Representatives Boucher and Doolittle have introduced a bill, the DMCRA, that mitigates some of the worst elements of the current copyright regime, especially in the DMCA. They've been met with a hail of FUD and scare-mongering. This page explains in detail why the copyright absolutists' arguments are so flawed.
Opponents of the DMCRA argue that if we allow circumvention to make noninfringing use, it will make it easier to circumvent the same technologies for infringing use. This argument ignores the obvious: If copyright holders limit their technologies to the prevention of infringing use, then no one will need to "pick the lock" in order to make noninfringing use. Consider timed-out copied, for example. It is never infringement to listen to a sound recording an infinite number of times. It is never infringement to rent lawfully made copies infinite times. An access control technology that times out a lawfully made copy so that the lawful owner or lawful renter of that copy has to pay the copyright holder to gain access is the same as a technology allowing copyright holders to charge a toll to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. It is ludicrous for the illicit toll-collector to argue that if people can learn how to cross the Brooklyn Bridge without paying the illicit toll, then legitimate toll collectors will be at risk.
(Thanks, John!)
