Another newssubmission by jsl as he let's us know about an article on The USA Register in which Alan Cox, a name that should be well known to most Linux users, questions the European 'version' of the controversial DMCA:
The directive, which was approved last year, extends European copyright legislation so that it is even more restrictive than America's controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), critics argue. National governments have until December 22 to incorporate the directive in national legislation.
If it goes through unmodified, the EUCD would make it a criminal offence to break or attempt to break the copy protection or Digital Rights Management systems on digital content such as music, software or eBooks. As it stands, the EUCD may lead to a rerun of Dmitri Sklyarov's prosecution, prevent teachers copying materials for their students or other legitimate uses of copyright material, opponents believe.
The DMCA grants limited permission to circumvent copyright protection in order to make braille copies of eBooks for use by the blind, for example, but the EUCD makes such exceptions optional for member states, so they need not be implemented.
Concerns about disabled access was one of the issues highlighted by open source heavyweight Alan Cox in a speech made during a Campaign for Digital Rights mini-conference, held at London's City University last night.
You can read the complete article here.
Source: The USA Register
