Congress struggles passing laws to keep up with changing technology
Isaac Clemens is a columnist for the Daily Californian at the University of California-Berkeley.

Any member of the “peer-to-peer generation” may have noticed that Morpheus, one of the world’s most popular file-sharing programs, has stopped working.

One software upgrade. Bam. Kaput. Finis. That means no more MP3s, no more DivX versions of “Rush Hour 2,” and no more back episodes of “Friends” — unless you use KaZaA or Limewire, that is.

The shutdown bodes poorly for Morpheus’ parent company, Streamcast Networks, in its battle against the Recording Industry Association of America. Up until now, one of the pillars of Morpheus’ defense has been that its network is totally decentralized and therefore impossible to turn off or shut down.

Except ... it’s shut down. If the recording industry can use the network’s failure to prove Morpheus isn’t totally decentralized, and Streamcast can control the program — and the information shared through it — we can all expect to see Morpheus go the way of Chumbawamba, Zima and Napster.

Freedom in the digital age is an issue of critical importance, as law struggles to catch up with the capabilities of technology. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, of 1998 was intended to protect the rights of copyright holders of digital products, and it has succeeded through the sweeping guarantees it makes in the name of protection — guarantees that trample on the traditional fair use doctrine of copyright law and have turned even research in copyright circumvention into a crime.

In the end, intent doesn’t matter — all that matters is that anyone’s research or product could contribute to copyright infringement. Even librarians are seeking counsel to protect themselves as traditional library archiving practices can become potential infringement suits.

Things are going to get worse before they get better. Next Thursday, the chief author of the DMCA, Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., will hold a hearing on the act’s sinister cousin — the as-yet-unproposed Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, or SSSCA.

Pushed by record industry lobbyists, the bill is designed to further rewrite copyright laws and stipulate the embedding of copy-protection control devices in all consumer electronics — anything that carries digital content. In essence, the movie and recording industries, along with Congress, are actively endorsing wholesale censorship and restriction of First Amendment rights to protect commercial interests.

Isaac Clemens is a columnist for the Daily Californian at the University of California-Berkeley. This column was distributed by U-Wire.

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