[nylug-talk] silly DMCA tricks

[Peter C. Norton]

On Fri, May 02, 2003 at 09:23:03AM -0400, Michael Sims wrote:
> The claim by copyright holders that they should be allowed to act as a 
> law unto themselves is attractive on the surface.  It's similar in 
> concept to, say, permitting vigilante justice against thieves or 
> murderers - just string 'em up on the old oak tree!  It's similar in 
> both concept and execution to the proposals by the RIAA and MPAA that 
> they should legally be allowed to hack into your computers if they think 
> you might have copyrighted materials there.  But the problems far 
> outweigh the benefits in each of these scenarios.  Vigilante justice is 
> bad justice.

However, copyright is a right, and a right is something that others
shouldn't be able to tread on.  You say that the process of enforcing
copyright through courts is viable (or at least not too onerous), joe
provides an example of a case where copyright ownership rights are
laughed off (by companies whose existance hinges on the honoring of
copyright!).

So Mike, in your experiences as an editorialist and a writer do you
think that pre-dmca copyright enforcement is adequate to keep a
freelancer in business with his copyright rights (to not have his/her
works used without his/her permission)?

-Peter

-- 
The 5 year plan:
In five years we'll make up another plan.
Or just re-use this one.