Vitanuova for 2002 March 2

What I looked like at CPTWG

Presentations

Here's Eric Blossom's GNU Radio presentation from CPTWG. I'm hoping to have a link to Fred's presentation soon.

SSSCA

Here's what I wrote on linux-elitists about whether or not Intel's testimony at the SSSCA hearing was a good thing:

[...] On the one hand, the Intel testimony is _far and away_ the most radical position yet taken by a major technology company. It also expresses skepticism that existing DRM goes too far.

On the other hand, Intel also continues to take the line that co-operation with the copyright industries on DRM is important; Intel's testimony seems to vacillate between "Hollywood has no right to tell us what to do" and "like any responsible company, we are already doing what Hollywood wants".

[...]

There is a clearly articulated contrast between the CE/IT industries' position and the copyright industries' position. The CE/IT industries are holding fast (except when they don't) to a "no mandate" position, consistent with Universal v. Sony, 464 U.S. 417 (1984), and the DMCA's "no mandate" clause, 17 USC 1201(c)(3):

Nothing in this section shall require that the design of, or design and selection of parts and components for, a consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing product provide for a response to any particular technological measure, so long as such part or component, or the product in which such part or component is integrated, does not otherwise fall within the prohibitions of subsection (a)(2) or (b)(1).

The CE/IT view is that this means that, for example, nobody could be required to detect watermarks in unencrypted content, or to implement any particular DRM scheme, or any DRM scheme at all. To put it another way, the DMCA provides for the possibility that someone can "own" a media format, and control interoperability with it. But it doesn't mandate that products support any particular media format.

This means that you can still produce completely DRM-free devices, but they are prohibited from interoperating with "owned" formats like DVD Video with CSS, or RealAudio. There is no limitation on your ability to make a hard drive or an iPod or a ReplayTV when they don't use those formats. To many people in the CE and IT worlds, this seems vaguely reasonable: "If you don't like the conditions placed on Windows Media Audio, don't use it!" (This kind of view goes hand in hand with the suggestion that "If you don't like the conditions placed on your use of that copyrighted work, don't use it!".)

The SSSCA, by contrast, is explicitly "mandate" legislation, which says that everybody has to implement particular DRM schemes, and you can't make (certain) products without them, period. In this sense, there is to be no market competition among DRM schemes or possibility of a consumer boycott (which is definitely a possibility under the DMCA, although it would be more realistic if there were more competition today, and perhaps less vertical integration of industries).

CE/IT people have been fairly adamant about the "no mandate" concept, while copyright people have been saying that the CE/IT industry should simply not expect to be free from government technology regulation, considering that other technologies have been extensively regulated.

EFF is on the "radical fringe" because we think that the DMCA's approach is _already_ a "mandate" because we think that reverse engineering, free software, and open standards are normal, legitimate human activities which are being hindered by that law. To put this another way, we are skeptical of the idea of owning a media format.

I need to hurry up and write my own "constitutionalization of technology law" paper. One studio lawyer at CPTWG on Wednesday had _no idea at all_ why an EFF lawyer would believe that there were free speech problems with technology regulation itself (as opposed to, perhaps, certain effects of technology regulation). Tragically, the studios are steeped in the attitude that, in effect, the first amendment protects _their_ industry's right to exist and to produce its products without government content mandates -- but that this protection doesn't extend to technologists, and that technical freedom isn't even contemplated by that amendment. I am serious. The question, the problem, is not even entering their minds; it is not even on the radar.

If you push hard with some of the world's finest and most expert engineers and lawyers -- which we did on Wednesday -- then you can, after an hour or so, get some other smart engineers and lawyers to start thinking about the free speech problems with the DMCA and SSSCA. What will it take to make the public or legislators think about them?

SSSCA and Sumeria: a parable

On the cryptography list:

I've been watching the entertainment industry's approach to computers with what I can only think of as Kafkaesque horror.

It's simply unthinkable that preserving the business models of entertainers trumps the utterly central role of computers and the Internet in improviing our existance.

Apparently the politicians are actually *receptive* to this. I guess this just shows how money corrupts - the heavy donor's interests outweigh those of the nation.

I've been trying to think of an analogy to show just how awful the idea of the SSSCA is. I've had to go back a way. A long way.

--------------------------------------
(start satire)

The Original SSSCA.

Statement of Yakval Enti, spokesman of the MPAA (Mnemonists, Praise-singers, and Anthemists Association) to His Highness Hammurabi, King of Sumeria:

Your Majesty: I wish to call you attention to a severe threat to the security of your kingdom, and the livelihoods of thousands of your subjects.

After Shamash sets and the people kick back after a long day of growing millet, they desire entertainment. Their favorite forms are stories, tales, and sagas, told by the members of the MPAA. Talented boys spend up to 12 years learning the tales by heart at the feet of the masters. Any evening MPAA members can be found in the taverns singing the old tales, praising the praiseworthy, and creating new tales from the old.

This system has worked well since the beginning of time - there were storytellers at your coronation, there were storytellers at your father's coronation, and there were storytellers in the caves of our ancestors.

This natural arrangement is now threatened from an unexpected direction - the scribes and accountants. The geeks' system of recording numbers and quantities has been perverted to freeze speech onto clay.

Understand the threat to our business model. At the moment, if someone wants to hear 'The Tale of the Ox, the Ass and the Sumerian', they find an MPAA member, pay him, and sit back to listen to the whole four hour saga. While anyone could recall and tell others the general outline, only MPAA members know every detail and can give the listener the whole story. If you want to hear it again, you pay again. Thousands of MPAA members rely on this fact for their livelihoods.

With the recent invention of "writing" the system is in danger of collapse. We've found that some scribes are actually "recording" entire sagas onto clay. Any scribe can "read" these out to people for free or for money, complete and word-for-word, without being a member of or paying the MPAA! A scribe who has obtained a set of tablets of an story can even read it an unlimited number of times, or (worst of all) make copies. This is starting to have an economic impact on our membership. Consider Rimat-Ninsun, whose masterwork "The Epic of Gilgamesh" took him three years to create, and who looked to it to put bread on his table into his old age, as he told it for money, or let others tell it under paid license after learning it from him. 'Gilgamesh' is now circulating on 12 clay tablets, and Rimat is starving. Who will bother to create new tales if they are just going to be written down?

"Writing" presents insidious dangers to your kingdom as well. It can be anonymous. Before writing, any message arrived with a person to speak it, who could be held accountable for their speech. With writing, it is impossible to tell what scribe "wrote" a message. Anonymous threats, kidnap notes, and untraceable sedition are now possible. Clearly "writing" carries with it far greater problems for our civilization than it does advantages.

However, scribes, accountants, and their skills are essential to business, contracts, laws, and the collection of taxes. We just need to make sure that they are controlled properly.

I therefore propose the Scribal Stylus Safety Control Act. (SSSCA). This requires every scribe to have an MPAA approved, "literate" slave with him at all times, peering over his shoulder. If a scribe is seen to be "writing' something other then accounting information, for example a story (stories are the province of MPAA storytellers), or a message (which should have been given to a paid mnenomist for delivery), or anything seditious, then the slave will take away the scribe's stylus and call the authorities. I ask you to have this Act "written" into your Code of Law.

Is this difficult? Yes. Is it expensive? Yes. However, it is clear that without strict controls, widespread "writing" will not only destroy the entertainment industry, it will threaten civilisation itself!

(end satire)
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The SSSCA threatens to return us to a Stone Age model of information use.

Disclaimer:

The above are strictly the personal opinions of myself, and I'd be astonished if my employer had any official position on the matter (so don't pretend otherwise).

Feel free to copy this document in its entirety, with proper attribution.

Peter Trei