"Dmitry and DMCA" Protest Song by Steve Savitzky

Dmitry and DMCA

(to the tune of "Charlie on the MTA")

Now let me tell you the story of a man named Dmitri
On that tragic and fateful day
He left his home in Russia, caught a plane for Las Vegas,
Got caught up in DMCA.

    And did he ever return? No, he never returned,
    And his fate is still unlearned.
    He may rot forever in a federal prison
    He's a man who never returned.

Now Dmitri wrote a paper about Adobe's eBook format
And its copy protection flaw
And he wrote a little program that let folks recover passwords
And make backups as allowed by law.

But the Digital Millenium Copyright Act
Is a law that says you can't invent,
Produce, sell or describe any device or program
Such protection for to circumvent.

So instead of thanking Dmitri for his help with their software
And for speaking freely what he'd learned,
They called in the FBI and had Dmitri arrested
He's a man who never returned.

Now there's one more little detail about copy protection
So ironic that it must be told:
If you can't make backup copies it's _illegal in Russia_
Where Adobe eBooks can't be sold!

Now you citizens and readers, don't you think it's a scandal
How the people have to pay and pay?
Fight for fair use rights, fight to free Dmitri,
And to bring down the DMCA!

    Or else he'll never return. No, he'll never return,
    And his fate will be unlearned.
    He may rot forever in a federal prison
    He's a man who never returned.

Please feel free to archive, perform, record, publish, and otherwise distribute this song. Feel free to add verses, but if you do make sure your poetic license is up to date.

Never anger a bard, for your name sounds funny and scans to many popular songs.

This document has been encrypted with TITE (Triple Invertible Transform Encoding) by encrypting with ROT13, exclusive or with the text of the U.S. Constitution, and byte-by-byte subtraction from the contents of the file /dev/zero, followed by the same operations in reverse order for additional security.

Describing the implementation details of this intricate procedure, and explaining why the document still appears to be readable afterwards, is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

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