There were a lot of questionable Federal laws that made it through in the 90s, such as DOMA [1], PRWORA [2], IIRIRA [3], and perhaps the most maddening to me, DSHEA [4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Responsibility_and_Wo...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Supplement_Health_and_...

"Questionable" is a very charitable term to use here, especially for the DSHEA which basically just legalizes snake-oil scams.

My understanding is that tech was politically weaker back then. Although there were some big tech companies, they didn’t have as much of a lobbying operation.

As I remember it, among other reasons, tech companies really wanted “multimedia” (at the time, that meant DVDs) to migrate to PCs (this was called the “living room PC”) and studios weren’t about to allow that without legal protection.

No snark, but what's wrong with the DMCA? From what I understand it, they took the idea that it's infeasible for a site to take full liability for user-generated copyright infringement (so they granted them safe harbor), but that they will be liable if they ignore take down notices.

The biggest problem with it, AFAICT, is that it allows anyone who claims to hold a copyright to maliciously take down material they don't like by filing a DMCA notice. Companies receiving these notices have to follow a process to reinstate material that was falsely claimed, so many times they don't bother. There's no mechanism to punish companies that abuse this.

Among other things, quoth the EFF:

"Thanks to fair use, you have a legal right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment. But thanks to Section 1201, you do not have the right to break any digital locks that might prevent you from engaging in that fair use. And this, in turn, has had a host of unintended consequences, such as impeding the right to repair."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/what-really-does-and-d...

forgot about the anti-circumvention clause ;(((

that's the worst

Louis Rossman is very against DMCA. It's used as a bludgeon against right to repair.