Declan McCullagh is on some strange Californian “let’s just relax” vibe lately; first it was his suggestion that geeks should ignore politics, and then his suggestion that the DMCA isn’t so bad. The first one, OK, I can see the argument that geeks are better suited to create social change by writing code… although his example is flawed, since Zimmerman went through a ton of political process to avoid being arrested. Declan also forgets the sad case of anon.penet.fi, which was effectively shut down by political pressures. It’s a shame Julf Helsingius didn’t worry more about the politics, no?
Anyhow, the DMCA argument is way further out there, floating somewhere on the deep fringes of reasonableness. Ed Felten did an excellent job of rebutting Declan’s article, so I won’t belabor the point. I just have to wonder what’s up with the guy lately. He was so tremendously sensible during the CDA period.
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