iFixit to Discuss the Failures of Copyright with Congressional Committee

A blog post by iFixIt’s Julia reports that on Monday, Nov. 9, Kyle Wiens, CEO of repair manual and teardown specialists iFixit, will participate in a round table discussion with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), along with other Members of the Judiciary Committee,and other stakeholders, at 2:00 PM PST at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California to discuss the future of US copyright law. The Committee will also hod a roundtable on Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at 3:00 P.M. PST at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). These roundtable discussions, which are part of the Committee’s copyright review, will include a wide range of creators, innovators, technology professionals, and users of copyrighted works.

Julia notes that while copyright was initially designed to incentivize creative works, it is increasingly creating barriers to repair, noting that under modern copyright law, more and more repair shops are being denied access to the manuals and schematics that they need to stay in business,with copyrighted content—in the form of software finding its way into everything from coffeemakers to cars, and copy protection controls stifling economic development. She says Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, in particular, has prevented owners and researchers from accessing the software in their own things even for legitimate purposes — like research, innovation, and repair.

In short, she says the pace of innovation has far outstripped copyright laws, and worse, copyright laws are now encroaching on the rights of owners.

You can check it out at:
http://ifixit.org/blog/7537/copyright-congress/