DMCA is a lousy law. I don't see the justification for it in the first place. Unauthorized use of copyrighted material (unless covered by Fair Use) is a crime. Why do you need another law (badly open to abuse) to make it a crime to defeat a measure which is seeking to prevent you from commiting a crime?

If you're defeating a technological measure in order to make illegal use of copyrighted material.. you are already commiting the crime of copyright violation.... why the need for the additional law?

If you're defeating a technological measure in order to make legaly allowed use of copyrighted material... then why should the government seek to punish you for doing something which it maintains is completely legal?

If it's an issue of making the tools to copyright materials widely available... couldn't that fall into the whole "aiding & abetting" a crime thing? Unless of course the tool has a significant non-infringing use as well. In that case the government has no bussiness making the tool illegal in the first place.

It'd be like making all softball bats illegal because they could be used to assualt some-one, even though the use they were designed for was to play softball.

I'm no lawyer, so I could be completely off-base but I see no legitimate justification for the DCMA. What I see is the Entertainment Industry buying Congress to pass a law which gives them an even greater stranglehold over the distribution market then they already have... and nothing else.


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