DMCA

Growing pressure in Congress to fix flaws in DMCA law

A once-obscure copyright law that the U.S. Senate unanimously approved in 1998 has finally irritated so many members of the public that Congress might bother to defang it.

It's not like the flaws of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have remained a state secret for the last 15 years: it's been wielded to threaten Princeton security researchers, restrict replacement garage door openers, and jail a programmer who dared to create an e-book converter. One federal appeals court even invoked the law when banning "linking" to certain DMCA-offending Web sites.

Not one of those extrusions of … Read more

What the DMCA cell phone unlock ban means to you (FAQ)

There has been a lot of talk lately about about how it's now considered illegal to unlock your smartphone without your carrier's permission.

The change comes as part of a three-year cycle for renewing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (PDF). And in this cycle the Library of Congress, which has the job of approving exemptions to the law, decided not to exempt the software locks that carriers put on devices that prevent them from being used on other carrier networks.

The change has caused quite a stir in the wireless community since it took effect in January. An … Read more

White House: You have a right to unlock your cell phone

The White House today backed an Internet petition asking the Library of Congress to change its stance on the legality of smartphone unlocking.

In a post on the We The People blog, R. David Edelman, the White House senior adviser for Internet, innovation and privacy, said the administration agrees with those who signed the petition, and aims to support any legislation that would remedy the issue.

"The White House agrees with the 114,000 plus of you who believe that consumers should be able to unlock their cell phones without risking criminal or other penalties," Edelman wrote. "… Read more

White House petition to unlock cell phones hits 100,000 trigger

A petition asking President Obama to oppose a new rule restricting cell phone owners from unlocking their devices has passed the 100,000 mark, meaning the White House is now obliged to respond.

The petition, which passed the threshold last night and now stands at more than 102,000 signatures, protests a regulation from the Library of Congress that prohibits unlocking phones without the carrier's permission -- even when a customer's contract with the carrier has expired.

"I think it's terrific," said Derek Khanna, a Yale visiting fellow who was previously a Republican Hill staffer … Read more

Want to unlock your phone? Fix the DMCA

This week, a new federal mandate kicked in that makes it illegal for you to unlock a phone that you bought locked from a carrier. The rule states that unauthorized unlocking of a phone you bought -- even if you paid full price for it, minus a carrier subsidy -- is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Specifically, it violates a portion of the law enacted in 2000 that makes it illegal to bypass technology designed to restrict access to a certain product. And that provision has bedeviled consumers, researchers, and lawyers for 12 years -- it's … Read more

Unauthorized unlocking of smartphones becomes illegal Saturday

For all you polyamorous types out there who don't like the long-term monogamy demanded by most American wireless carriers when it comes to smartphones, I have bad news.

Starting this Saturday, it becomes illegal in this great land to unlock a new smartphone without the permission of the carrier that locked it in the first place.

This all goes back to a final rule issued in late October by the Librarian of Congress (PDF) -- the Library of Congress handles the rulemaking for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which is the specific law we're talking about here. The … Read more

New Twitter policy notes copyright take-down requests

If Twitter receives a complaint that a tweet has breached copyright, the site will now transparently display a notice explaining why the tweet was pulled instead of just yanking the infringing tweet.

A policy shift will now see infringing tweets replaced with a warning, such as: "This Tweet from [username] has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder," along with a link to Twitter's copyright policy and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Other Twitter users will also be made aware that the tweet was withdrawn and can reply to the withdrawn tweet notice … Read more

John Mellencamp: Congress must target search engines

John Mellencamp, the rock musician turned political activist who jointly launched the Farm Aid concert series, has found a new cause: attacking Internet copyright law.

Mellencamp says that U.S. copyright law should be rewritten to compel Google and other search engines to police Web pages they index -- that number in the billions -- and delete links to infringing Web sites.

The musician, once known as John Cougar Mellencamp, wrote in an op-ed yesterday that:

What's happening is your search engine leads you to an illegal downloading site where you can download -- you name the artist -- … Read more

Feds uphold jailbreaking laws on DVDs, game consoles, tablets

The U.S. Copyright Office published its new set of rules on whether people can jailbreak smartphones, tablets, and gaming consoles today; it also outlined the guidelines on DVD copying.

Overwhelmingly, its conclusions were that besides smartphones, all of the above remain illegal.

Every three years the Copyright Office takes requests from digital rights proponents and opponents to re-examine the laws under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that dictate whether people can unlock or jailbreak their varied devices. Today, in a lengthy document (PDF), the government listed all of the changes it made.

The key developments are that people cannot … Read more