response 149 of 160:

Dec 17 03:05 UTC 2002

Re #146: According to a Wall Street Journal editorial, poor people need
to be taxed more heavily so that they'll develop a healthy hatred of
government.  Presumably they'd then vote Republican, like all right-thinking
people.

response 151 of 160:

Dec 17 04:19 UTC 2002

Maybe the extra 265 burners exist in virtual reality.

response 153 of 160:

Dec 17 21:40 UTC 2002

The U.S. government has lost its DMCA case against Elcomsoft for
producing a product to decrypt Adobe e-books.

http://online.securityfocus.com/news/1857

'Lawyers for the Russian company said Elcomsoft's program simply allowed
users to make backup copies of eBooks and be able to read them on other
devices, something permitted under the "fair use" concept of copyright law.

'Jury foreman Dennis Strader said the argument made a big impact on the
jurors, who asked U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte to clarify the
"fair use" definition shortly after deliberations began.

'"Under the eBook formats, you have no rights at all, and the jury had
trouble with that concept," said Strader.'

response 155 of 160:

Dec 18 01:18 UTC 2002

I hope it's not jury nullification, because then it could be 
overturned, and wouldn't have any precedential force.  What we need is 
what resp:153 quotes the jury foreman as saying, that ebook use 
restrictions are a direct violation of established fair use provisions.

response 157 of 160:

Dec 18 07:00 UTC 2002

I think it's going to be clear how important this is as a precedent once
it's appealed.  But the important thing is probably not the jury per se,
who aren't expected to interpret law, but only determine if the facts
"fit" the law, but the arguments made to the jury by the two opposing
teams of lawyers, and whatever instructions the judge gave the jury.
Most of that is based on centuries of hoary common law.  Jury
nullification would be if the jury made a decision completely contrary
to all logic - in this case, it sounds like they more likely made a
decision consistent with the law as it was explained to them.  Assuming
they did so and that the law was explained completely and accurately,
it's very likely the recording industry is going to be at least somewhat
disappointed.  Perhaps DMCA didn't go far enough in working through all
the ramnifications of "fair use" and redefining them to meet the
recording industry's expectations, or perhaps the recording industry
completely failed to explain how legitimate use of resources could fail
to violate DMCA, leaving an apparent contradiction in law.  That's no
problem for common law; apparent contradictions happen all the time,
indeed, lawyers thrive on the stuff.  They've got all sorts of rules for
what happens in such cases, and if that's what happened here, then the
ever popular "status quo" rule won the day.  There's another rule which
says if {a long list of exceptions} didn't happen, then what the jury
decides must be true, which means judges try hard not to interpret law
in ways which contradict how "properly instructed" juries interpret the
law.  So I think the decision this jury reached is really quite
interesting.

Of course, that assumes a properly functioning judiciary system.  You
never know how ideology will affect a "strict constructionalist".

It will be interesting to see what "son of DMCA" looks like should this
court decision survive the appeals process.

response 159 of 160:

Dec 18 23:17 UTC 2002

I'm a librarian, but I'd never wanted to be Librarian of Congress.  You 
have to live in D.C., and the job is more administration and publicity 
than actual librarianship.  (Most librarians hate to be administrators, 
and try to avoid promotion into such positions.  As a result the 
administrators are the ones who actually enjoy it, which is often even 
worse.)

But I have to say, having power over the DMCA has made me dream 
wistfully of what I'd do if I somehow did become Librarian of 
Congress ... but if I did what I'd want to do, I probably wouldn't hold 
the job long.