Computer Misuse (Amendement) Bill

[Bruce M Simpson]

On Tue, May 14, 2002 at 03:26:32AM +0100, Chris Leather wrote:
> In the unlikely event that this amendment becomes law, I'd be interested to
> see the court battle between purchasers of 'copy-inhibited' audio CDs trying
> to play them on PC CD drives (who could claim 'failure' of their PC under
> this amendment), and the record companies...!

It is a realistic expectation on the part of user/consumers to be able to use
a CDROM drive for the purposes of playing back 'Red Book' CD Audio. This is
also part of numerous specifications for what constitutes a 'multimedia PC'.

Of course, the backlash will take place in the form of enterprising
individuals patching CDROM firmware to ignore the corrupted
error-correcting codes, just as occured with DVD region protection.

A more sensible path for corporates would be to seek social approaches to the
issue of piracy. Most people who pass 'warez' on to each other recognise that
if it goes on unchecked, then the economy of intellectual property is
undermined, and invoke social censure against those who would continue using
someone else's property without paying for it. This acts as a check and
a balance. The question is, where does one draw the line and codify social
behaviours into statute?

Seeking cryptographic solutions to what is essentially a social issue smacks
of ignorance on the part of the organisations concerned.

BMS