This article concerns the aspect of the DMCA that allows a few companies to monopolise markets and dictate to others using frivolous legal threats.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun06/3673In 1998, U.S. entertainment companies persuaded Congress to make dramatic changes in its copyright code by passing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The DMCA gave copyright holders new rights to control the way people use copyrighted material and new protection for technologies designed to restrict access or copying. The movie and record companies argued they needed these new restrictions to fight increased piracy threats in the digital era.
In the eight years since the DMCA's passage, however, piracy has not decreased, and hurdles to lawful uses of media have risen.
Now, in an even more vexing situation, U.S. entertainment companies are successfully spreading the copyright code changes established by the DMCA around the world. Laws similar to the DMCA now exist in Japan, Australia, and much of Europe. At least nine additional countries, including Chile, Guatemala, and Singapore have also been pressured to enact DMCA-like laws as part of a devil's bargain with U.S. trade negotiators, who say the copyright change is necessary to secure free trade pacts with the United States that would govern all sorts of commerce. And in Europe, the body charged with defining the European digital television standards is mixing in content-protection obligations, responding yet again to pressure from major U.S. movie studios.
Copyright is being turned from a limited-term incentive designed to encourage creative artists to a broadly scoped transfer of wealth from the public to the private realm. As the industries that generate copyrighted materials seek control over not only their works but also the devices on which we watch, listen to, and remix them, copyright law is turning into technology regulation.
A nice article that makes its points clearly, give this a read folks and see why purchasing DRM ridden products or equipment is anti consumer, you have a choice, be your own master or forever a slave to these "fair use rights" theives
