2) You again miss my point which is: If adequate compensation could be gained through existing copyright law, then why do we need a law for the protection of RMI?

3) We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, but I’m sure I know a lot of Linux developers, a Russian security expert, and a hacker magazine publisher who would strongly disagree with this statement. There are a few companies also that might be making various backup and video juke box software if not for the DMCA. Perhaps it is the definition of “legitimate interests” upon which we truly disagree.

1) Open Source has many different models, many of which depend extensively on copyright. the copyright system provides the flexibility to enable authors to give works away for free or to restrict their use.

2) Copyright would not have provided any remedy for the removal of the RMI, except for the very limited protection mentioned in my post.

3) I do not agree with your assessment about the DMCA. These criticisms have been greatly inflated by anti-copyright advocates. The early tests of the scope of the DMCA clarified their scope to legitimate interests of rights holders.

1) Open Source, and the GPL in particular, were created in response to bad and excessive copyright laws. It was, in Stallman’s words “A hack on the copyright system, it turns the concept of copyright upside down,” Therefore if we had no copyright, we would have no need for open source in the first place, so it is a bit of a mistake to suggest that open source is better of with stronger copyright laws.

2) While you say the issue of RMI was better dealt with under the DMCA, you side stepped the more important and broader question of whether our existing laws would have provided the plantiff with a fair result. If the defendant can already be easily convicted of copyright infringement, with fair compensation to the rights holder, what does it matter the the DMCA would have addressed one smaller aspect better?

The issue with the DMCA is not how well it addresses legitimate grievances from legitimate rights holders. I’m sure it does that quite well, even if it is redundant. The issue with the DMCA is how readily it can be abused to violate others fair use and free speech rights. Sadly it has proven itself to be quite effective at this as well.