The DMCA §1201 hearings for 2009 took place at the beginning of May. These hearings will guide the anti-circumvention exemption rulemaking that happens every three years. It is important that people in the US are aware of these because the exemptions influence whether you can legally watch DVDs with free software, whether you can make fair use of online videos, and whether you can unlock or jailbreak your cell phone (see also the TPMs section of my recent talk). It is important for people outside the US as well because of the major influence US policy has on the laws introduced in other countries, especially close trading partners like Canada.
The transcripts for the first two of these hearings are now available. Though having a text format is nice, I find it very difficult to read. That’s why I created this HTML version for the first transcript:
DMCA Section 1201 Hearing – May 1, 2009
Highlights include the §1201(11)(A) discussion on fair use of DVD content for remixing and the §1201(5)(A) discussion on iPhone jailbreaking.
This version uses <cite>, <blockquote>, and microformats to add meaning to the transcript. Along with a style sheet from Stephen Paul Weber, this version of the transcript is much easier to read. And in HTML form, it’s much easier to add a custom style sheet to fit your own viewing preferences. All changes to the transcript, including the style sheet, are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license and are Copyright © 2009 Stephen Paul Weber or Denver Gingerich.
I hope this version makes the hearing transcripts more accessible for people. It didn’t take too long to translate the first hearing transcript into HTML so if there is interest, I will translate the others as they become available. The conversion was done largely programmatically so there may be errors. I’ve made an effort to ensure that the quotes match up with the speakers, but it’s possible that some quotes don’t match. Please use the original transcript as the definitive source.
0 Responses to “DMCA hearing transcript in semantic HTML”