SFC joins amicus curiae in Green v. Department of Justice

[Software Freedom Conservancy]

        SFC joins amicus curiae in Green v. Department of Justice
  Large coalition against DMCA among right to repair, digital rights and
                     advocacy groups speaks out

URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2023/dec/06/sfc-amicus-curiae-in-dmca-suit/

Social media:
  https://social.sfconservancy.org/notice/AcY5ZT8YXIVn6lGWbQ
  https://x.com/conservancy/status/1732551917212176726

In the case of Green v. Department of Justice, filed in 2016 concerning
section 1201 of the DMCA, Software Freedom Conservancy — along with
Public Knowledge, The Digital Right to Repair Coalition, iFixit, The
Open Source Hardware Association, and Jonathan Askin, Aaron Perzanowski,
and Anthony Rosborough — all joined an amicus curiae brief led by
Charles Duan in support of the defendant. The DMCA includes many
incredibly harmful policies. In particular, for almost 20 years, the
DMCA has allowed overbroad corporate control of our technology in the
name of copyright. Particularly harmful are the Draconian §1201-backed
TPMs (“technological protection measures”) — which have curtailed and
nearly eliminated these core rights of ownership:

* The right to repair: TPMs block third-party parts or fixes — allowing
  monopolies in the repair market, or forcing consumers to harm our
  environment by discarding otherwise repairable devices.

* The right to exclude: TPMs spy on consumers and open insecure
  backdoors on their computers — allowing malicious software to enter from
  anywhere.

* The right to use: TPMs prevent consumers from using their devices as
  they wish. For example, some coffee machines' TPMs prohibit the brewing
  of other companies’ coffee pods.

* The right to possess: Device manufacturers have leveraged TPMs to
  dispossess consumers of their purchases (without legal justification).

The amicus brief expresses its support for Green's position that, as a
matter of free speech under the Constitution, Green should have
permission to share information on circumventing TPMs with other
consumers. Quoting from the brief:

"When consumers seek to circumvent TPMs to protect their property
interests, fight back against anticompetitive monopolization, or
preserve their privacy, their efforts have everything to do with
protecting individual consumer rights and virtually nothing to do with
copyright."

§1201 gives corporations power over us. The amici believe that §1201 “…
advanc[es] not copyright policy but rather corporate interests in
denying consumers their rights to use and enjoy what they own.“ Seeking
to empower people through policy change and promotion of free and open
source software, SFC pushes for ethical technology standards and through
coalition building like has been done for this brief. We stand with
other organizations doing adjacent work and in doing so, show that there
is near universal support for consumer and user focused rights advocacy.

Also, SFC's Executive Director, Karen Sandler, shared her compelling
story of real-world negative healthcare impacts of TPMs in the brief:

"A software malfunction on the device misinterpreted her pulse, causing
it to shock her heart unnecessarily while she was pregnant. Yet the
defibrillator’s TPM kept [her] from even finding the bug in the
software, let alone repairing it, leaving her at the mercy of the
device’s manufacturer to stop the erroneous shocks."

Free and open source software is a necessary (but not sufficient)
condition to ensure our rights are protected and is key in making policy
changes that empower all users of technology while restricting corporate
control over our hardware and software. Software Freedom Conservancy
provides a critical viewpoint to contribute with the other organizations
joining us in support of this brief. By working with other advocacy
groups, we broaden our own viewpoints and spread the ideas of software
freedom to other organizations. This has a twofold benefit of enabling
us to bring more people into the software freedom movement who are left
out by our rhetoric and simultaneously bring the software freedom
movement to other organizations and people by sharing our perspective.
It's work like this that makes us hopeful for the future of all our
digital rights.

You can read the whole brief [0] with the official court document
subject to change. Also please consider supporting our organization by
becoming a Sustainer [1] or making a donation [2]. Now is an especially
good time because your donation goes towards our matching fund, so all
donations until January 15th are doubled up to our match amount!

[0] https://sfconservancy.org/docs/brief-green-doj-cadc3.pdf
[1] https://sfconservancy.org/sustainer/#annual
[2] https://sfconservancy.org/donate/