alt Hacker News> Fair use is important, but there's also "first sale," the doctrine that says that after you buy something, you own it, and copyright can't be used to interfere with your traditional property rights. That's why you can buy and sell used books, paintings, records, and other copyrighted work, even if they are sold with fine print that says you're not allowed to:
Hopefully we can use this same logic to reform (destroy) section 1201 of the DMCA.
By property rights, I am intrinsically permitted to modify things that I have purchased.
(Note: if you saw this comment already, I accidentally left it on the wrong HN post)
The "You don't own it if you can't destroy it" discussion goes all the way back to people like Cicero and limitations on what you can and can not do with your slaves. What you desire is sensible and can only be achieved by political means; yet it is undermined already. Licenses are granted, not given. They remain the property of whoever issued it. Here fore, among other things, a discussion about property rights retains the frame used by those who abuse immaterial property rights. This is problematic because it's near impossible to achieve a political goal without setting the right language first.