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As you might be aware, the Australian Government is adopting the US DMCA laws. I don’t think most Aussies really understand the full implications of these new laws, though I feel the same goes for most Americans - in fact, most people I’ve questioned about the laws don’t know what they are about at all.

As previously mentioned ^{[1, 2]} LA (Linux Australia) is fighting against the adoption of these laws. There’s been a lot of discussion over the LA mailing lists recently about what we can do and one of them was a sort of quiz - see what you know about rights these days and offer what the DMCA laws will do to your current rights.

So thanks to the folks from Linux Australia and Janet Hawtin in particular:

Whats all this then?..

DMCA is the digital management copyright act. It has been imported from the USA as part of the latest Free Trade agreement. It is not a law about making things free and easy to trade - quite the opposite. It sets the scene for primary brands to control markets and reduces the rights of developers and owners of all kinds of software and hardware. It is combined with DRM (digital rights management) technologies to lock down software and hardware so that only their publishers have the right to interact with them. Interaction by anyone else could be called circumvention by the publisher and described as an illegal act.

Here are some suggestions about how Australia will be impacted if the law isn’t revised or withdrawn:

I can read a story aloud to my child?

Answer: Yes, with a paper book. Currently not legal with some e-books. DRM act may leave it up to the publisher to choose if you have this right, including restrictions to copying, printing, lending, giving (giving the book as a gift to someone else) and reading out aloud.

I can read a book I buy

Answer: Paper book - yes.
Answer: Digital book - unclear. DRM act aims to provide a framework for publishers and manufacturers to determine what you may do with any of their products after you have purchased them. Licenses are reducing the permissions which consumers have to pay to play, or pay to use. The Australian Government is not balancing the development of the DRM act with development of fundamental sets of rights which the consumer can count on.

I am a musician and composer. I created a work and licensed it. It was distributed on a website. Can I can now publish it as a CD?

Answer: Unclear -

The United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization has called a last-minute meeting on June 21 in Barcelona, out of the normal diplomatic venues to try to ram through the Broadcasting Treaty. This treaty gives broadcasters (not creators or copyright holders) the right to tie up the use of audiovisual material for 50 years after broadcasting it, even if the programs are in the public domain, Creative Commons licensed, or not copyrightable.

For more information see:http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004739.php.

I can rewind a movie on my VCR?

Answer: No, this has not been legal since the 1970’s. You may play a video’d TV program once legally: blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives//004579.html, and new changes to these laws make it legal to rewind but illegal to keep the copy.

I can put a new video card in my computer?

Answer: Unclear - if the DRM act allows each software and hardware manufacturer to specify which cards and drivers are legal to use with their products then this could be a problem. It is also unclear if the software or hardware vendor could swap the warranty void if removed for a license void if removed sticker, ie against the law to remove.

I can put a new printer cartridge in my printer?

Answer: Unclear - any device which has a call response interaction can be included under DRM. Developing, selling or using a generic brand or alternative brand of printer cartridge could be blocked using DRM. Printer companies have already sued people for using generic printer cartridges and are threatening people who refill their cartridges. It is possible the printer could be sold with a license that requires a new printer to be purchased instead of a new cartridge. If printing companies use RFID tags in paper they could actually make it a criminal act to use plain paper. Circumvention of the relationship between the paper and the printer could be made criminal, the scope of your rights would be up to the US companies.

I can choose to install a new operating system on my computer?

Answer: Unclear - depending on how the DRM act is drafted hardware and software companies could require that their products must only be used together.

I can keep my old operating system on my computer?

Answer: No - for over a year, Microsoft has planted a program on every modern Windows-powered PC that reported home every day. They are now using their new WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) version to lock people into compulsory upgrades. Dave Farber had the following response from a Microsoft representative:

He told me that “in the fall, having the latest WGA will become mandatory and if its not installed, Windows will give a 30 day warning and when the 30 days is up and WGA isn’t installed, Windows will stop working, so you might as well install WGA now.”

For more information see:

• iplist.blogspot.com/2006/06/ip-interesting-interaction-with.html
• ‘Ed Bott at ZDNet: ‘Is Microsoft about to release a Windows “kill switch”?’ - blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=84

I can recycle old computers and make refurbished computers, new artworks and gadgets?

Answer: Unclear - re-using equipment for new purposes is a common practice and recycling is usually seen as an environmentally useful practice, however, depending on how the DRM is drafted, you could need to get permission from any manufacturer or software publisher involved in each of the components you are working with, perhaps each chip, each driver.

can write a game or other software to be used on my computer?

Answer: Unclear - if the DRM permits copyright holders to determine how their products may be interacted with, then it is possible that developers would have to subscribe to a membership to be allowed to develop at all.

I can network two computers?

Answer: Unclear - do the computers run different operating systems? Do you need to use a specific kind of networking protocol to run the service that you want? VOIP or wireless? Protocols and networking standards could easily become outlawed by copyright led control measures.

I have the right to refuse spam?

Answer:

• Postal mail - you can put a sticker on your letter box.
• Telephone - you can advise a caller that you do not accept commercial calls and to ask them to remove you from their call list.
• Email - you can delete them, some install viruses on some computers.
• DVD - You must watch them and may not forward them or remove them.

I have the right to choose what information is collected from me and my computer?

Answer: Unclear - you may not have the right even to find out if something is collecting and forwarding your information as unpacking a suspected device or program could be considered circumvention.

I can have a private password?

Answer: For over a year, Microsoft has planted a program on every modern Windows-powered PC that reported home every day. Noone was told that this was being done. No one has been told what information has been collected. A similar spyware application installed on computers by Sony audio CD’s caused thousands of people’s computers to be compromised. With the new DRM laws software publishers can make it illegal for people to unpack these things and see what they do.

I am farming with a native seed species or a new kind of fertiliser? I can customise my seeder to work with different components for planting this new seed?

Answer: For a non computerised seeder, yes. For computerised seeder or component involved it is unclear. This depends on how the DRM is drafted.

My car’s computerised ignition is broken. I can do a roadside fix to get back on the road?

Answer: Unclear - if the DRM act is not tied directly to copyright infringement then any workaround could be considered illegal. Even if you’re stuck on the Birdsville Track…

I can be sure that my information is accurate and that we are safe?

Answer: DRM provides the purveyor of software the right to ‘black box’ systems. This leaves the owners of these systems with reduced ability to be adaptable, innovative, accurate, safe. consider the following situations:

• air-traffic control
• monitoring and managing power station loads and stresses
• cryptography
• risk assessment applications
• flow control systems

Choice and integration with System Control and Data Acquisition systems?

Answer: Many systems are more than just a single application. They can be pervasive and have impact throughout a large business or organisation. DRM legislation is being drafted which could give the software purveyor the right to restrict you to the software they approve for use on the system and to ban you from circumventing their software to see if alternatives can be integrated. Much of our local media, manufacture and social services infrastructure could be impacted by this.

An example of this could include a software application you purchased prohibiting you from trying to install another software application by another company or a free software application.

Patents can be shared?

Answer: Yes - the Patents Commons, provides one way for individuals and organisations to ensure that their patents are available for community use, encouraging and facilitating further invention.

For more information see: www.patentcommons.org/

I can choose to use non DRM software?

Answer: Yes, currently. Free open source software is an example of the kind of shared copyright which can enable consumers to choose what they would like to install use and share with others. It is important that the DRM act be implemented in a way which makes it clear that open source development and use is a legal choice.

Democracy

Software is very often used in culturally sensitive contexts and to provide trusted results. Without the right to understand how the software works, or how it may be modified to provide more reliable service, we can not be sure of our information.

Black boxed digital voting systems? Digital voting systems have caused controversy in the US where it is alleged that the software administrators added in votes, according to how many they thought might be missing, when the software crashed. Australia is currently considering adopting digital voting systems and concurrently considering accepting laws which do not permit them to investigate the accuracy of the software or to improve or repair it if it is faulty.

Increasingly software simulation is being used to represent predicted outcomes for the impact of a development or impact of disaster. I can ask to see how the simulation was constructed to see whether it is accurate? In a DRM world a software publisher could say that the client, let alone you as a public person, may not circumvent or unpack their software because it conflicts with their copyright. This could block access to effective community consultation as well as making it impossible to be certain a simulation is accurate.

I can find a list of my Australian Digital Civil Rights? If you do please let us know (contact me, and I’ll pass it on the LA mailing list).

It is possible to know if my action will be legal? Prior to the decision on the DRM act the legality of our actions are not possible to determine. Following the decision, if the rights are determined by copyright holders, there can be no overarching clarity about what is generally legal and illegal. The basic rights of Australians have not been a primary consideration in these processes. These laws are coming to us as the result of lobbying from US businesses in a trade agreement.

“The reality is that we do not spend a lot of time thinking about legal issues when we negotiate agreements in the GATT… [T]he concerns that we have are with the commercial results of what a negotiated agreement is, rather than with the legal miceties of it.” - (Emory Simon, then Director for Intellectual Property at the Office of the United States Trade Representative.) Drahos, Braithwaite, Information Feudalism. 2002

Our rights were addressed by inviting people to submit comments on specific kinds of use as exceptions to a default DRM law. This should be the other way around. Our access rights should be defined and consistent with exceptions for nefarious circumvention to defraud being an exception to normal use.

I can change this? If this is a democracy then Australian interests can define our rights. The laws should be developed on our behalf and not on that of (mostly) overseas copyright holders. Perhaps our lawmakers have become too willing to accept international recommendations uncritically. Time for Australian consumers, developers, inventors, artists, musicians, educational institutions and businesses to identify our Digital Access Rights and bring those to any agreement which impacts on our right to innovate, communicate and trade.

Please sign the petition at http://linux.org.au/law and talk about these issues with friends family and business partners. Make your digital rights an issue for yourself and your government representative.

What should we ask for? Providing right of way to manufacturers and publishers at the expense of all other members of our digital community establishes a feudal system of control over our rights to access and interact with digital information. Free nations are built on a precept that freedom comes from sharing rights jointly with others - not on excluding the rights of the many in the interests of the few. Digital media is a chattel, a commodity. Digital media should be something we can own and use flexibly, not something which then owns our future choices.

Digital products should not cause anomalies in our civil rights. These tools and the content on them increasingly are becoming our means of communication with each other. Distortions of our rights on these products have dramatic implications for our cultural, community and business freedoms.

As an interesting contrast from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 17
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 19
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 27
(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28
Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Once again, I’d like to say thanks to Janet and all the wonderful people at Linux Australia. Obviously my thanks and kudos extend beyond that to various groups, organisations and individuals as well, even into the international arena. This blog entry is licensed under the Creative Commons ShareAlike licence - derivatives are most welcome.