
A Legal Deep Dive on Mexico’s Disastrous New Copyright Law - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/legal-deep-dive-mexicos-disastrous-new-copyright-law
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ve55
Sometimes I feel like it's only a matter of time laws in this area take an
unfortunate turn for the worst in many other countries (US obviously being one
of the biggest). Every time we fight tooth-and-claw to get a terrible act from
passing, a new one pops up a few months later.

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TeMPOraL
It's because we're fighting the symptoms, not the disease. Behind each of
these proposed law reforms are the same private actors that try to make their
business models legally protected, to use the might of the state to force
people - both would-be competitors and regular citizens - to play by incumbent
rules.

Beyond protesting every single one of these bullshit copyright "reforms", we
need to start hacking closer to the root of the problem. That includes
limiting the ability of corporate entities to dictate - or even propose -
policies, and - in my personal opinion - burning down the whole concept of
"intellectual property" and building it back up, in a form that serves the
betterment of society instead of just the rent seekers.

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MrYellowP

       It's because we're fighting the symptoms, not the disease.
    

First you state this, then you state this:

    
    
       Behind each of these proposed law reforms are the same private actors that try to make their business models legally protected
    

The _disease_ are politicians willing to create laws that do not serve the
public. If they didn't exist, private actors would have no leg to stand on.

That's the disease. NOT the private actors.

~~~
einpoklum
> The disease are politicians willing to create laws that do not serve the
> public. If they didn't exist, private actors would have no leg to stand on.
> That's the disease. NOT the private actors.

I think you're still describing the symptom. These politicians are also
"actors", part of a system. It's not that there are too many bad politicians
and not enough good ones.

It's the socio-political system which is designed so that companies and people
who own large amounts of money - capitalists if you will - have much more
influence on the political process than most people, individually and even
combined.

However, when we generalize to this level - it becomes exceedingly difficult
to attack the root cause rather than the symptoms.

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pier25
Many laws in Mexico are not enforced. I'd be very surprised if these copyright
laws were.

It's extremely common to find street vendors selling pirated movies, software,
etc, with absolute impunity. I'm not referring to guys with a backpack selling
DVDs or USBs in the Mexico City metro, but entire street blocks full of
permanent markets.

If you're ever in Mexico City go to the MEAVE market a couple of minutes from
the Latino Tower (also called "la plaza de la tecnología"). It's a huge
labyrinthian cyberpunk market of pirated, software, hardware, second hand
devices, phone repairs, etc.

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zarkov99
Be aware that a lot of that business is ultimately controlled by the drug
cartels.

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svaha1728
So are avocados

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dhosek
While I respect the EFF, they do have their own ideology that makes them not
necessarily able to give an objective summary of the law. Is there another
account of what the Mexican copyright law does anywhere?

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gamblor956
As just one example of the EFF's many nonsensical ideology-driven arguments,
the EFF claims that the DCMA is an "unconstitutional" law because it enshrines
the right of an IP holder to utilize digital copy protection
mechanisms...Ignoring that copyright law is one of the few areas of law that
the U.S. constitution specifically empowers Congress to legislate (Art I, sec
8 cl 8).

It's silly stuff like this that keeps the EFF on the fringes of tech law
instead of being at the forefront. (It's also disconcerting that they claim
credit for legal outcomes that were achieved by others.)

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CamperBob2
In a just society, a creator would be forced to choose between self-
enforcement of copyright through DRM, or judicial enforcement through
conventional means. Not both.

With DRM, the party on one side of the copyright bargain retains all of the
spoils, for all time, at the other side's expense. That's all well and good,
but the copyright holder shouldn't subsequently be able to use the law to
enforce their unlimited terms.

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gamblor956
In a just society, a creator _wouldn 't have to make that decision at all._

It's truly fucked up that privileged people feel like they can decide how
_other people_ should earn their living just so that they can avoid spending a
few bucks.

 _With DRM, the party on one side of the copyright bargain retains all of the
spoils, for all time, at the other side 's expense._

This is not true. It is only illegal to crack DRM of copyright-protected
works. Once a work falls out of copyright, it's fully legal to crack any DRM.
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201)

~~~
CamperBob2
_This is not true. It is only illegal to crack DRM of copyright-protected
works. Once a work falls out of copyright, it 's fully legal to crack any
DRM._

Sure, it's legal, but to the extent it's not already impossible for consumers
to take advantage of that provision, it will be soon enough. There is no law
against deploying cryptographically-sound DRM that would require the resources
of a Kardashev Type III civilization to crack.

And that's the problem. If you rely on such measures, you should _at least_ be
required to deposit an unprotected copy of the work in escrow for open release
when the copyright term expires.

Additionally, the law casually conflates access to a work with the ability to
copy it. Now that everything is moving to the cloud, DRM can block both,
potentially forever. That's a one-sided bargain if there ever was one. Talk
about "privilege!" The use of DRM on copyrighted works amounts to taking from
the public domain without compensation. It should be prohibited by law, not
protected by it.

