Re: DMCA hearings and protests

On Sat, 27 May 2000, Dodi Schultz <schultz[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> I don't understand your introducing the matter of eBay's offering
> of a device for sale and, according to your report, the offering's
> being withdrawn in response to a request from a group alleging
> some sort of unstated infringement.
>
> Since this was a device -- you describe it as a galvanometer -- it
> clearly never enjoyed copyright protection (you say it had been the
> subject of a patent but that the patent had expired).
>
> Your message is posted in response to my comment on the DMCA, but
> this matter obviously had nothing to do with copyright or with the
> DMCA, and the withdrawal of an electrical device from sale, for
> whatever reason, has nothing to do with the subject of discussion
> here.

Dodi, please understand that Scientology used the DMCA, claiming copyright infringement, as the stick to have the Scientology e-meter removed from eBay, and eBay complied per the terms of the DMCA.

Eric's discussion of this is totally relevant to this mailing list, since it illustrates how terrible the DMCA law is, and why it is a danger to our civil liberties.

Now, the DMCA was intended to deal with real issues of copyright infringement that need to be dealt with. But how it deals with copyright infringement is simply bad. The DMCA is bad law through and through. Those who oppose the DMCA are not anarchists.

Jon Noring
<noring[_at_]netcom.com> Received on Tue May 30 2000 - 13:06:31 GMT