
A bill in Congress legalizes cell phone unlocking and fixes the DMCA - sinak
http://fixthedmca.org/unlocking-technology-act.html?r=hn
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rosser
If you want this to pass, don't sign the petition, and don't email or write
your congresscritter. _Call them_. Interact with a human being in their
office. Anecdotally, that has a much greater impact.

(Source: my cousin and his wife were congressional staffers for several
years.)

~~~
WesleyJohnson
For someone who has never called a politician to lobby for something, what do
you say when you call them up? Is it as simple as "I'd like for you back this
bill?" Honest question.

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sinak
"Hi, My name is ____, and I'm one of Senator/Representative ____ constitutents
from ___. I'm calling to tell my Representative/Senator that I think the
Digital Millenium Copyright Act is affecting my freedoms as a consumer by
preventing me from unlocking or jailbreaking my phone or tablets without fear
of legal repercussions. I'd like to urge representative/senator ____ to join
in supporting the Unlocking Technology Act, H.R. 1892. Not only would it grant
greater consumer freedoms, but it would also empower security researchers,
documentary filmmakers, remix artists, and archivists to do their important
work without facing legal threats."

Make sure they catch and make a note of "the Unlocking Technology Act - H.R.
1892" part, as that's what they'll note down and use in their own counts of
how many calls they've received.

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ebbv
This legislation doesn't entirely fix the DMCA. It fixes some problems but
more remain.

Copyright is some seriously fucked up shit right now. It has been dominated by
big money interests for the last 50 years.

~~~
smutticus
Forward progress is still forward progress.

~~~
nly
Those of us in the UK who voted for AV+ because we saw it as a step toward
proportional representation thought that too. Then the notion that it was a
half-baked solution was used as a weapon by the "No" campaign, and now voting
reform is off the table entirely for the foreseeable future.

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Guvante
It would be nice if the Digital Millennium __Copyright __Act only applied to
Copyright violations.

~~~
phantom784
That would make sense, and it's analogous to the laws in some states where
it's legal to own lockpicks and use them on locks you own, but if you get
caught with them while breaking & entering, the lockpicks become illegal.

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kmfrk
Now is a good time to show that people are capable at _passing_ legislation
instead of _blocking_ it.

It's easier to enshrine rights in law than to oppose every iteration of PIPA
and CISPA, every time they try to let it slip through unnoticed.

~~~
GhotiFish
It would give me hope for America's technological future if this one can be
pushed through.

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scott_meade
If someone has information that they only want certain people to see, would
circumventing a technological measure that controls access to that information
be allowed under this bill? For example, internal documents, trade secrets and
documents under NDAs?

If someone has information they only want licensed people to see, would
circumventing a technological measure that controls access to that information
be allowed under this bill? For example, publishers of stock market analysis
which is released only to licensed subscribers.

~~~
darkarmani
Why do you need the DMCA to protect these things?

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scott_meade
I'm asking for clarification of the impact of this bill. Do you know the
answers to those two questions off hand?

~~~
Zigurd
Why would you expose such information in a way that it is protected only by a
mechanism that the public has access to? It seems like you are asking if
fixing the DMCA would remove protection for irresponsible behavior.

~~~
pyre
IIRC, the DMCA makes it a criminal act, whereas otherwise it might only be
governed by civil law. If I'm contractually obligated to only read a stock
market report myself, but I show it to a friend, do I deserve jail time, or
just to get sued?

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plainOldText
Equally important after signing the petition is sharing it on social networks;
you know so that the effort gets amplified.

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dlitz
One of the most important things about this bill is that it takes care of the
anti-circumvention provisions in a general way, rather than narrowly targeting
cell phone unlocking.

> (3) It is not a violation of this section to use, manufacture, import, offer
> to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product,
> service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed or
> pro- duced for the purpose of facilitating noninfringing uses of works
> protected under this title by circumventing a technological measure that
> effectively controls access to that work, unless it is the intent of the
> person that uses, manufactures, imports, offers to the public, provides, or
> traffics in the technology, product, service, device, component, or part to
> infringe copyright or to facilitate the infringement of a copyright.

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metavida
If you prefer, here's the bill on POPVOX
<https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hr1892/>

Also makes it very easy to contact your representative.

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gluxon
This is very dangerous. Just from the first paragraph of the page, it is
stated that the bill will allow all types of software modification.

A bill like this will have a very hard time passing. This was originally
suppose to be only about unlocking cell phones for use with other carriers.
Now conditions have been added that make the bill very arguable. It is asking
for more than we can take. Companies like Apple and Sony will be very likely
against this.

Every part of me wants this to pass, but this bill is sadly unlikely to. ...
sadface

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DigitalSea
History has taught us if you want to change something within Congress, you
need a lot of lobbying cash to buy off as many key votes as possible. While it
makes sense to allow cell phone unlocking (here in Australia it's legal) I
have a feeling those who benefit off of locking you in will be spending some
of their lobby change as well. That's not to say the bill won't pass though,
there is still a chance if enough people make enough noise and ask questions,
flood the airway.

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incompatible
Perhaps it would also have been useful if they had addressed the pre-1972
recording issue that came up recently. I.e., they don't appear to be covered
by the DMCA safe-harbor provision, leading to unintended liability. See:
[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/court-denies-
groo...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/court-denies-grooveshark-
dmca-protection-for-songs-like-johnny-b-goode/)

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azat_co
I was with fixthedmca and grassroots.io during StartupBus and Sina works at
the same office with me — the cause is important and the new design is very
good!

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Grognak
Is there any reason not to support this? What negative impacts could this have
towards the companies that this effects?

~~~
heironimus
I want to know this too. When I see thing like "This fixes the DMCA", it makes
me question the intentions of the advocating website. It sounds too good to be
true.

~~~
sinak
Hey, I'm the FixtheDMCA founder. I set the whole thing up, and really I don't
have any ulterior motives. When I was in college (2003-2006), I wrote and sold
software to unlock Motorola phones (back when the RAZR was big). It was my
first startup, and was a lot of fun to build. But about a year in I was sent a
cease and desist by Motorola for violating the DMCA, even though there was no
copyright infringement involved.

A very lovely lawyer by the name of Jennifer Granick at Stanford Cyberlaw
helped me out pro bono, the case was dropped, and Jennifer went on to petition
the Librarian of Congress to have an exemption for unlocking added. That
exemption was granted in 2006, renewed in 2009, then dropped in 2012. I
haven't been in the unlocking business for a long time, but I thought I should
do something about it. I started the WH petition, which got 114k signatures
and a positive response from the WH. But I realized that the real culprit is
DMCA Section 1201, it really is just a really poorly written law, and it
effects a whole load of people. So, with the help of some friends (shout outs
to Azat, Joe, Austin and Dmitri) we threw up the FixtheDMCA site over the
course of three days, and I've been maintaining it since. Meanwhile I've been
trying to coordinate with folks like the EFF and Public Knowledge who are
pushing things on the DC side.

For me it's kind of a fun break from startups, and I kind of feel like it's
paying back the favor J. Granick did to me back when I was a college student.

I would really love to hear some decent, reasoned arguments why the DMCA
shouldn't be fixed (and by fixed I mean limited to cases of copyright
infringement only), as I think at a certain point the content lobbies will
probably start making them and I'd love to have responses ready.

~~~
shmerl
_> some decent, reasoned arguments why the DMCA shouldn't be fixed_

I doubt there can be any _decent_ arguments, since DRM itself is by definition
indecent, and DMCA 1201 is DRM derivative.

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maerF0x0
And for canadians:
[http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Lan...](http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&DocId=5227186)

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davvolun
"As a constitutient, I write today to urge you to support the the.."

Seriously? C'mon!

~~~
sinak
Haha, I can fortunately plass off blame to EFF for writing that. I'll fix it
now :).

Edit: Should be fixed now.

~~~
davvolun
Thanks, for both the original and the fix.

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peapicker
For a second I thought this was an April Fool's day post!

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spoiledtechie
Email Sent.

~~~
ericb
Emails will be ignored. Call them. They notice that.

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nanodeath
I'm not sure I agree. Every email I've sent from a site like this actually
does get a reply a few days later.

~~~
ericb
And that's how you know you've made a big impression on their autoresponder.
;-)

