“Jack Valenti has a story to sell: “Hacker pirates steal
from us and hurt you.” Like a movie “inspired by actual
events”, Valenti doesn’t tell us the inconvenient truths, doesn’t
want us to know that the movie industry is waging war against its
own customers – you and me – the people who make them rich.”
“They wield the law like a blunt instrument, hammering home
their rights and hammering away at ours. We see it when the DVD we
bought overseas doesn’t work in our DVD player, or grumble when we
can’t skip past the various FBI warnings in assorted languages on
our DVD, or play that DVD on our computer because we don’t use the
“right” computer, but we’re connect all of these irritations – and
likely many more to come – with the new law. Fortunately and
ironically, the MPAAs aggressive pursuit of “villains” may backfire
and demonstrate that the DMCA is too vague in its protections and
too dangerous to our rights to be constitutional.”
“Turning back to our lawsuit, the Judge’s order was signed late
on a Friday, served on the defendants sometime after that, and the
following Monday was a holiday. That gave defendants only two
business days to file papers, prepare defenses, answer charges, or,
for that matter, to find lawyers. They were sued under
§1201(a)(2) of the DMCA, a new law that no one had experience
with. One defendant was a journalist working for an e-magazine
associated with a print magazine. In those two business days, while
filing answers and researching the DMCA, he or his lawyers also
needed to understand how the new law affected the First Amendment
rights of a journalist doing his work. By the way, his rights are
our rights too. Freedom of speech implies, even requires, freedom
to hear that speech.”