[Cdn-DMCA] On the Sklyarov case

[mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca]

On Mon, 8 Apr 2002, Chris Brand wrote:
> That's why anything technical discussed in court is done in analogies.
> What we need is some good analogies for this stuff. Example - at the
> Vancouver meeting, somebody compared possession of anti-circumvention
> tools to possession of a hammer. Over lunch, an Industry Canada rep

I wrote in one of my response comments what I think is a pretty good
series of analogies.  From http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/icresp1.html#notpiracy :

   DirecTV makes much of the Copyright Act's prohibition, in Subsection
   27.(4), of printing plates designed to produce copies of a book
   without permission.  DirecTV claims that it is natural to extend that
   prohibition to "circumvention devices".  Printed books and satellite
   television broadcasts are not the same thing at all, but let us
   indulge the analogy for a moment.  Printing plates contain the text of
   the books to be printed.  A set of plates is itself a copy of a book,
   written on plates instead of on paper.  A set of plates for a book can
   only be used to print that one book.  The "circumvention devices"
   DirecTV would ban are not themselves copies of any specific works, but
   rather are used to access works in general.  Setting aside copying
   versus access for a moment, banning "circumvention devices" is like
   banning the printing press, not the plates, just because the press
   could someday be fitted with unauthorized plates.  It need not always
   or ever be used to make unauthorized copies.  With "circumvention
   devices" defined to include software source and object code and
   discussion of such, they take the confusion one level further, to ban
   blueprints for printing presses, because those blueprints could be
   used to construct presses which could then be fitted with unauthorized
   plates.  DirecTV's confusion of copying with access makes their ban
   even more irrelevant:  instead of banning printing plates made without
   permission, DirecTV would ban magnifying glasses used to read small
   print.
-- 
Matthew Skala
mskala at ansuz.sooke.bc.ca                    Embrace and defend.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/

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