Since winning a petition, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and famous console hacker of Bunnie Studios known as Andrew 'Bunnie' Huang have sued the US government today challenging Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
To quote an excerpt from his Blog on why he's suing the US government:
"Today I filed a lawsuit against the US government, challenging Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Section 1201 means that you can be sued or prosecuted for accessing, speaking about, and tinkering with digital media and technologies that you have paid for.
This violates our First Amendment rights, and I am asking the court to order the federal government to stop enforcing Section 1201.
Before Section 1201, the ownership of ideas was tempered by constitutional protections. Under this law, we had the right to tinker with gadgets that we bought, we had the right to record TV shows on our VCRs, and we had the right to remix songs.
Section 1201 built an extra barrier around copyrightable works, restricting our prior ability to explore and create. In order to repair a gadget, we may have to decrypt its firmware; in order to remix a video, we may have to strip HDCP.
Whereas we once readily expressed feelings and new ideas through remixes and hardware modifications, now we must first pause and ask: does this violate Section 1201? Especially now that cryptography pervades every aspect of modern life, every creative spark is likewise dampened by the chill of Section 1201.
The act of creation is no longer spontaneous."
Comment below to share your thoughts on this, or if you support his decision to take on the government and get them to bring legislation up to date with modern technology!
To quote an excerpt from his Blog on why he's suing the US government:
"Today I filed a lawsuit against the US government, challenging Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Section 1201 means that you can be sued or prosecuted for accessing, speaking about, and tinkering with digital media and technologies that you have paid for.
This violates our First Amendment rights, and I am asking the court to order the federal government to stop enforcing Section 1201.
Before Section 1201, the ownership of ideas was tempered by constitutional protections. Under this law, we had the right to tinker with gadgets that we bought, we had the right to record TV shows on our VCRs, and we had the right to remix songs.
Section 1201 built an extra barrier around copyrightable works, restricting our prior ability to explore and create. In order to repair a gadget, we may have to decrypt its firmware; in order to remix a video, we may have to strip HDCP.
Whereas we once readily expressed feelings and new ideas through remixes and hardware modifications, now we must first pause and ask: does this violate Section 1201? Especially now that cryptography pervades every aspect of modern life, every creative spark is likewise dampened by the chill of Section 1201.
The act of creation is no longer spontaneous."
Comment below to share your thoughts on this, or if you support his decision to take on the government and get them to bring legislation up to date with modern technology!
