Scientologists ask for a DMCA exception to prevent repair to their E-Meters

[thewayne]

A little background to those not familiar with Scientology.

When you become a Scientologist, or whenever you commit an infraction that the management doesn't like, you go through "auditing" with an E-Meter. These devices supposedly reveal things about your past lives, your possession by 'thetans' which are responsible for all the bad things in your current lives, or something like that. Popular belief is that the E-Meter is a crude polygraph and is measuring galvanic skin response or something: you're holding a copper cylinder in each hand and an "auditor" is questioning you about yourself and your past.

Well, if the copyright office opens up the Right To Repair, people who have obtained E-Meters (apparently there's a thriving market on Ebay and channels on YouTube) can take them apart and figure out how they work. The software for doing updates to the later models is tightly locked down and requires a license and your Scientology membership ID number.

The Scientologists say that devices that are only intended for sale to professionals should be exempted from right to repair, and that these are religious artifacts. One counter-argument that I see here is look at the pandemic. Thousands upon thousands of ventilators across the country/world were broken and couldn't be repaired because of a lack of manuals and DMCA threats from manufacturers. These were devices sold to processional medical installations, but they couldn't fix their own gear for reasonable costs. Eventually the copyright office caved in, and repair manuals were collected and published online, quickly followed by 3D printer models for replacement parts.

https://www.404media.co/scientologists-ask-government-to-make-hacking-e-meters-illegal/

Comments

[dewline]

Yeah, the Scientology people should just call it a day here.

[thewayne]

Well, hard to say what will happen.  Many years ago, Scientology successfully infiltrated the IRS and was able to get a lot of favorable status changes tilted to their direction, such as a formal declaration that they are a genuine church (ignore the outrageous fees for 'auditing and counseling' and the slavery and such).  It's entirely possible that they've managed, or are working on, a similar invasion of the US PTO (patent and trade office), which I think is the parent of the copyright office.

[dewline]

Yeah, that's probably an issue for their Canadian counterparts as well. Probably elsewhere, too.

[thewayne]

Well, that is a question that would require some analysis.  One country, perhaps France?, declared Scientology a fraud and illegal!  It's possible that other countries have done likewise.  So at least some people have their eyes open.

[ndrosen]

The USPTO does not, so far as I am aware, have anything to do with copyrights. As I understand it — I am not speaking with any kind of authority — copyrights may be registered with the Library of Congress, and the courts decide lawsuits over copyright disputes.

[silveradept]

That is correct. The Copyright Office works under the direction of the Librarian of Congress, who has the administrative authority to issue exemptions or exceptions to the copyright laws.

[acelightning73]

I used to have a skin galvanometer I bought from Radio Shack sometime in the 1960s. It could be used as an E-meter or a lie detector. It just basically ran a tiny electrical current through your skin, and if you were anxious and sweaty, your skin resistance would be lower, and it would show on the meter. I had someone who had studied Scientology ask me some typical questions, but my past misdeeds don't seem to be disapproved of by L. Ron.

One of the people I know in Melbourne, Australia was involved in a huge lawsuit against Scientology, trying to get it made illegal in Australia. Calling it a fraud, a pyramid scheme, medical quackery, and "not really a religion". But he was among the ones who organized a dinner party for me to welcome to to Australia, and we all went to the steak house in one of the gambling casinos, and I had a great time hanging out with people I only knew from their typing style on IRC. I had a bit of a fan club, among people who'd never met a real live American in their lives. If I could afford it, I'd go back - it's a very interesting place, with very strange history. Aboriginal Australians aren't black like African Americans. THeir skin has a sort of greyish undertone, not the dark brown/black of Africans. Australian natives have frizzy hair, but it's not wooly, it's just very very curly. And their noses aren't flat and their lips aren't thick. Their mythology is unlike any of the others on Earth that I've studied. And their culture includes a whole lot of tricks for living in an sun-beaten desert where all of the wildlife wants to kill you.

[disneydream06]

Scientology and Religion used in the same sentence is such a riot. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

The story is that Hubbard and two other old guard sci fi writers met at a convention and were discussing created religions and Hubbard realized how much money could be made and ran with it.  I think one was Heinlein and he wrote Stranger In A Strange Land.  Not sure who the third was.

[disneydream06]

So it's an open secret that his followers blindly ignore? :o :o :o

[thewayne]

Pretty much.

[disneydream06]

OMg, People really are IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[silveradept]

Given how secretive Scientology is about everything, I feel like the exemption should go through on them just to bring another piece of things into the light and public scrutiny, like what other religious practices have to go through.

[thewayne]

There's multiple YouTube videos featuring teardowns of E-Meters.  They're not exactly secret, or hi-tech, technology.  Nothing more than a crude polygraph that the operator is trained to manipulate to get the desired result.

[silveradept]

So the hardware is nothing special, what about the software? I'll bet that's more interesting, and of course, the thing that you'd need the DMCA 1201 exemption for.

[thewayne]

Well, you figure it didn't have software until probably the 2000's or later when they went to digital displays and an IC, that's more the part when DMCA would come into play.  Earlier models were a Whetstone bridge (diode rectifiers) that showed it basically measured galvanic skin response, i.e. sweat.

[silveradept]

So that probably hasn't changed much in the intervening time, but I'm still very interested in being able to take a peek inside their software and see what's going on. If it's a nothing burger, that's fine, but if there's genuinely something there they want to keep hidden, that would probably be catnip for the people who keep trying to document all the problems with Scientology.