Proposed DMCA Exemption Would Unchain Device Owners | Hacker News Reader

Proposed DMCA Exemption Would Unchain Device Owners

softwarefreedom.org

23 pointsnickolai9 comments

"People must have the right to control the software running on devices they own," said SFLC counsel Aaron Williamson. "That right is essential to the continued development of free and open source software and is foundational to our privacy, security, and freedom, online and off."

He nails it completely.

I had never heard of the SFLC before, so this summary from their filing helped:

"SFLC is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal services organization dedicated to protecting and advancing free software. SFLC provides pro bono legal representation to developers and educates the public about legal issues affecting free software development. SFLC represents a number of prominent developers and organizations that write and distribute free software directed at personal computing devices, including the Free Software Foundation, which develops and distributes GNU, a collection of free software operating system utilities; the Debian project, which distributes a complete free software operating system based on GNU and Linux; and the Foundation for Free Multimedia Technology, which develops free software commonly used for media playback."

Overall this seems to clarify the legal distinction of installing a legally-obtained OS on all electronic devices you own. Jailbreaking of mobile phones was ruled legal in 2009--but that only covers a small subset of electronics which are becoming increasingly locked down.

Nice, but I wonder about ways to circumvent this. If locking down users is central to a company's business can they force users into accepting that they "rent" the devices instead of "buying"?

We're already seeing "we can't ban you from doing this, but we can make it impossible for you to do it" such as locked and signed bootloaders.

If they are going to lock it down anyway, yes I would rather rent it than buy it. That might actually be a good solution.

I don't want to be told not to "tamper" with my PC on the grounds that it would then be possible to use it for piracy.

But "don't tamper with your electricity meter" is perfectly reasonable - You do not own that and you would not expect to own it or be allowed to modify it.

The line is thin. I would't want a situation where you can only plug rented, locked devices into the internet (aka the wet dream of the copyright lobby.) And the power to say "no" to a deal is not always sufficient to stop such crap - look at the game consoles.

Yeah, but what if it is a rental with an upfront rental cost of the MSRP, no monthly fee, and a rental period of say 3 or 5 years? Does really calling it a rental or lease really make you happy?

This sounds great but I think it is worth considering two things:

1) I'm not aware of any persecution or prosecution of any private citizen for modifying their own device. For instance I've never heard of Apple seeking legal action against an iPhone owner who jailbroke their phone. Or heck, even against any of the groups who publish jailbreaks.

2) This would not force any manufacturer or carrier to provide support or assistance in modifying device software.

As a point of legal clarification I think it sounds great but I think there would be little practical impact.

Sony.

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