An old friend, who now resides abroad, had some points to make about the proposed Section 65A (2) that affects copying of protected material and how it compares to the DMCA.
Slightly edited, his argument (made to another FOSS enthusiast) is: I claim that my message is an "inspired" work, not a "derivative", so does not infringe on [his] copyright. Summary: from a freedom point of view, nothing has changed. In fact, 65A (2) might actually free up deCSS in India. > New amendment is being proposed in India which will bring in DMCA-like > clauses to prevent, for instance, running DeCSS. With one exception, sure. But the DMCA did a lot of good, by securing the safe-harbor provisions in law. That is what allowed ISPs and blog- hosters to take off. It was a compromise. > This will also probably mean that anyone who re-configures his DVD > firmware to make it region-free will probably face up to 2 years > of imprisonment. No. Yes. No, really. See the proposed Section 65A (2) (a). Basically, 65A (1) adds a penalty for doing something that is illegal. It does not create a new crime by itself. If copying a DVD is illegal, *due to another law,* then you get 2 years added to your sentence. But if copying the dvd was legal, 65A does not apply. 65A (2) then clarifies, immediately, for those who need the clarification, that 65A (1) is not standalone. So the legality of deCSS has not changed a bit due to 65A. > BTW, what does DMCA say about configuring your DVD player to make it > region-free? The DMCA says nothing, and there have been no criminal actions for a user changing his Region. A good write-up I have used is: http://www.jltp.uiuc.edu/archives/sun.pdf . Note that it reviews DMCA, not DMCA-like. > Isn't it a deliberate subversion of a digital rights management > mechanism? Loaded question. But note that libdvdcss has never been challenged (yet). The new clauses, at least if I have the Bill right, do not prevent you from using deCSS in itself. I hope I have cleared that? You may run deCSS, you may break Adobe DRM encryption, you may factor prime numbers (yes, you may). Nothing has changed. > This will also probably > mean that anyone who re-configures his DVD firmware to make it > region-free will probably face up to 2 years of imprisonment. This means nothing like that, at all. You may get an additional 2 years, if you break DVD encryption in the commission of an IPR theft. If you commit IPR theft, that is a crime (and has always been). 65A (2) says if you commit the theft by subverting encrypted DRM, you have aggravated the offence. You had a copy of the Bill in your email. You had a reference to it. You understand English (better than the guys who drafted it). And yet you pull up a straw man argument about me committing a crime by region- freeing my DVD player. That ends my answer to your question. However ... Consider the two different offences of theft, and Breaking and Entering. (We live in a common law jurisdiction, so we speak the same lingo). The law treats theft as a different offence than theft. You may be convicted of B&E, even when you steal nothing. Now consider the offence of Aggravated Assault. In Singapore, this can get you seven years. And yet, the law says, that aggravated assault can be proved only after assault has been proven. It is not an offence in itself. We have similar "add-ons" for rape of a minor, when in a guardianship capacity. This gets you life in jail, but ONLY if rape has occurred. Being in possession of a minor, by itself, is not illegal. I hope my point is clear(er) now? On my remarks how DMCA allowed ISPs to transit traffic without fear, the current Bill also makes that compromise: http://www.medianama.com/2010/11/223-india-safe-harbor-fair-usage- intermediary-liability/ Oh, and see the comments by MPAA to the RS Standing Comm: > The Motion Picture Association said that this section appears to > allow unlimited acts of circumvention for the viewing of movies on > all digital devices by individual viewers, since, among other > things, “access controls” are not covered and the viewing of a work > streamed to digital devices may never involve an infringement by the > person viewing that film. http://www.medianama.com/2010/11/223-india-copyright-internet-piracy- drm/ So the MPAA thinks this bill makes things worse for them. That is good for us, right? [By Sanjeev Gupta] -- Raj Mathur [email protected] http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
