Post B2Rk5f2DewhiDsKfFQ by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
 (DIR) More posts by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
 (DIR) Post #B2PjHCmyIAdM5Wff5E by notjustbikes@social.notjustbikes.com
       2026-01-07T16:50:28Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       I remember when the DMCA was first being proposed and I was trying to tell anyone and everyone that anti-circumvention would be disastrous. I must admit that I had no idea how bad it would be. I knew that media companies would use it to enforce DRM, but I had no idea that John Deere would use it to brick tractors or that Medtronic would use it to stop hospitals from repairing ventilators.
       
 (DIR) Post #B2Rk5bwR9zIQd4bVJo by su_liam@mas.to
       2026-01-07T21:32:07Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @notjustbikes The days of underestimating the evils of corporate psychopathy are hopefully at an end. They have to be forced, fundamentally at gunpoint to do the right thing. Strict exacting regulation with the penalty of losing everything. If investors don’t want to lose their stuff, they’d better make it clear that the goal isn’t every dollar at any cost.
       
 (DIR) Post #B2Rk5f2DewhiDsKfFQ by david_chisnall@infosec.exchange
       2026-01-08T09:21:22Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @notjustbikes Around 2004, the iPod was ludicrously popular. People were using iTunes to compress CDs as AAC or MP3 and play them on a portable music player. By about 2005, the microdrives were big enough that they could hold a few dozen films recompressed as MPEG-4 video. Apple internally had a version of iTunes that would rip DVDs just as the public one ripped CDs and wanted to build a video iPod. They could do the CD version because the two-bit copy protection in CDs was deemed not to meet the bar for ‘effective copy protection’ required by the DMCA. This was not the case for the DVD version and they needed a DCSS license, which was not granted. The product was cancelled.A few years later when details of this were leaked, someone did analysis based on DVD and iPod sales and concluded that, if this product had launched, it would have added more to the economy (and to tax revenues) than the entire output of the TV and movie industry over the same period. And that’s a single product that the DMCA made impossible. Oh, and the kicker? A Harvard Business School study around the same time showed that the piracy that the RIAA was so concerned about from the iPod increased their sales, so if Apple had been able to build this product it would probably have made more money for the movie companies as well.It’s not just bad social policy, it’s also terrible economics.