EFF has updated their Unintended Consequences report regarding the DMCA, listing incidents where the law has been used to have a chilling effect on free speech, consumers, competitors, other non-pirates. There’s a number of good stories in it (I’m using “good” loosely here), I reccomend giving it a read.
One thing it makes clear that this law was never really about piracy (or if it was, only incidentally). It’s about the ability to leverage the legal system against consumers and competitors alike, with the objective of killing competition in a less-than-free market way. This is bad law, plain and simple. Not that I expect the corporate cocksuckers in Congress to ever do anything about it.