Truly the best analysis that money can buy. Hollaar, one of the authors of the DMCA, believes those who work in the >$100B/year technology industry will be more "effective" in shaping policy if they would only start treating the preservation of $20B/year entertainment industry business models as paramount.

He also avoids mentioning something that, as a former assistant to Senator Hatch, he should know very well: laws affect behavior even in the absence of litigation. How many new, legitimate commercial products couldn't get venture capital because they might (like garage door openers and laser toner cartridges in recent years) be accused of "circumvention?" How many technology startups want to face millions in legal fees to exonerate a product that *doesn't copy anything*?

The impact of the DMCA has not been in the cases that were brought but in the products that will never be brought to market. The damage to our economy can only be guessed at, but it's just as real as so-called massive piracy.

John, I would wager with you that hysterical misunderstandings of the DMCA 1201f cases has caused more to deter business than the threat of litigation.

You raise a funny issue about products that were never brought to market. One of the papers critiqued by Hollaar incessantly laments over innovation in circumvention tools that might never happen. Woah, is this a big market, will it have any aggregate effect on innovation, would it lead to further innovation. Hollaar is too kind with the molehill analogy....

Another reason, of course, is that DRM technology takes users control away from their own PC’s.

The analogy that the AACS LA is trying to spin in the media is that distribution of the key is akin to distributing the combination of the combination to my bicycle combination. But that analogy is deeply flawed, because the key is to something I already own, that is a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive. If I own a PC, I should be able to use it in the way I see fit, not how the AACS LA sees fit. It really is that simple: Stop trying to steal my PC from me AACS LA!

If that right to use our computers as we see fit is taken away, the PC revolution is in danger. The PC has been an enormously empowering invention, (potentially) leveling the playing field between individuals and large corporations, make democracy work in unanticipated ways, and placing the means of production in the hands of many.

There are those who would like very much to put the PC genie back in the bottle, and take control of PC’s away from users. All that is made possible by DRM.

Noel, your response makes sense only if we apply the conclusory label "circumvention tool" to every product that could conceivably run afoul of section 1201 - and thus condemn all such products. That's a circular argument - it's a circumvention tool because it violates the DMCA and it violates the DMCA because it's a circumvention tool.

Considering that DMCA suits were brought against garage door openers and recycled laser toner cartridges - both significant markets. Defending the right to produce those legitimate products cost the manufacturers millions in legal fees That's real damage to real markets, and that's just the ones we know about.

Incidentally, the OECD today announced a report that industry figures on the value of infringing goods moving internationally have been overstated by a factor of three. And even the OECD's figures apparently treat every infringing copy as a lost sale. Add it all up and Hollaar's "rampant piracy" starts to look like the whining of a small but politically well-connected industry - hardly something that demands radical changes to both domestic and international law.

John, I believe the Cato DMCA paper assumes that the conclusory label "circumvention tool" would apply to every product that could conceivably run afoul of section 1201.

If so, then it *is* a big market, with much innovation, and stifling it with para-copyright laws will indeed suppress innovation.