive Director, Open Source Initiative
David Sifry - Co-Founder, LinuxCare, Inc.
Shari Steele - Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Brad Templeton - Chairman Electronic Frontier Foundation
Linus Torvalds - Lead Kernel Developer, Linux
Art F. Tyde - CEO, Linuxcare
Bob Young - Co-Founder and Chairman, Red Hat, Inc.