hey everybody how's it going so in a
recent video i went over about fixing
the dmca it was a proposed amendment to
the dmc app in particular section 1201
which goes over exemptions to the dmca
for uh copyr for
so that's why i record things that
stream
which is what goes over your making it
illegal to get around digital lock so
for instance if you have an xbox and you
want to be able to change the optical
drive in that xbox and it's not going to
work because it's paired to the cpu of
the device and if you get make a tool
that gets around that you may actually
be breaking section 1201 of the dmca if
you ever use dvd decrypter to rip a
movie that you had so that you could
watch it on another device that you own
because a portable phone or a co-182 mp3
mp3 player won't be able to play a dvd
the act of ripping that dvd that you own
to put it on a device that you own would
be illegal because dvd decrypter
decrypts the copy protection and the dvd
and this piece of legislation does its
best to try to create a carve out for
this as you can see here here
hr 6566 and there was a piece in the
hill that says proposed repair bill goes
too far and it just is your typical
copied and pasted fear-mongering peace
on how this is gonna result in piracy
and all this type of other stuff so i
did a five or ten minute video ranting
about it but here i thought i'd bring on
an actual expert this is nathan proctor
from usperg thank you very much for
taking the time
yeah good to be here
so you said that this is a giant piece
of misinformation and that they most
likely will not be punished for
releasing it what specifically makes
this misinformation because i can say
what makes me angry about this but what
makes what's in this text
all right so so
the argument that they're making and let
me just one a clarification you kind of
said oh dvd encrypter
that would be unrelated to this
particular bill this bill is just repair
yeah i personally don't think this even
goes far enough because i don't think
something like dvd decrypter should even
be illegal but this bill doesn't even do
that
right right i mean there's a totally
separate conversation to be had about
just how
bad the dm section 1201 of the dmca is
and why you know why companies are
allowed to put these locks on things
without
without any kind of proof that what
you're doing to avoid the lock or to get
around the lock is
illegal in any way right so
um but
the you know especially the framing that
this bill
legalizes piracy
is just
false right this bill goes out of its
way to say
repair is not
a copyright violation i i just struggle
to even find an example
theoretically where i'm saying like oh
you're not allowed to fix that thing and
it's a copyright violation if you do
when would that be an appropriate idea
like when does that make sense
like literally
it's like in what situation
are you taking the copyright away from
the original manufacturer by fixing
something that you own yeah i'm trying
to think of the best steel man i can of
his argument and the best one that i
could possibly think of is let's say
that you force i don't know a monitor or
an hdmi capture card manufacturer to
release everything about the device that
would be related to repairing it maybe
you could get around hdcp and if you can
get around hdcp maybe you can make it so
that i don't know you'd be able to
output a signal that could then be
captured so that you could get a netflix
video and upload it at 4k instead of
pirating it at 720p or something like
that or like with game consoles maybe if
you are able to use that tool maybe you
could pair a cd-rom drive that is
willing to play pirated games to the cpu
or something like that
but yeah so but all of that
would would it doesn't fall under the
scope of this bill right so if you're
saying that like
any legitimate repair is not
illegal that's basically what this bill
says and helping other people fix things
creating tools and methods that allow
people to get around repair restrictions
will no longer be considered criminal
activity
that's what this bill says anything that
actually does facilitate piracy would
would not be covered in that definition
right like if you actually made a tool
that let you fix your xbox and also let
you play pirated media
that tool would be illegal and the
penalties in the dmca are huge you could
go to prison for five years you know for
making a tool that that would do that so
yeah that this is going to legalize
piracy is crazy like
they're saying it's like a slippery
slope but it's not right it's like
anything that allows you to do piracy is
still illegal so just let us fix the
thing and it's crazy to me that these
companies could
you know lock the cooling fan with
digital rights management technology so
you can't fix it and then say oh it's a
slippery slope if we let like they're
the ones who put that stupid lock on in
the first place they they get what's
coming to them
i agree with you completely and i think
if i were to steal man their argument
the slippery slope is that virtually
everybody that supports this particular
amendment would likely also support just
removing section 1201 of the dmca i
personally don't think that it should be
against the law for you to be able to
take the movie that you owned rip that
movie encode it into a video format that
you could play on a portable player and
play it on that rather than say i'm
gonna carry an ipod and a portable dvd
player in 2006 like that was just so
like no but literally nobody did that
virtually everybody was breaking this
law in some way shape or form so i think
what they're saying with the slippery
slope is that everybody who supports
this would also support just flicking
1201 of the dmc out entirely but that's
not even what this article says it
specifically says that what is written
over here is going to encourage and
allow piracy that would otherwise would
not have happened and i as i read this i
can't see how this would allow that in
any way at all yeah i mean i
i i'm aware that the opposition takes
people like me and says oh like well if
you do what nathan wants us to do
really you're you know
where i'm like a techno anarchist or
something like that and you know if you
followed my advice i'll just destroy the
modern economy
um
but you know
i kind of used to that at this point but
it's like
at least make an argument accurate on
the merits of the bill like monder jones
put time and effort into writing this
bill
i think he did a pretty darn good job of
articulating what i think is a very
reasonable middle ground which is
you know
you got to let us fix the thing like
it's clearly not a copyright violation
to repair something and he wrote did a
pretty careful bill that prevents
that does just that and honestly there's
a lot of people
who who like you louis think that we
should have be
you know pushing a much broader agenda
on
the dmca but really
we're just sticking to this repair thing
because we know that this impacts
regular people and the way that they're
living their lives they just want to
like i mean to me one of the biggest
examples of why we care about this
policy
are things like john deere tractors
which i know you've covered a lot in
this channel
you know you you can get like a
after-market tool to fix or to diagnose
or fix
problems with cars right like you can
get a scan to a pet boys that's not
expensive tool to figure out why your
check engine light is on
there is nothing like that for a john
deere tractor and the equipment is
locked using these digital locks to
prevent
any kind of access to their diagnostics
etc or resetting the equipment after a
failure
and
you're locked you have to get the dealer
to plug in their computer and it would
be incredibly useful to farmers in
america
if they could go to their local ag
supply store and they could buy a tool
that would let them
diagnose and service their equipment and
if you know but you can't make that tool
right now that tool is criminal because
of the way that we've over made this
overly broad section of copyright law
and we need to fix that yeah one thing
that a lot of people will say is these
people with right to repair why don't
they just come up with their own tools
why don't they just come up with their
own software why don't they just make
their own chip they're just whining and
i think what a lot of people don't
understand is that there's so much uh
there's so many barriers in place to
being able to do that if somebody comes
up with a tool that allows me to get
around a lock that person like who wants
to risk going to prison for five years
that's going to absolutely destroy the
market people are still doing it people
still made dvd decrypter even though
there was that section in the dmca that
said you could go to prison for two to
five years for doing so but that's going
to radically increase the barrier to
entry to really smart people to reverse
engineer these things and like one thing
you can get tools but you can't get like
you know you're not going to get snap on
to make a tool right you know because
though you're not going to get these you
know premiere like big brands to do it
because they'd be nervous about the
legal exposure and
clearing out this barrier for that just
allows those companies to make that
those tools and i think it's really
important to put that competition in
that market yeah it's going to be some
random guy and a vpn an irc that's from
russia that's in his you know in a
basement who knows what the hell else is
in that tool
yeah god does and it says here like
unfortunately the freedom to repair act
makes no distinction between specific
areas where carve outs could be useful
to devices where self-repair is needed
like agriculture or cell phone screens
and allowing hacking tools used for
piracy but like it doesn't make a
distinction between it because repair is
not piracy
and like that should be the end of it
right there
now you think that you've spoken to me
at length about how certain politicians
in certain states have fell for really
really silly arguments you know along
the lines of you need to have an
exemption here in this repair bill that
says that this will not apply if you're
a student at a college where the college
provided you the laptop because it could
be data theft where they'll always try
to muddy the waters have these arguments
actually stuck in the heads of any
legislators so far is it is there
anybody out there that would read this
article and think oh wow i didn't really
think about piracy you know reject
i mean the idea
i'm gonna i and i've talked to a lot of
judiciary staff in the u.s congress
about this bill
i think that you know i mean
certainly lawmakers are not are you know
the the prospect of piracy is something
that they would take seriously right
they don't want to make it easier for
people to pirate things
so i
my sense is that
muddying the water on that is probably
their best move the problem is is that
their argument makes no sense
anything that would enable piracy would
be out of scope right if you had a tool
that lets you fix your tractor and also
i don't know play pirated britney spears
song on the tractor's
sound system or something
you could still pursue that tool maker
under the dmca for a violation and put
them in prison and they they have these
incredibly powerful
anti-piracy tools and you know i mean
honestly
i i
i have i've had a number of
conversations where i've flipped
lawmakers on this particular topic by
asking the question
like what repairs
should be a copyright violation in your
opinion
like what things should i not be able to
fix because of copyright and the
the answer is nothing so they're saying
oh they didn't carve out devices i think
they mean they didn't say you're not
allowed to fix gaming consoles because
of copyright well it's like
you should be able to fix gaming that's
the carve out is for repair not for the
device right i'm i should be allowed to
fix my cooling fan and change out the
optical drive or whatever as long as
it's
in the service of repair and not some
other
thing and that's exactly why we don't
need a carve out it's already narrow
because it's just repair and then we can
have a conversation another day about
you know how to fix the problems that we
have you know around basically the
overreach in the dmca but
let's at least fix this problem that we
can all agree is i mean even these
copyright guys agree that we should be
able to fix these tractors but you know
the offices that i've talked to on the
hill
they've basically
heard like everyone has heard from john
deere already on this
so john deere is like the number one
group that i've heard about that's been
working to defeat this policy because
they do not want any other tool out
there that lets a farmer fix a tractor
besides their tool which they
you know have exclusive access to the
dealers or you can buy some crappy
version of for like hundreds of dollars
a month in fees it's
you know this is a total racket that
they're trying to protect
how can normal everyday people get
technically illiterate legislators to
understand that it is ridiculous to
compare piracy to repair
what is their best line of attack what
is their best one-liner that they could
i would say that like
you know one advantage of doing a bill
in congress versus the states is that
the staff are much more professional
right so it's like
and they have a much more limited
portfolio of things
i i think that
i don't think it's it's it's about like
convincing them that this argument is
stupid
i think it's mostly convincing them that
people care
right that like
that it's important for them to get an
answer to the question does this really
allow people to pirate
video games or movies if i let someone
fix something
like the staffers if they actually asked
that question and investigated they
would they would come to the answer that
no it does not anybody anybody who's
who who takes a second to think about it
can figure it out
the question is whether or not they hear
the opposition argument for two seconds
and be like oh this is too complicated i
don't want to figure this out so people
just reach out to lawmakers offices and
say
you know we have stuff that we would fix
but we can't because it's a copyright
violation
that's crazy just let us fix stuff it
shouldn't be a crime to fix something
because the manufacturer decided to you
know put a lock over the cooling fan in
my xbox or something like that's just
that's
that's a corporate abuse let me fix my
stuff
if that message goes through
i feel like we'll we'll have a we'll
have we'll get some good momentum and
there has been some good momentum on
this policy
we've been having some success i think
you know
because i think it's common sense right
it shouldn't be
illegal to fix things and to make tools
that let other people fix things
let's say somebody comes up against this
particular argument like the argument
okay let's say that you somebody comes
up with a tool they reverse engineer
whatever microsoft design is to be able
to pair a different optical drive than
the orig to the console than the one
that came with it and that also allows
you to pair an optical drive that
doesn't care if it's reading a burn disk
how would you distinguish between that
tool when used for piracy versus when
used for legitimate reasons like my
stock answer to that would be i don't
care f section 1201 of the dmca entirely
but that's obviously not a politically
friendly answer
i mean i i feel like
one you have an exemption already under
the dmca because it was argued in one to
pair
to to circumvent the pairing system
in the in those things to pair a new
optical drive two i i i'm i'm afraid i
don't know enough about the technology
to know like
what how how you would convince the
system to bypass the way that it knows
that
that a product is playing pirated media
but i would assume a tool that would
do that would still be illegal so i
don't think and i don't my understanding
of the technology and i could be wrong
and there might be someone watching this
that would help hopefully answer this
but my sense of the technology is
that you could pair a new drive
and the encryption software
and the anti-piracy software that
detects pirated media is irrelevant to
making it recognize the disk drive so
it's not a question of like oh this disk
drive is a pirated media playing disk
drive that it's just a disk drive that
that that that is actually done by
software uh you know in the main
processor so i mean again i could be
wrong i'm not a technician this is why
you know we've we're going to bring in
some experts to you know tell congress
about this but
my sense is if it if it did pair a drive
that would allow it to play pirated
media then it wouldn't be repair it
would be it would have other uses and
therefore would would be illegal
um and i'm sure that like no matter what
if microsoft found someone doing that
they would use the full powers of
copyright protection to stop that
but
but you should i mean like but i don't
think that like the anti-encryption is
not on the optical drive it's it's in
the software
you know em embedded into the computer
and that and that was what the was
argued in front of the copyright office
and they agreed with that that like no
this is not
you know getting around this particular
lockout for pairing an optical drive
does not
does not equal piracy
i agree with you um what do you think
the chances are this year or over the
next year of something like this
actually being amended in past versus
past years and why
yeah
i mean
i don't know like i mean congress is
obviously a very strange place to try to
do things uh there's a lot of competing
things going on and it's it's kind of a
crazy environment
um
you know i think right to repair
continues to surprise politicians like
they think
they just underestimate how much people
care about this and then we come in and
we've been turning some heads
uh so i'm hopeful that we'll continue to
get that to happen and obviously we've
got a lot of momentum you know with uh
new york passing a bill
colorado passing the wheelchair bill
with you know a really great review from
the
copyright office last fall the ftc
report the biden administration support
so i i mean i'm optimistic i do think
that
you know there's a lot of factors that
go into what happens
but
you know i mean
fixing copyright is going to be an
important part of right to repair even
if we pass like a bill in every state
right because states can't touch
copyright and if you can't have
competing tools if all you can have is
apple's tool we're always going to have
this
you know like
creep where apple's going to try to find
funky ways or these companies that have
dominant market power they're going to
try to find funky ways to limit repair
access
and this is a great way to protect
like competition because if somebody
else can make a tool that does it
and we don't we don't need to we don't
need apple's tools like
now that we see their
79 pounds of tools that they're shipping
to people you're like oh
yeah
i mean maybe some shops will use those
tools and and you know the the water
resealing tool i know shop some shops
really like that already
but most of it's like oh yeah like the
way i was doing it before is way better
than the way that apple's doing it like
they do not have a monopoly on good
tools and they shouldn't have a monopoly
on legal tools that you can sell and use
i agree completely yeah i've the biggest
challenge over the past year has been
trying to shake my subscribers out of
the general cynicism that it doesn't
matter what you do nobody will listen
nobody will care no progress will ever
happen and you know it doesn't mean
we're done but the bill passing in
colorado the bill passing in new york
state the ftc report just pretty much
taking all the manufacture excuses and
just putting through a chipper shredder
that stuff uh that stuff matters and
like i i really would like to actually
see progress on this and you're like
you've been engaging you know we've also
been engaging in lobbying to try and get
stuff like this passed and get section
1201 of the dmca have a couple more
repair exemptions and
hopefully
these repair exemptions have been like
ramping up continually and just a shout
out to
you know ifixit and public knowledge
which is uh you know an organization
that fights for these um a lot of it's
done by like free legal clinics at
universities and stuff like that going
against
like
the white shoe the highest paid
intellectual property law firms in dc
and they're just kicking their butts
and that it's it's kind of cool like
this scrappy
you know world of like tinkerers and
diyers and hackers is is
out doing these you know white shoe law
firms and stuff
um but you know that that uh dmca
exemption process
is really limited and how how much good
it does because it's like yeah you have
a legal right to hack your phone to get
around apple's pairing system with the
front-facing camera for example on the
iphone 13 you have a right to to bypass
that
but
you know like you really can't i mean
you you need someone else to help you
with that that's a pretty difficult task
i mean the fbi couldn't get around the
fingerprint lockout you know
asking a repair shop to and you can't
even make a tool so even if you could do
it you could only do it for yourself
and uh and i think it's
you know
that that basis like all those years of
fighting for the exemptions and getting
the copyright office to say you're right
it's not infringing activity to fix a
phone
now that we need to just make that
permanent and extend that so that we can
stop having that fight so i mean i we
have a lot of momentum on this topic i
mean and and your your audience as soon
as cynical as they might seem sometimes
has been a huge part of the momentum
that we've actually made and i don't i
don't know if we would be in the place
we are now with the wins we've had if it
wasn't for them coming in and helping
support the work that happened in
colorado and everything else like
they were a huge part of it
so thank you guys everyone listening
thank you thank you thank you
yes
i'm very appreciative for what they've
for what they've all provided monetarily
you know
activist activism-wise and everything
else uh thank you very much for taking
the time uh i'll let you know
we'll say one with me because i feel
like you mentioned that i was saying
these people are lying to us and
you know it just it drives me crazy
like
when the lobbyists come in and say
listen this legalizes piracy tools i
mean that's just blatantly false nothing
in this bill makes piracy legal
there's
you could make an argument that oh
a tool that could repair maybe could
also be used for piracy and that might
be a little gray area but like no that
would still be illegal like piracy is
illegal
that's just a lie that the that framing
is lying
and
it should cost something to these
companies to go in there and lie to
lawmakers face to face about important
public policy issues
one of the key ways to make it cost
something is if their constituents come
in and say
you need to do something about this this
is bullcrap
and and
we're all part of that like honesty
should count truths should count
but all of us need to kind of make it
count
okay so this brings up an interesting
conversation maybe i'm going to be
prolonging this a little bit but i
remember there was this one particular
lobbyist that had said that we could be
in store with that independence would be
installing tick tock on people's phones
and i remember doing a video saying oh
this is [ __ ] and i put this guy's
clueless in the thumbnail and i remember
getting a call from you saying that
there were you know you and aaron and
kyle i believe saying this this may not
be great you're going to be portrayed as
a bully they're going to be able to
portray us as bullies and that's that
stuff actually worked and what i found
the most interesting is that three
months ago samsung which is a member of
cta which they were
which he was a lobbyist for actually
started pre-installing tick-tock on the
lower end samsung phones by default
and he which is the point i did i did i
did find your video on that topic the
the point i guess the question that i
have is is how do you if somebody is
going to be able to lie and get away
with it and when you call them out and
say yo this guy just made something up
about our industry this is an idiot if
you get
how do you do that without getting in
trouble because the people like there
are a lot of people that have
watched stuff like i've used a lot more
colorful and more disgusting language
than i've used but like it's very
difficult for me to temper myself when i
hear blatant lies about our industry
told and one of the things that really
adds to the cynicism a lot of my
audience and admittedly i have because
they're getting it from me is that
there's no consequence to that there's
you know if i say something and i'm
slightly wrong people will remember it
six years later and cite it but when
they make something up like that and
then not only are they wrong but the
company that they represent is doing the
exact thing that it is they're accusing
us of doing just it just goes gets
brushed under the rug and nobody cares
how do you deal with that in a manner
where they they can't run to the
legislators and go this man on the
internet is bullying me
because i
well first of all
it's been a long road for me to to be
working in like american public policy
and trying to help people have a better
society and a better government
and
a long time ago i realized that oh
if you want to be
like a moral ethical
person in a world where not everyone
acts that way
your job is harder in the short term
and
that's just
true
like i
we don't it's not fair like no one said
it was going to be fair and it's not
fair and i don't care about it being
fair anymore i've given up
i know what the right thing to do is and
i was raised to do the right thing so
i'm going to try to do the right thing
and if
you know if some lawmaker you know some
lobbyist or some corporate giant gets
paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to
say complete malarkey you know like
whatever
i'm gonna
you know scrabble and do the right thing
and
and speak the truth as best i can and
investigate every idea and try to really
get to the bottom of things as best i
can and be as honest and straightforward
as i can and that's just because that's
just the way to be and that's the way i
want to be
i don't want to be a liar so
and and eventually the truth wins out it
it's frustrating it's a longer road and
we have to work harder
but whatever
like we know that we're doing the right
thing and at the end of the day
you know it's like
i mean this is like ancient the you know
this is there's david wrote psalms about
this right the the wicked have it easy
and the righteous have to work harder
it's just that's just the way that it is
you have a choice to make
you could be
a jerk you could be an [ __ ] you could
get you could have an easier life being
a tool to people
or you could be a decent person that
tries to make things better and improves
life for people and you have that choice
to make every day and
i'm glad that you know i'm proud of the
decisions that i've made and i
and i don't
i don't envy people who who
have sold out to the dark side right i
don't think that they benefit from that
i i think i have i think i reap all the
benefits from my my choices so it is it
does make you cynical but
you just have to just swallow it and
just say okay it's going to be hard and
we're going to do it
and that's what makes winning makes me
feel so good like
like just like they they have to just
watch us win now they did all this stuff
they lied they they they pull all these
dirty tricks and we still pass this bill
like they just have to watch it and they
still have to live with everything that
they've done and all the behavior that
they've put forward and the way that
they've sacrificed their ethics they had
to live with that
but we didn't do that and we still won
yeah i will i agree with you i will be
moral i will be ethical i i will be
honest i'm i'm not going to be polite
i'll be an [ __ ]
if somebody says
i don't care if they want to go to a
legislator and say i'm a bully i'm mean
this guy with a receding hairline and
the internet called me a name
i i can't help myself
thank you so much for taking the time i
really appreciate it and i agree with
you
yeah watching the wins and watching the
looks on their faces as we win and they
have to take their arguments down and
try to erase everything that they've
said on the internet like right to
repair is gonna you know get people
sexually assaulted in a parking lot and
supports racism and redlining and all
the junk from the massachusetts
campaigns somebody pointed out yesterday
in my live stream that all of that was
removed from the internet why can't i
find any of this outside of your video
it's because they know they were making
this [ __ ] up they know it's not true and
they're ashamed of it they don't like
they don't want to have to have somebody
from honda or nissan or general motors
knock on their door and say did you use
the money that we raised to say that
right to repair results and people
getting sexually assaulted and stocked
through parking lots like really
what the don't attach our name to this
yeah and and these companies like i mean
this we don't we we've gone on long
enough but one day we'll talk about like
you know when we expose what the
lobbyists say sometimes that blows back
on the companies and they didn't even
realize what these people were saying
so like this work that that you do to
like highlight some of this stuff is
important because then we could go to
these companies like do you know that
the people you've hired or says are
saying is complete nonsense like they
just get hired to stop the bill and then
they say whatever they want to say i
mean that's kind of how it works so
yeah it's important to expose that
because we have to remove their
credibility in order that they know what
the truth is and
thank thank you and all your listeners
for helping be part of that
thank you for all the work that you've
done as well you can find them on
twitter nathan proctor i'll include a
link down below the moment the stream is
over thank you so much for taking the
time to talk about this i really yeah
see you next time