"Activism is a large part of the punk culture, which is why I want to pass this letter along to the punknews.org readership. This legislation directly affects you, and you have the power to strike it down." I'm posting this specifically because of my personal objections to this law. Copyright law is supposed to be a contract between the copyright holder and the user. Laws like this one betray that trust. Click below for some interesting points.
Please, Help Abolish The DMCA
The DMCA harms every American. It allows organisations and corporations to terrorize citizens of the United States with threats of jail time and fines for citizens, scientists and academians (a Princeton professor was threatened to not publish a paper) who perform math and science. The DMCA makes is a crime to "circumvent" copyright protection systems, on materials you bought and that you have a right to fair use of. Essentially the DMCA is a war on education. The DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act (United States Code, title 17, chapter 12, section 1201 http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1201.html), can put you in jail for creating, using, or distributing software to playback the DVD's you legitimately purchased on a computer you paid for. It can put you in jail for reading electronic books you pay for without authorisation from the publisher! In fact, Dmitri Sklyarov was arrested and imprisoned for writing such a software program. It can put you in jail for making copies of music you purchased so that you can listen to it in your car.
The DVD consortium locks each DVD disc with a key, and then gives the key to manufacturers of DVD players. The key itself is a number. With this key, one can rightfully play the DVD's one owns on his equipment. However, the DMCA makes it illegal to speak about or distribute said number! It makes it illegal to do math and science. This is a flagrant violation of your first amendment rights, which reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Please, sign the Abolish the Digital Millenium Copyright Act: http://www.petitiononline.com/nixdmca/petition.html Please, write to your US senators and representatives and tell them you want abolishment of the DMCA. You can find out their mailing and e-mail addresses at http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov
The DMCA harms every American. It was bought by organisations that want to be able to completely control what, when, where, and how often you use media--television, books, music, and movies. The DMCA is not a valid exercise of Congress's enumerated powers. It is unconstitutional. Please show your support to strike down the DMCA. Please forward this notice along to your friends, family and co-workers.
For futher information please see http://anti-dmca.org