[CLUG] Re: Alan Cox attacks the European DMCA

[fixer at vigilante.net]

this is so easy to go off on tangents about.  You make it sound like the 
russian programmer was purely benevolent in his intentions when he was 
ripping off Adobe - for the blind people?  come on, his company was trying 
to be able to sell Adobe ebook content without paying Adobe for that right. 

One of the problems in all of this, both in the US and the EU mainly, but 
everywhere really, is the state of copyright.  We're all arguing about the 
limits put on the protection and delivery of this information when the 
effort and energy on our parts might be better spent to poke at the roots of 
copyright and it's place in a modern, electronic society. 


Donncha O Caoimh writes: 

> I added the following when I posted the link to an internal list here.. 
> 
> ----------------------------
> To relate this to every day stuff, here's an example: "I managed to get
> around my house security system, the windows aren't monitored at all!
> There must be something wrong with the alarm, oops, I can't complain
> because it's against the law!" 
> Does that seem far fetched? A Russian programmer who reverse engineered
> a very simple encryption on electronic books so that blind people could
> read them spent several weeks in a US prison...
> ---------------------------- 
> 
> That might help clear it up a bit methinks. 
> 
> Donncha. 
> 
 

 --
fix.er \'fik-s*r\ n : one that fixes : as : one that intervenes
  to enable a person to circumvent the law or obtain a political
  favor : one that adjusts matters or disputes by negotiation