Let's admit it -- we made a mistake. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we screwed up. It's time to make things right and repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Back in 1998 the entertainment industry was scared, and who could blame them. Not only was the Internet threatening to undercut their lucrative distribution business, but illegal swapping of their content was becoming common. The industry claimed they needed breathing room. They told us they wanted to sell their huge catalog of music and movies on the Internet, but couldn't do it in that wild-West environment. The enforcement of copyright laws just needed to be strengthened a little.
The DMCA was passed with those concerns in mind. Most significantly, it prohibited the creation or distribution of technology that enabled unauthorized access to copyrighted material -- even if the creators themselves did not violate copyright laws.