Reason has a video and writeup of an issue where
medical technicians need to fix equipment (especially ventilators) during the
COVID-19 epidemic, and basically have to violate copyright law, especially the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, to do their jobs and save lives. A medical technician named Justin Barber (in
Houston, TX) is featured. Like the doctors and nurses, he has to wear
protective equipment and scrub.
Electronic Frontier Foundation has often written about
the “fix it yourself” issue and the DMCA provisions that try to prohibit this.
There are sites like “I Fix It” and especially Frank’s
“Hospital Workshop” with compendiums of manuals on how to service medical equipment. But HW has gotten DMCA takedown notices.
Furthermore the medical equipment trade association Advamed
has lobbied for strict enforcement of DMCA, on the theory that expertise is
needed. But with COVID there is not enough time.
The video traces the history of the DMCA, where the
fear of video piracy drove it (and led to a close call with the defeat of SOPA
in early 2012).
In 1998, I benefited from a new medical device for an
acetabular hip fracture (at the University of Minnesota) and it worked and
healed perfectly.
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