Open Letter to the Italian "Commissione Cultura"
Dear Sir,
the undersigned Associations are writing to You as a member
of the "Commissione Cultura" of the Italian Parliament.
As You certainly remember on February 25th 2003 such Commission issued
a favorable opinion on the proposed law that would accept the directive
2001/29/CE issued by the European Parliament and the European Council
on May 22nd, 2001, entitled: "harmonization of certain aspects of
the copyright law and of the related rights in the information society."
We believe that the approval of such law is a bad mistake that will
substantially affect the rights of citizens and users, both as
consumers of copyrighted material and as beneficiaries of civil rights.
The proposed law bestows judicial gravity to so-called "technological
protection" means, namely the technology that large music, movie, and
software companies adopt to prevent unauthorized copies.
The law considers "effective technological measures" those
technologies that allow copyright owners to control the use
of their products by means of copy-control devices or procedures
like encryption or signal distortion.
The circumvention of such "effective technological measures" is forbidden
by a number of criminal laws.
Such laws define as criminal actions not only the selling of illegally
copied material, but also the fabrication, the commerce or
mere storage of devices and algorithms that could be used
to break such technological measures, even if such devices are
used for totally legitimate activities.
According to the new law, the intent of the person using
such devices for legitimate activities rather than for illegal
copies of copyrighted material is irrelevant.
The storage of such devices and algorithms is considered unlawful
per-se, just like drug.
The USA courts have interpreted restrictively a law similar to the one
we are about to issue (indeed inspired by the same 1996 WIPO treaty),
ruling unlawful even the simple
dissemination of technical information or specifications that
could be useful for the circumvention of "effective technological measures".
Such a restrictive interpretation affects even the freedom of
scientific research in cryptography.
The real effect of such laws on a citizen's civil rights can be fully
understood only when considering the development and diffusion
of information technology in North America.
The future of information dissemination could rely on so called
Trusted Computing, and could be based on Digital Rights Management
(DRM).
Trusted Computing is a system that allows large corporations to
control how customers use their own devices, allowing or preventing
one to listen to a particular song, to watch a particular movie,
or run a particular program, depending on particular circumstances.
Sir, the proposed law that was approved by the "Commissione Cultura"
will make illegal any attempt to create computer programs that would
allow the customer unrestricted access to information that was legally
acquired.
The law will make illegal not only the use but also the possession
of such software, as well as the dissemination of information that
could facilitate the construction of such software.
Note that we are not considering here the case of illegal copies
or copyright violations.
We are considering the case of customers that expect to have unrestricted
access to information and digital contents that have legally acquired,
and that consider "effective technological measures" as intrusions
into their privacy.
The proposed law will also introduce a new notion of:
"dissemination to the public of contents that can be accessed
in the time and place decided by the individual".
The copyright owner will not simply sell the right to access
to a copy of a book, record, or computer program any more;
the copyright owner will sell limited time and limited space
access rights, depending on the identity of the customer.
Essentially, this implies a complete imbalance of rights
in favour of the copyright owner and against the customer,
due to the economical power of the first.
According to Your proposed law, Sir, customers that buy an
access right to copyrighted content have no minimal rights
guaranteed by the law, only the rights explicitly written
in the license agreement.
This new form of contract does not even grant the traditional
right to a "back-up copy".
Also the legal doctrine of "extintion of right after the first sell" disappears.
Under this doctrine, if we buy a book according to the current
law the original copyright owner loses his rights on that particular
copy (it becomes ours) as part of the sale.
With the only restriction that we cannot make copies and sell them,
we can do whatever we want with that particular copy of the book,
and it can become the property of our descendents until the paper
on which it is printed deteriorates.
Restrictions on time, space, or customer identity
annuls such property rights.
With the new law, it will be possible to sell a book making
it unlawful for the customer to re-sell it.
It will be possible for a music CD to expire after one year.
It will be possible to criminally prosecute a person that
invites a friend to watch a movie at home with him without
obtaining the permission from the copyright owner.
Are these just fantasies?
Maybe yes in the case of the traditional content dissemination
in the form of books and records.
But in case of the new information technologies this is already
reality.
In the USA one can buy university level books in electronic
form that erase themselves at the end of the semester.
The declared purpose of such "expiring E-books" is to avoid
senior students to pass their used books to junior students.
Sir, the approval of this law schema will radically change
the concept of legal use of information, and will give the
large distribution enterprises the complete power of control
over information dissemination, without any legal protection
for the customer.
Sir, for all the reasons discussed above we ask You to reconsider
this matter, that was maybe overlooked.
We invite You to promote a second debate in Parliament on this
proposed law, with the intent of requiring the Government to add some
limitations that prevent restrictive interpretations of the law
such as the ones illustrated above.
The organizations of the civil society that are interested in
this subject would be quite willing to participate to
debates with members of the Parliaments in order to identify
the best way to include the European directives in the Italian
law without damage for citizens' and customers' rights.
Sincerely Yours
original version of this letter
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