“A year ago, few would have predicted that a simple software
application written by a college Freshman would capture the
international media main-stage. Fewer still would have anticipated
that this modest computer-science project would quickly swell to
grotesque proportions, terrifying the mighty Titans of Hollywood’s
entertainment industry, taxing the best wits of US judges and
high-priced legal teams. But all this, and more, it has managed to
do….”
“When conservative US Senator Orrin Hatch (Republican, Utah),
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sponsored a
particularly twisted piece of legislation called the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) back in 1998, it was immediately
clear that the powerful recording and movie industry lobbies had
managed, finally, to get their wish-lists signed into law.”
“Hatch’s DMCA is a veritable masterpiece of internal
inconsistencies, contradictions, and fraudulent assurances
purporting to protect the ‘fair use’ of copyrighted material,
clearly written by recording and movie industry flacks who
have since delighted in splitting the hairs and treading the thin
edges as they assail the very ‘fair use’ which the Act so
touchingly, and impotently, bleats about.”