[IETF-IDRM] Re: [IDRM] Will the DMCA make our work more difficult?

[Mark Baugher]

Hi Nicko

At 08:35 PM 8/15/2001 +0100, Nicko van Someren wrote:
>Thomas Hardjono wrote:
>
> > This issue with the DMCA is an interesting one, and one which came-up
> > when we were drafting the charter of the IDRM group.
> >
> > Thus, if you read the fourth paragraph of the Charter, you'll see that
> > "IDRM will not pursue research into the legal and social issues of
> > DRM". We had to specifically put that line before the Charter
> > would be approved.
>
>I had read the charter, and had seen that line.  I think, however, that it
>addressed a different issue.  There are clearly legal and social issues
>regarding the implementation of DRM and I agree that research into these
>should be outside the scope of IDRM.  That said, there is a difference
>between engaging in research into the legal issues of DRM, and carrying
>out DRM research that turns out to fall foul to legislation such as the
>DMCA.
>
> > But your question about dealing with the DCMA is an interesting one.
> > Perhaps its something that could be brought to the larger IETF community
> > and the IAB/IESG.
>
>Indeed, my point was that we need to know how to deal with the DMCA,
>rather than saying that we need to debate the rights and wrongs of the
>act itself.  The act is here and IETF is not (usually) a political lobby
>group.  It directly effects two out of three IEFT meetings each year and,
>as Niels Ferguson describes, indirectly effects the papers that can be
>submitted to the third.  I think we need a policy as to how to work
>around this.

If we're going to investigate technical protection systems such as
HDCP, CPRM, or some vendor's implementation of an IPMP tool,
then this is a problem for us.  I never imagined IDRM will want to
do that.  Individual participants of the RG may want to do so, but
not under the auspices of IDRM.  I don't expect anyone to craft a
technical protection measure that gets embedded in some home
computing device that is invulnerable to compromise (e.g., lose one or
more secret keys).  So I don't see the point of engaging in this
kind of work.

Mark

>         Nicko