iFixit tears down a McDonald’s ice cream machine, demands DMCA exemption for it - Enlarge / The McDonald's ice cream machine is a relatively simple machi... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1964112 #publicknowledge #dmcaexemptions #righttorepair #section1201 #ifixit #repair #tech #dmca

Ars Technica: iFixit tears down a McDonald’s ice cream machine, demands DMCA exemption for it https://arstechnica.com/?p=1964112 #Tech #arstechnica #IT #Technology #PublicKnowledge #dmcaexemptions #righttorepair #Section1201 #iFixit #repair #Tech #1201 #DMCA

There are only laws, like the #Section1201 of the #DigitalMillenniumCopyrightAct, that make writing and distributing those programs a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine (for a first offense).

That is to say, the War On General Purpose Computing is only incidentally a *technical* fight: it is primarily a *legal* fight.

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For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, #Section1201 of the #DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legit purposes. That means your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how the surveillance works, the maker can be incredibly sloppy with the personal info they harvest:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

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Facebook viciously attacked the NYU project, falsely smearing it as a privacy risk (the plugin was open source and was independently audited by #Mozilla researchers, who confirmed that it didn't collect any personal information). When that didn't work, they sent a stream of legal threats, claiming that NYU was trafficking in a "circumvention device" as defined by #Section1201 of the #dmca a felony carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine - for a first offense.

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Apple uses #DRM to lock people into using its #AppStore, threatening anyone who reverse-engineers its devices to add competing stores with 5 year prison sentences under #Section1201 of the #DigitalMillenniumCopyrightAct (#DMCA).

Google's #Android *does* have a facility for "side-loading" apps that aren't in its app store, but the company uses a web of commercial requirements and technological tricks to prevent a competitor from emerging:

https://theplatformlaw.blog/2023/05/24/why-the-proposed-commitments-offered-by-google-to-the-uk-competition-authority-regarding-in-app-purchases-are-wrong-and-will-make-the-situation-of-app-developers-worse/

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Shortly thereafter, I got a legal threat from #LindaKwak, Bird's Senior Corporate Counsel, claiming that publishing a link to a website that sells you a product you install by unscrewing one board and inserting another was a violation of #Section1201 of the #DMCA, which was an *astonishingly* stupid claim:

https://www.eff.org/document/bird-rides-takedown-boing-boing-dec-20-2018

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With digital items, Amazon has a *double* lock-in, thanks to #DigitalRightsManagement (#DRM). Under #Section1201 of 1998's #DigitalMillenniumCopyrightAct (#DMCA), it's a felony to provide someone with a tool to remove DRM, *even if no one ever uses that tool to infringe copyright*. That means that if Amazon sells you one of my books wrapped in its DRM, you can't play it unless you use an Amazon-authorized player.

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Woof. The DDC's opinion on the constitutionality and amenability of the Library of Congress and #Copyright Office to the APA when doing #Section1201 rulemaking is wild. Basically, the LOC is not subject to the APA because it is not an “agency,” even when the rulemaking is largely conducted by the Copyright Office, which is expressly subject to the APA under Title 17. 1/

Trafficking in a tool to bypass EME and reconfigure your browser to suit your needs, rather than Netflix's, is a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500k fine, under #Section1201 of the DMCA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership

This is the supreme irony of twiddling: #BigTech companies *love* to twiddle *you*, but if you touch your own knob, they call it a crime.

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But now that Netflix has come for your family, don't even *think* about giving Netfix some of what it gave to the MPAA.

As a technical matter, it's not that hard to modify Netflix's app so that every stream you pull seems to come from your house, no matter where you are. But doing so requires reverse-engineering Netflix's app, and that would violate #DMCA #Section1201, #CFAA, and eleventy-seven other horrible laws. Netflix's lawyers would nuke you until the rubble bounced.

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Laws like #Section1201 of the #DigitalMillenniumCopyrightAct (#DMCA) and #Article6 of the #EUCopyrightDirective (#EUCD) make it illegal to jailbreak a phone to install third-party apps. Jay Freeman calls this #FelonyContemptOfBusinessModel - that is, the government will punish your competitors for trying to compete with you. Nice work if you can get it.

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As part of this proposal, all video-capable devices would also need to be "resistant to end-user modification" - that is, they'd have to have enough #DigitalRightsManagement (#DRM) technology to trigger #Section1201 of the #DigitalMilleniumCopyrightAct (#DMCA), which banned removing copyright locks on penalty of a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine.

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