{"id":3028,"date":"2003-04-02T14:55:07","date_gmt":"2003-04-02T18:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2003\/04\/02\/ma-super-dmca-hearing-report\/"},"modified":"2003-04-02T14:55:07","modified_gmt":"2003-04-02T18:55:07","slug":"ma-super-dmca-hearing-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/2003\/04\/02\/ma-super-dmca-hearing-report\/","title":{"rendered":"MA Super DMCA Hearing Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

First, I should mention that I have notes from the first hour and a half here.<\/a>  Sadly, I had to miss the rest.  But I managed to catch John Palfrey’s<\/a> rousing speech<\/a> and many other fantastic presentations (John’s also got comments here<\/a>).  Given the amount of people there, I assume that the hearing went on for several more hours.<\/p>\n

Now, onto my thoughts and feelings:<\/p>\n

It was a good day in the copyfight<\/p>\n

At least, that’s my impression.  I’d say around 20 people, maybe 25, showed up to oppose the bill.<\/a> 
\nWe filled the room and the committee’s minds.  It seemed like the
\nstate representatives understood that this bill was very
\nproblematic because of vague language. They also seemed to understand
\nthat the bill’s content in general, in its target and its
\ntactics, is troubling.  They want to ensure law enforcement
\nis effective, but they get that there’s something wrong here.<\/p>\n

They knew we were coming, too.  Before the hearing, some
\ncommittee members were speaking with an MPAA rep about the stir this
\nhas caused and the bill’s really vague language.  One of
\nthem said something to the effect of, “Professor Felten stirred up
\nthose bloggers.”  I was surprised that he even knew what a blogger
\nis.  Certainly, he used that mildly insulting tone that some
\npeople use when they’re talking about political activism – the “oh,
\nthose meddling kids are back again” tone. At the same time, his
\ntone seemed to indicate that this band of security experts, privacy
\ndefenders, geeks, programmers, lawyers, businessmen, students, and
\ncopyfighters was actually being recognized as a coherent group. 
\nWe are a set of people with a common set of concerns.  We can and
\nwill mobilize effectively and quickly. You can count on us showing
\nup when you try to pass legislation like this.<\/p>\n

Maybe this has been the case for years. Certainly, I
\nexperienced a similar feeling when I watched local news
\nreports about the Free Dmitry protests<\/a>
\nI attended.  But it was important (for me) to watch actual
\nlegislators realize that their citizens will organize and fight for
\ntheir rights.<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful thing to watch, and I am grateful to all of you
\nwho showed up.  I wish I had gotten a chance to meet you all.<\/p>\n

While everyone there gets a gold star for the day, I should point
\nout that David Turner of the Free Software Foundation (I think that was
\nhis name) and John Palfrey were really stellar.  Turner
\nmade very clear the dangers of prohibiting all unauthorized
\naccess, touching on issues of fair use,
\ntechnology innovation, and our general intuition (that is, isn’t
\nit ridiculous to think the MPAA should determine whether we can record
\ntv programs?). Palfrey gave the committee an overall sense of the
\ndirection of Internet law and the dangers of special interests
\ndictating the legislative agenda.<\/p>\n

Also, everyone brought up how ridiculous the MPAA rep’s focus on intent <\/a>was. 
\nFirst of all, it’s important to realize how little of the bill actually
\nspeaks of intent.  For instance, 42B(c) doesn’t discuss intent for
\nusing or distributing “unlawful access devices.” Intent comes up in
\n42B(d) when addressing plans for manufacturing access
\ndevices, but it isn’t really significant.  Intent is only
\nimportant if you were creating a device that was not intended to
\ncircumvent; all circumvention is still illegal under the definition of
\n“unlawful access device” and 42B(c). People picked up on problems like
\nthis and spelled them out for the committee. I hope the legislators got
\nthe point.<\/p>\n

By the time I had to leave, everyone else had basically
\nsaid everything I would have.  I was hoping someone would bring up
\nthe idea that even if you built exemptions into the circumvention
\ndevice prohibitions, you wouldn’t cover everything because fair
\nuse is an evolving concept.  Perhaps someone brought this up
\nlater.  (Even though I didn’t get to speak, I did get to submit
\ntestimony. I presented copies of Professor Felten’s criticisms<\/a> and the EFF’s “Unintended Consequences<\/a>: Four Years under the DMCA,” along with comments describing their relevance.)<\/p>\n

In any case, I think the committee got the point.  They know
\nthere’s something wrong with the telecommunications and access
\ndevice prohibitions. They know they have to study the issue more. 
\nThey know they need to listen to more than just the MPAA.<\/p>\n

So, a job well done.<\/p>\n

[Updated to correct David Turner’s name.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, I should mention that I have notes from the first hour and a half here.  Sadly, I had to miss the rest.  But I managed to catch John Palfrey’s rousing speech and many other fantastic presentations (John’s also got comments here).  Given the amount of people there, I assume that the hearing went on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cmusings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}