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I've spent decades obsessed with the weirdest corner of the weirdest section of the worst internet law in the US: Sec 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law that makes it a felony to help others change how their computers work, to serve them rather than the manufacturer.

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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcb…

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A McDonald's McFlurry cup. Under its transparent lid is a poop emoji whose eyes have been replaced with the glowing red eyes of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The cup is spattered with dirt. Behind it is a 'code waterfall' effect as seen in the credit reels of the Wachowskis' 'Matrix' movies. Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Pluralistic: The US Copyright Office frees the McFlurry (28 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

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Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow
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Long thread/5

Sensitive content

This entry was edited (3 weeks ago)
in reply to Cory Doctorow

AndyDearden
AndyDearden
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Oh how deeply depressing our corporatised world has already become!! Metastasise is absolutely the right verb

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moggie
moggie
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In more ways than one. Metastatic cancer tends to kill its host body, and it looks to me like that's going to happen here too.

@AndyDeardentsa @pluralistic

@Cory Doctorow @AndyDearden
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Tanquist
Tanquist
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A genius who can make this stuff understandable to a simpleton like me! Enshittification has really gotten me riled up. I will write longhand and trace pictures before I buy another crappy printer. Don't even get me started on "smart" devices.
I highly recommend The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. I just finished listening.

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Token Sane Person
Token Sane Person
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@tanquist Actually you can now get "tank" printers that are refilled from cheap bottles of ink. So you aren't tied to DRM-crippled cartridges.

The growth of this market segment seems to be due to the reaction to #enshitification.

#enshitification @Tanquist
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Dark Sage Torunka :verified:
Dark Sage Torunka :verified:
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It is my belief that 1201's exemption process has zero legal weight and exists solely to generate misleading press headlines.

Like, what court is going to say, "yes, what you did was fair use, circumventing access controls to do it was acceptable, but we're going to throw you in jail anyway because you didn't wait for the triennial rulemaking procedure to pre-approve your fair use"?

(...someone's going to tell me about a court case that was ruled this way aren't they?)

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