mark-t's Journal: Why anti-circumvention restrictions without exemptions for private use are bad

I support the notion of copyright, and I advocate paying for legitimate versions of a product instead of resorting to finding it from some source that may be illegally distributing it, in spite of how easy the latter can easily be done today. I find the concept of unauthorized file sharing to be nothing short of utter disrespect for the notion of copyright, and do not abide by it or tolerate it in my own household.

In an effort to try to take back some of their business model. recording associations have lobbied governments for stronger laws with regards to copyright infringement, and one of the things that strikes me in particular, and what I wish to talk about here, is the concept of anti-circumvention provisions in such laws.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, anti-circumvention provisions as it applies to copyright law refer to extensions to copyright that forbid the importation or distribution of any technology that could potentially be used to circumvent copyright.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that this would seem to mean that computers that are programmable by the end user might also become illegal, there's something even more serious at stake:

Human thought.

You see, when you remember something, you are, in a sense, creating a copy of that experience for your own private use... if the work happened to be protected by some sort of copy protection, that simple mental act would render one technically, albeit utterly unenforceably, guilty of infringing on copyright if there were no exemptions for private use copying.

Copyright *NEEDS* exemptions for private use copying.