On 5/7/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 07/05/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/7/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Exception 1, actually. It's short enough that I can post the full text here. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Communicating any methods or means for circumventing copyright protection, like communicating copyrighted material itself, is not protected speech.
This is entirely false. The second part of your assertion is covered by fair use (which can be up to 100% of the work quoted) and the first part is not tested. As noted in the Felten case, the RIAA, when told to shit or get off the pot, backpedaled so fast as to break the world record for reverse circumnavigation by bicycle.
- d.
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Also note that the Constitution specifically gives Congress the authority to issue copyrights, so it's obviously intended that some restrictions on copyrighted speech are permissible. (Whether current laws -actually- serve to "promote the progress of science and useful arts" is left as an exercise for the reader, but that's a different discussion.) No such authority is granted for restrictions on speech about copyrights or the means used to enforce them, only on the copyrighted material itself.