More on DADVSI

Monday, July 3, 2006

French news site eucd.info listed several threats posed by the enactment od DADVSI. Among them are:

responsibility for crimes committed by others for Internet users (article 14 ter A), authors and publishers of software, Internet service providers and online services (articles 12 bis, 14 quater), in order to impose filtering systems upon all, even if these infringe on privacy, freedom of communication and freedom of speech; article 14 ter A thus makes it compulsory for Internet service provider to give filtering systems to their users, and compels users to install them;

censorship for authors of free software (article 7 bis A): - creation of an administrative authority empowered with the ability to prohibit the publication of free software accessing protected works -- this infringes on the moral right of divulgation of the authors of free software, that is, the right for them to publish their works, thus infringing on creative freedom, a fundamental right - users of free software who would still use such software for accessing protected works would risk the aforementioned fines and/or jail sentences

Boy, these articles really sounds like a Brave New World scenario. I mean, in order to enforce a DRM Law the government will have to use some spying device, filtering system and an authority that have the power to prohibit publication of free software! I think now we have reasons to say that the Law might actually infringe basic human rights.

First, it is a human right to write a program, no matter how destructive the program can be. You can write a virus and it should be legal to do so. Using the virus would be another question. What is punished by the law is the "breaking and entering". Writing a virus (or a DRM circumvention program) is a form of freedom of expression.

Second, breaking fundamental human rights law in order to uphold a copyright law is a flaw. Using spying programs and filtering internet sites in order to uphold the DRM Law is a legally defective. The spying and filtering program is prejudicious to friendly users. Spywares are a form of hacking, although it used by governments, it is still a form of hacking. Internet sites can only be blocked by a Court decision, not by some "authoritative" government agency.