The DMCA

[StealthArcher]

Time for a more serious discussion, as the god one is covered by md's thread.

The Dumb*** Mediocre Cat**** Act

What are your thoughts?

Changes(too many to count) you would like to make (dang, you mean we HAVE to make)?

[OneOffDriveByPoster]

What is lacking is a Digital Consumer Rights Protection Act. There should be a government registry of the intellectual property that you got license to use in some form, and since you already paid once, you should be able to acquire the material in other forms at reduced cost. There should also be a government registry things in the public domain--so people know the things that should not have to pay for.

[md]

OneOff, that would never work. Too complicated.

A proper solution is to make copyrights 5 years - 20 with registration. And require registration in order to be able to claim damages.

Furthermore we need additional Fair Dealings exceptions; for things like time/format shifting. And we definitely DO NOT need DMCA style shit. DRM cannot work and trying to legislate it will only make a large subset of the population criminals.

[StealthArcher]

Legislating almost anything with business causes problems.

Government should get most of it's crap out. There are parts that can (and should) stay, but a large portion is crap like this.

[wtd]

Keep in mind that every piece of legislation had some reason to come into being.

Now... that reason might have been bullcrap right from the beginning, or it might no longer be relevant today, but that does not negate the fact that there was a reason for it.