The Family Blog

Who said representative democracy doesn’t work in the US? No, I know we don’t have a direct democracy and that the presidential voting we do is largely symbolic, I wasn’t talking about that. I’m talking about a Bill introduced by some representatives that seeks to balance out the heavily industry-weighted Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or the DCMA as it has come be known/hated.

There used to be the concept of ‘Fair Use’, meaning, if I buy it, I basically own it. I might not be able, for example, to buy a VHS and sell it to my friends, but I could buy a VHS and make a copy for my own use. I say used to be, because with the introduction of the DCMA, this basically doesn’t exist. You might buy software, buy you’re extremely limited in how you can use it. And if you want to use it in a way that breaks someone’s copy protection (like making a backup of a DVD), you’re in violation of the DCMA and can be fined.

Anyway, it’s mostly bad, trust me. So some representatives have introduced a bill that would ‘correct’ some of the problems with the DCMA, and I hope you’ll show your support by going to this site and sending a message to your representative:

http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=271