WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is lukewarm on a plan to embed copy-protection technology in software and consumer electronics.
James Rogan, the Commerce Department's undersecretary for intellectual property, has expressed mild skepticism about a bill championed by Senate Commerce chairman Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina).
In a speech last week, Rogan said that "negotiations are presently underway among hardware manufacturers and content owners to develop improved means for protecting online content," and legislators should wait for results before voting on a proposal such as the Hollings bill.
"Before Congress rushes into the imposition of a legislative solution," Rogan said, "I hope its members will grant more time for the free market to find its own middle ground."
Hollings' Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act is the entertainment industry's boldest attempt yet to compel the computer industry to adopt software and hardware standards aimed at reducing illicit copying. It requires that "any hardware or software" that could be used to copy digital content include anti-piracy technologies.
Rogan, who advises President Bush on copyright matters and runs the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, is a big fan of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) -- a controversial law that's currently the subject of at least three lawsuits.
At a conference on Thursday, Rogan said: "The DMCA carefully balances the interests of all stakeholders to ensure that content owners would enjoy the protection they need to put their works on the Internet and to ensure that appropriate fair use is maintained for consumers, scientists and educators."
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DMCA spam: What it is with spammers and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?
First it was Dmitri Sklyarov's famous prosecution on criminal copyright charges last year. Just about everyone knows the Elcomsoft programmer was arrested at the Defcon hacker convention for allegedly stripping copy protection from Adobe's electronic books.
What's not as well known is that his employer, Elcomsoft, sells spamware that scours the Internet for e-mail addresses. The intended customer: Senders of unsolicited bulk e-mail.
This week, 321 Studios filed suit asking a judge to say the Digital Millennium Copyright Act did not apply to their DVD Copy Plus utility.
It turns out that DVD Copy Plus is frequently marketed via spam, including a message sent this week to a wired.com address that falsely claimed: "You received this e-mail because you signed up." 321 Studios' president offered a suspiciously narrow denial to Ziff Davis Smart Business Magazine, saying that while his company technically doesn't spam, his affiliates may do so.
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Club Fed for life: A vote on life imprisonment for malicious hackers has been postponed.
The House Judiciary committee was supposed to consider the Cyber Security Enhancement Act this week, but postponed a vote until next week because of a full schedule.
A subcommittee has already approved the bill, after rewriting it to cover more types of computer intrusions.
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Ban the Selectric: Forget Internet censorship and noisome e-mail snooping. North Korean citizens may not even have access to photocopiers and typewriters.
The latest issue of Far Eastern Economic Review cites an official North Korean pamphlet distributed to government bureaucrats.
It says: "Workers should not discuss work matters outside, even with their wives and children. We send newspapers overseas that may contain secrets. If you have secrets, don't use the telephone too much. We should also tighten controls over use of typewriters and photocopiers."
Meanwhile, Vietnam arrested a man for posting a "What is Democracy?" essay online.
