An interesting sales tactic

As a committed, engaged and interested member of the digital community, you'll know all about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), one of the more exquisitely foolish bits of madness ever to issue from our American cousins. This is the law that says it is illegal to do, say or think anything that might in some way circumvent or avoid the divine right of media executives to eat two lunches a day while running their own industry into the ground.

Most recently, it's been used to very good effect to prevent absolutely the distribution of the 128-bit encryption key at the heart of the AACS HD-DVD system. In the US, under the DMCA, it is against the law to know, say or even guess at certain numbers - in fact, any number that the media industry declares its own - and thank the Lord that nobody now who is impure of heart can possess them. The Web has been swept clean of this dangerous knowledge (*).

However, this is just the start of the DMCA's power: try this one on for size. It makes illegal and prohibits the manufacture of any product or technology that is designed for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure which effectively controls access to a copyrighted work or which protects the rights of copyright owners. Under the DMCA, mere avoidance of an effective copyright protection solution is a violation of the act. Therefore, say a pair of... companies called Media Rights Technologies and Bluebeat.com, it is illegal to avoid buying their DRM technology, if you've got anything to do with playing digital content. And so they've issued Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and everyone else who makes digital media player software with cease and desist letters laden with threats of court injunctions and thousand-dollar-plus fines per instance of the players.

You can already sense the manifest logical (I use the word reluctantly) consequences of this thinking. Every form of digital system capable of handling any sort of content, from the Web to radio hams bashing away at their morse code, will need to buy DRM, just to avoid avoiding copyright infringement. In one stroke, our entire culture will collapse in a sclerotic mass of legalistic overburden.

The tactic won't work, of course. It's like a little kid on holiday in Prohibition-era Chicago playing at gangster shakedown: the companies being threatened are far more professional and experienced in such matters. And if it helps discredit the DMCA even more, then it may even be helpful.

But really, chaps. Haven't you got better things to do?

(*) some mischievous people suggest that this may not be entirely true. To them, I say hey! Just search for 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 (**) and see for yourself. Doubters.

(**) Yes, that's the number. No, the DMCA doesn't apply in the UK (***). But for the purposes of the American legal system, the first W in WWW shall be deemed to mean the USA, and nothing outside actually exists.

(***) No, I don't know why the UK mainstream media has been so squeamish about publishing the number. Here it is again: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0. It's just a number. Feel free.