For what it's worth, the DMCA was definitely intended to include circumvention protections well beyond what was needed for copyright protection. It was commonly understood to extend into device locking, commsec and nontraditional drm - this is why you have exceptions to the anti-circumvention elements for security researchers for example. This doesn't make it right at all - but in no way was motorola "misusing" the DMCA as far as the drafters (lobbyists) were concerned.
Motorola may not have been misusing the DMCA, but the DMCA is a misuse of the law and a bloody embarrassment to the tech enthusiasts, programmers, and power users of the United States.
Remember that. The DMCA should be rewritten from the ground up, with new, innovative laws that effectively combat piracy without restricting freedom. And as far as I know, the only group qualified to do that, and who have the proper knowledge to do that, are us. All of us, in this forum. We know technology. And we know how to revise it.
Not some old Librarian of Congress. You know, I go onto any specialized forum for hobbying: car forums, technology forums, sports forums, to name a few, and I invariably, ALWAYS see at least one post about how the government is trying to prevent them from doing what they enjoy.
It's not right. And we shouldn't let law get abused by other laws, that get abused by other people.
It's not the federal government's job to "effectively combat piracy." Private companies should not be able to outsource the protection of their archaic business model to the government.
