Software firms want copyright law rewrite

A group of large software companies has taken the first step toward inciting a tussle with the telecommunications industry by asking Congress to rewrite copyright law so alleged Internet pirates can be more easily targeted by lawsuits.

The group of companies, which is known as the Business Software Alliance, counts as members Microsoft, Autodesk, Borland, Intuit, Sybase and Symantec, among others. The group released a general outline of its suggestions on Thursday in a white paper that effectively describes its legislative proposals for 2005. The companies say they fear a revenue-sapping future in which software programs are traded as frequently and readily on peer-to-peer networks as MP3 music files are today.

One current law that the software companies single out for criticism is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which established a turbocharged subpoena procedure designed to let copyright holders unmask infringers. The law was considered a workable compromise when enacted in 1998, but a series of subsequent court decisions have created an "impediment to effective enforcement," the paper says.

Emery Simon, a top Business Software Alliance attorney, declined to be more specific about the group's proposals. But any attempt to revise the law could place its members at loggerheads with Internet service providers, which historically have been loath to act as online cops or face liability for what their users do. Verizon Communications and Charter Communications have led court battles against the Recording Industry Association of America to curb the scope of DMCA--and, in the process, effectively preserve the privacy of their customers.

"We are identifying a problem that needs attention," Simon said. "We need to find ways to let people do better enforcement."

Simon said, "We can foresee revisions to the copyright act...(but) we're not suggesting reopening the DMCA. We're identifying a problem that needs to be solved."

Still, Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the Business Software Alliance paper "appears to give short shrift to anonymity online. It assumes IP addresses accurately map to individuals. If you think that anonymity has a place online as it does in the real world, then you should begin to ask questions about whether (that's) a good assumption."

The white paper also suggests tightening the rules under which patents are issued to allow both proposed and issued patents to be challenged more easily.

[Stan Kee]

We The People

We The People want a copyright law rewrite also. Why is our voice not important? We the people are used by Demoocrats & Republcans to get in office. Once the Democrats & Republicans get in office our voice no longer is important (except for symbolic nonsence) and the bidding of corporate interests takes priority. I'm getting tired of this fantasy world in which they would have us believe we have a say in our country.

[Below Meigh]

You could always lobby for 'the people'...

Isn't this just pure hypocrisy?

Corporations are weilding far more power than the actual citizens the government is supposed to protect!

Its software extortion. Bureaucrats want their money, and software companies sell poorly written, poorly supported products and then have laws to protect their garbage!

We are doomed by our own stupidity...or atleast yours...

[hadaso]

The #1 needed ammendment to copyright laws

The #1 needed ammendment to copyright laws is one that voids the copyright protection when it is used by a company as an excuse not to fix their products and at the same time not to let one hire someone else to fix it properly (and provide all the needed information).

In the past copyright protection was subject to the copyright holder providing a copy of the protected work to the public by putting a copy in a public library. The same should apply today. The people should provide protection to copyright holder via the court system ONLY to works that are available to the public. And that should include source code to software. Copyright in software should not be protected unless a copy of the source is placed in advance in the library of congress, and only that copy of the source should serve as evidence to compare to.

[hadaso]

And another thing

And another thing: any unpublished work has the protection of secrecy. This kind of protection and copyright protection should be mutually exclusive. The creator or holder of rights in a work should be able to choose to protect a work by denying access to it to anyone wishing to make a copy. But this choice should imply that the work would not enjoy copyright protection that the law provides as a protection to those that make their work available to the public!

[Al Johnsons]

copyright protection

http://www.analogstereo.com/suzuki_x90_owners_manual.htm

[hadaso]

They just want to shift costs to the public!

What the BSA (and some others) really want is to shift costs to the public! Make the public pay for the process. Make it too risky for induvuduals to do anything but pay them (the ransom they ask for)!

If you have a $100 , you're expected to protect them yourself! If you have $10,000, you pay for the vault to protect them. Or you make a deal with a bank to use the bank's services to protect your money from theft. If you just leave your money on the street and somebody takes it, the one who takes it is not a thief. Even if you write down the serial number on each $100 note in the pack, providing this list would not serve as evidence of theft if someone were identified using the same $100 note. You are expected to do something to protect your money, or any other property you have. What the BSA wants is the equivalent of being able to leave your money anywhere, and later point a finger at anyone who happened to have the $100 note that they claim is theirs, with the one that holds the note having to prove innocence.

Read Lessig's book "Free Culture" downloadable at http://free-culture.org