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Comment by akersten | Hacker News Reader

I admit I kind of glazed over when I read through the action plan/pledge etc. I just didn't see a lot of concrete steps in there that would actually make a difference.

The only thing that's going to make a difference is for someone to put their foot down and challenge §1201 in court. Code is speech. This is America. We can speak freely. §1201 should be struck from the DMCA on constitutional grounds. But no one has the pockets or the huevos to fight it.

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The EFF has had a case against it dragging on since 2016, and exactly on free speech grounds.

4 years to challenge a take down request, something that routinely get spit out by automatic scripts at a rate of tens of thousands a day.

What a perfect encapsulation of the ridiculous asymmetry of the American legal system.

They're not challenging one takedown request made by one company, they're challenging the constitutionality of a law passed by our elected representatives.

When can this case be expected to wrap up?

It seems like a pretty concrete step to me: Sign the agreement not to DMCA take down a FOSS project until they've had 30 days to comply.

Sadly though I think you're right, it won't actually make a difference. Even if somehow he did get everybody to sign, they'd surely find some other way to attack.

The open source projects that I can think of that violate section 1201 are doing it intentionally, like DeCSS and now this Widevine crack. There's no way for these projects to comply and they don't want to.

Yes, and with GPL violations there's a path forward that doesn't involve shutting down: release your source code. With DRM breakers, there is no such path forward, the only way to get into compliance is to shut down.

Can’t see any obvious benefit for the company’s signing the agreement other than a PR opportunity.

Code is speech.

> This is America. We can speak freely.

America already has tons of enforced restrictions on speech for many reasons.

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