More Rep writing

Pay a visit to the EFF‘s Super-DMCA archive or Professor Felten’s blog and you will see that many states have already passed, or are in the process of passing, versions of these stupid, over-broad laws.

The forces of light had a big victory in Colorado last week, when Gov. Bill Owens vetoed that state’s version of the bill. And a smaller victory—at least, a defeat delayed—in Tennessee, when the bill was stalled in committee, largely through the work of these determined folks.

Unfortunately, the forces of light were a little late to the game. My home state of Illinois passed a super-DMCA law last year. Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Michigan have the same or similar laws on the books, as well.

I’ve put together a letter to my state Rep and Senator, asking them to sponsor repeal of the law in IL. (I’m late to the game myself: Aaron Swartz has a fine letter up that he wrote last month; I stole one of his arguments for mine.)

If you live in a state that is effected by a super-DMCA law, or has one pending, I urge you to write a letter to your state representative, or call and express your polite disdain for a law that appears (at least to me) to make all PCs sold after 1998 or so illegal. Feel free to use anything from my letter that you like. These bills were sold to the legislatures with massively false advertising: they thought they were passing a technical correction to cable theft of service laws. If we educate our representatives, I think there’s a halfway decent chance that they will undo the damage (or choose not to do it in the first place).

Filed under: copyright