Re: Clinton signs draconian antipiracy law, from the Netly News

[Tim May <tcmay@got.net>]

At 11:18 AM -0700 12/19/97, stewarts@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>At 01:47 PM 12/18/1997 -0700, Tim May wrote:

>>One of the key provisions was that home taping, or archival taping, or
>>taping for any _noncommercial_ use was now fully legal, with not even the
>>hint of illegality.
>
>But new laws generally override old laws.  After all, the old Copyright law
>excepted "fair use" copies from its coverage.  The mere fact that they're
>still taxing blank tape doesn't mean they can't re-criminalize copying.

And the blank tape I stocked up on, and paid taxes on?

And of course enforceability with these kinds of laws is unarguably almost
nonexistent. As someone said, this is a "cherry on the sundae" sort of law,
designed to pile on extra charges.

I would guess that 80% or more of all households will be in technical
violation of this law within a matter of months of its offical start.
Anyone with a home computer will likely make more than the number of
allowed backups, or will commingle several titles on the same ZIP drive, or
will (horrors!) share the use of a program between husband, wife, and
children. Or even (send in the SWAT ninjas) share with the neighbors.

And it's unclear (to me, at least) what this does to home taping of t.v.
shows and movies, which seemed pretty well-solved by the Disney-Sony
"Betamax" case.

The law will be used against folks like Jim Bell to pile on charges.

Lock and load,

--Tim May


The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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