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Economic Sledgehammer (#1083)
Posted: 4/10/2003; 11:55 PM by Terry Frazier
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As an addendum to the previous post, direct reverse engineering has always been illegal, and the DMCA hasn't changed that. The engineers who developed the x86 clones went to great lengths to do so in clean environments and to avoid any contamination that could be construed as misappropriation of trade secrets or theft. They did this as a direct result of laws that were already on the books exacting severe penalties for such behavior. We did not need the DMCA to protect companies from theft by direct reverse engineering.

DMCA extends these severe criminal penalties to the acts of merely discussing such things, investigating them via legitimate research, and engaging in almost any activity that the copyright holder deems to expose his "intellectual property" regardless of whether it causes actual harm or not. Thankfully, the courts have yet to uphold a conviction where no harm has been found and there are those in the legal community who claim this as evidence the DMCA is acceptable and functional law.

These "unbiased" advocates of the DMCA blithely overlook the effects of economic penalty imposed on defendants when a law is structured, as the DMCA, to make them guilty until proven innocent. It is the economic sledgehammer aspect of the DMCA that is most damaging to users and individuals, for it prevents innovation by stifling the willingness to speak, act, or promote any function that may draw a copyright holder's ire.

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