My personal view is that our current notion of copyright law has been rendered obsolete and unenforceable by rapid advances in technology. I’m a capitalist and I do believe artists should be paid for their work and distributors should be paid for their service of connecting a product and a consumer, but I don’t believe the old model can work any longer. Simply put: we need to find a new way to get artists paid.

However, this is a huge shake-up to an established intustry with lots of money and lots of influence with lawmakers. It’s hardly surprising that existing players are acting to protect their own interests — people do act in their own self-interest. However, at the end of the day, these attemps (including the DCMA) will fail to produce the indended results as government attempts to change the market almost always do. I don’t have a simple answer, but I do believe that the market will find a solution to the problem. However, it wont find it quickly. The more the government gets involved, the longer it will take and the more painful it will be. Therefore I think the “libertarian position” is to keep the goverment out of it as much as possible, let the market test different approaches as only a free market can, and then update the copyright laws when we know more than we do now.

“there is a specific clause in the DMCA that requires the use of one particular type of DRM in all video that is produced”

This is an example of a law that uses force to mandate how owners can sell their products. In theory, even with all DVD players looking for DRM, a band could include tools and permission for users to copy the DVD to their iPods. But this voluntary arrangement is against current law.

Why do we need a separate copyright law? Using intellectual property in a way that violates the agreement you made when you purchased it, is theft. Or at least a violation of contract.