Repeal the DMCA

October 3rd is Defective By Design's "Day Against DRM." For those of you that don't know what DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) is, here is a quick rundown of the technical and legal aspects of it:

• DRM is any technology that controls, through technical measures, what you can or cannot do with your media. Examples include:
  • The 'No Fast Forward' tag on DVDs
  • The encryption on songs bought from iTunes, preventing you from sharing or buring too often your music
  • The expiration date on songs from Napster, disabling your music after a certain time period
  • The 'Do Not Record' technology on TiVos
  • The encryption technology that prevents you from copying DVDs
• Copyright law does not cover any of these technologies. You have the right, under copyright law, to copy your DVDs and iTunes music for personal use.
• The DMCA is an act that states, in elaborate language, that it is illegal to circumvent any of these technological 'protection' measures. Which means, if you code it, it's law. A programmer could create a technology that would only allow you to view a DVD once, and, even though you have the right to copy it for later viewing under Copyright law, it is illegal to break the 'Do Not Copy' code under the DMCA.

This cannot stand. This will not stand. We cannot allow our culture to be endangered in this way. If you live in the OKC area, join me on October 3rd in stickering Circuit City and anywhere else supporting the technologies of the DMCA. Email: ohnodoctor a*t gmail*com

Contact Lenses

Today I received a letter from my eye doctor informing me that I was due for an eye examination. It has been one year since I have had my eye examined, and my doctor seemed to feel that my eyes would have changed sufficiently to warrant another checkup. I felt differently. My eyesight has not changed, and I would know; I see well enough to make out details that people with 20/20 vision cannot see. However, when I told him this, my doctor cited an Oklahoma law stating that, had I not received an eye examination in the last year by a licensed medical doctor, a hold would be placed on my prescription, and I would not be able to purchase any more contacts.

Apparently, in Oklahoma, contact lenses are a controlled substance, and you to pay for an annual eye exam in order to wear them. This of course, is to protect the public; you wouldn't want rogue, unlicensed eye examiners writing you a prescription for much cheaper than a licensed doctor, like they do in every other state. We can't expose our docs to the competition that is capitalism; it's so ... Tacky.

Never mind that you that, at any pharmacy, a minor can buy unlimited quantities of hypodermic syringes without a prescription.

This is yet another example of the corruption that we end up with, having the government interfere with the medical industry. This law was not intended to protect the public; it was intended, obviously, to drive up business in the ophthalmology sector, by outlawing competition from optometrists.