I'm going to disagree with the interface evaluation- I actually like it quite a bit on the PC side with the mouse/keyboard set up, and to me that was preferable to the PS3 interface. I could use hotkeys and the mouse combos, which is my preferred playing style, and I thought it worked great.I agree with some of the commentors that the menu interface is a bit clunky, though.

One caveat- reverse engineering for interoperability is specifically addressed by the statute.

Not quite. While reverse engineering is ordinarily legal, the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA doesn't make allowances for fair use or other uses that may have otherwise been legal. That's one of the reasons the Section 1201 rulemaking procedure exists; to see if there are legitimate reasons for circumventing technological protection measures. I think it's a bit backwards, personally.

The Librarian of Congress is appointed by the President. The Register of Copyrights is appoints by the Librarian.

There is an extensive rule-making procedure for this process (Section 1201 rulemaking- see the featured link at copyright.gov). Unfortunately, those asking for the exemptions generally bear the burden of proof, and have to ask for the exemptions every three years. It is difficult to plan based on these exemptions.

This is not the case in the US, where we have a copyright exemption in the doctrine of first sale- the author is only entitled to the first sale of the book, but not subsequent sales or uses of that same product.

In the report, they do distinguish between what they term "counterfitting" and "piracy." Unfortunately, their definition of piracy is still overbroad, referring to making any unauthorized copy (which, as we should know, is not always illegal).

The report is good in pointing out that none of the Internet-based piracy "research" is reliable, specifically looking at numbers the Government claims, the BSA, and the MPAA studies.

The report still says that despite these weaknesses, piracy is a problem.

Privacy is a nebulous concept, and it's possible that in some cases, we give up privacy, and in others, we don't. It's not necessarily a binary on/off thing that you either have or you don't. I don't believe that people who say that privacy is dead are correct; or if they are, it's a very narrow view of privacy. You still don't have people watching you in the shower, for example. (Hopefully...)

Check out Daniel Solove's work- here's a good start.
"I've got nothing to hide" and other misunderstandings of privacy
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565&rec=1&srcabs=667622

He's got some other interesting articles on the subject there, and some interesting books as well.

There are still things you can fight for to protect privacy, even if you are giving up some facets. You can fight against ubiquitous surveillance, and continue to do the things that you're doing to protect your privacy. You can help make threats to privacy transparent, for example, by supporting groups like EFF.

Check out the sources cited to find out why this is an issue. ^_^

Orphaned works are most certainly not a fiction. As someone who regularly works with libraries, archives, & museums, I can say with some certainty that orphan works are huge problems for such entities, and copyright law as it's currently instantiated ensures that these works may disappear forever. Orphaned works are the majority of works in existence.

See the Copyright Office comments (and the US Copyright Office favors strong copyright laws)
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/
See the Association of Research Libraries comments to the Copyright Office
http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/lcacomment0305.pdf
See the Society of American Archivists Best Practices
http://www.archivists.org/standards/OWBP-V4.pdf
See some of Peter Hirtle's comments.
http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2009/09/orphan-works-and-the-google-book-settlement.html ...and so on.

Orphaned works is a huge issue, and will become more of an issue as we attempt to work with and preserve digital works.