Yep

That made me blink for a while, too

What you missed

I assume the spokestard was referring to the backlash that has made it socially acceptable to download and distribute copyrighted works. (YouTube alone probably *has* fostered greater access to more works by more people than all the rest of history put together.)

Still, it seems a little unfair to blame the DMCA. The Act was just one of the mechanisms used by the big publishers to destroy this particular social contract.

Title

I think she is confusing DMCA with BitTorrent.

I get the meaning there

They mean "without the DMCA we wouldnt have wanted people to access works that they might have simply reduplicated and where we would have earnt nothing".

Now that's comedy.

I hate the smell of doublethink in the morning. It smells like...MPAA lawyers. On the other hand, I love to see the bastards squirm.

Not the law makers

The "law makers" didn't change their mind. It's the Copyright office that's made the exemption, as they are allowed to do under the law.

Here's hoping...

...though I fear it's the exception, rather than the rule.

I'll happily eat my hat if this common sense continues and sorts out the USA's laughable patents system.

A title is required

Which came first - the telephone handset or the jailbreak? An iPod Touch will run Siphon quite happily with a jailbreak and a microphone accessory.

Fortunately,

Contracts such as a ToS or a EULA have regularly been shown to be unenforcable, due to the inability of anyone to actually comprehend what's written in there. They may, perhaps, still apply to lawyers, but the rest of us are only really bound by the stuff that's spelled out in plain English elsewhere. At least if you take the case to court anyway.

Also, on the individual level, it's rather like speeding. If the cops see you speeding, they're liable to give you a ticket, but they're usually too busy doing something else (eating donuts) to actively look for speeders.

Re: Calm down for one second.

Not to worry. If the jail break is to use the phone on another carrier then who really cares about the original Carrier TOS/Contract anyway and as long as there is a way to sneak back in jail then I imagine the warranty could still be in play.

As for the axe sharpening, I wouldn't sweat it since Apple has been doing this with every software update they push out. Both to fix jailbreaks and keep the likes of Palm out and I don't believe a kill switch of some kind hasn't been worked on already. I find it more likely that Jobs has been loath to pull that particular trigger.

Unfortunately for you you're wrong.

If the copyright office makes it 'legal' to hack a phone - for a 'legitimate' purpose, that's fine. but it doesn't mean that a private network operator has to allow a modified device onto their network. Considering that Cellphones participate in an encrypted data exchange, a cracked phone represents a security failure. Most networks will now simply crank up the level of protection and actively scan for and block cracked phones.

I always hate it when the freetards representing the EFF try to use the car analogy. The problem is that you're not dealing with a car. If I were to take my car - inside the manufacturer's warranty and have a new engine management system installed, along with replacements for other significant mechanical parts, the manufacturer's dealer network would not honor the warranty on anything altered, and would weasel out of the warranty on anything that could possibly be related to the modifications. They might even refuse to service the thing at all. This is the same thing. If you crack a phone you're replacing some of he essential software components voiding the warranty of the device. Similarly to the car, why should your wireless carrier now accept that device back onto their network when they have no idea what modifications you have made?

DMCA Not All Bad

There have been some shoddily-done DMCA takedown attempts, especially in the early days. But that process of notification by a copyright holder doesn't just get used by megacorps with pocketfuls of lawyers. If you're an author, and somebody has put out an unauthorised Kindle version of one of your works, you can hit Amazon with a takedown notice.

Or I could. I have stuff out on web pages, and if somebody decides to distribute a paid-for e-book version, make money out of my work, either pay me, or obey the DMCA,

At what cost?

Welcome to a negligible fraction of DMCA takedown notices. Amazon's same DRM powers also let them take away ebooks you foolishly thought you bought. Besides, isn't it a little bit crooked that those work whether or not the accusation is true? Take a stroll through Title 17 U.S.C. some time. It's not a pretty place these days. I suspect that many of the clauses therein are only allowed to exist because most of the population which is legally bound to obey them does not know about it. I didn't know how bad it was until I read it myself.

I also wish to add that authors are among the most vocal critics of the DMCA and DRM--partly because of their unfortunate effect on book sales. Books have historically been one of the most freely shared forms of media, and are the very origin of the concept of fair use--which the DMCA quite plainly shits all over. How many books have you found out about because somebody lent it to you? Books spread because their readership spreads them and thereby encourages others to get their own in hardcopy, because nothing feels quite as nice to read as a book in your hands--not to mention the little touches of clever typography that you tend to lose with ebooks. I mean, compare the Principia Discordia to its PDF analogue. I'm still ordering the thing in hardcopy because somebody lent it to me once and it's just way better than the PDF. DRM-infested texts have proven so unpopular with customers that many ebook publishers no longer bother; for example, O'Reilly's ebook sales more than double after they dumped DRM.

In fact, it's quite common for authors to put up at least part of a work entirely for free, then advertise that the entire thing is going to be a book. Sometimes, to make the thing more attractive, the author will add material to the book that's not on the website, but often it goes both ways; for example, both the internet version and the printed version of James Lileks' _The Gallery of Regrettable Food_ have things that are not in the other; the same is probably true of _Interior Desecrations_ and, in any case, everybody I know who's bought either had already read the majority of the material on the internet--and they bought them anyway. Alternatively, putting things on the website that aren't in the book encourages more people to visit the website. It works nicely both ways, and it's a popular tactic these days. Sometimes an author will put up a few books or a few chapters and then put the full version in print; if you really liked reading it, will you flinch at the idea of spending a few dollars to have the whole thing in your hands? And that's a thing to note--books usually just aren't very expensive unless the're rare*. If the price is right, more people will pay it.

I recall it created quite a stir when it became known that _Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby_ was going to be made into a proper printed book; I remember Ruby hackers waiting, salivating with one hand in their wallets, /to buy something that they already read for free/. Why? Because then they could own it; because then they could have it; because then it could be /theirs/. You don't get to do that with those obnoxious ebooks, software, and other media that you cannot own but merely license.

Authors want people to read their work--not shun it because it's bound in something nobody wants that tries to prevent people from treating books like books, and part of that is sharing them with your friends. When you buy a book, you /own/ it, and that's an awful nice thing these days, isn't it?

*Or they're recently published editions of textbooks, which obey their own horrifying system of economics because students have little or no choice in what they buy or for how much. I should be brief; that's a whole other hideous story. But who wants to pirate three hundred pages of poorly-worded calculus problems when it's $20 used anyway?

They can still be mine (ALL mine!)

I agree and i too like to "own" my stuff. And that is why i may jailbreak a device. By severing certain control ties with the manufacturer/provider, i am able to, for example, add an actual file manager to that device and backup my data (ebooks, etc.). It can also allow me to refuse unwanted updates that are either of no interest or will wrest control from the rightful hands of the device's owner (i.e., me).

What i'm saying is that there's a subtle tangibility to virtual things that's not always seen or recognized and that these things CAN be *ours* if we want them to (and with a little elbow grease).

But of course.

Obviously, the implied solution is for every student to buy a copy. I mean license. How dare you get through high school without paying proper dues to the publisher who bought the rights to your assignment!

Thing is...

...it's an election year, and there's already a backlash against bureaucracy. The MPAA and RIAA I don't think have a lot of friends among the voters.

Perish the thought.

Then I guess that'll put the kibosh on this whole business of jailbreaking iPhones, won't it?