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Story: US Congress readies 'super-DMCA'

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Posted by: Arthur B. (Wednesday 26 April 2006, 2:07 AM)

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Non US governments and companies should think twice about using US (embedded) software that agrees with the terms of the proposed 'super-DMCA'.

There's a high risk of ending up with software that has huge black-boxes inside (parts you can't even point at to avoid stepping on sensitive yet powerfull toes but everything else is pointing to it as being a factor) and given the huge lobby (political) power behind 'super-DMCA' it'll be a matter of time before non-US parties are "motivated" to comply in one way or another. Which in turn can indirectly lead to huge (legal) risks. Do you want to risk getting your servers impounded? Do you want to risk that your customers personal and private data ends up on the desk of some US investigator? Do you want to risk having to allocate massive amounts of business resources because some overseas political force wants to set an example? Not to mention prolonged troubleshooting efforts because some troublesome embedded black-box hits a support brick wall.

It's your choice ofcourse but do remember to make your customers fully and completely aware of the risks they might endure. Because if enough non US customers end up feeling hurt somehow they'll likely go after the middle man.

Summing up. The US "war on terror" looks more and more to boil down to: "the greed of the few outweigh the needs of the many".

At which point will non US politicians step in and say: "you're entitled to your own private party but don't trouble your neighbours with it"?

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