In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Homer
<usenet@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Tue, 06 May 2008 21:30:18 +0100
<rnr6f5-5in.ln1@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> Verily I say unto thee, that The Ghost In The Machine spake thusly:
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
>> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on Tue, 06 May 2008 06:22:11 +0100
>> <3182816.FI2n75cBoy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>>> So we are still left with no solution. This renders part of the
>>> whole intellectual monopoly wet dream the moguls are having a tad
>>> obsolete, doesn't it?
>>
>> Depends on the problem, doesn't it? Are we:
>>
>> [1] defending the right for a consumer to use the data file (which
>> may contain copyrighted works) as he sees fit?
>>
>> [2] defending the right for a producer to restrict use of a data file
>> which contain his copyrighted works as *he* sees fit?
>
> Use and distribution are not the same, and even with distribution there
> are first-sale rights. If Intellectual Property truly is property, then
> once purchased the buyer should be allowed to do whatever he wants with
> it. Period.
But what is the buyer buying? Certainly not the work
proper; it is still owned by the owner (even the most
diehard freeware/freemedia advocates have to concede
that point!). At best, we're buying a license to play,
with a convenient local duplicate of the finished work.
I'll admit to some confusion on this point, and the RIAA
does have a legit beef if the reports from Peru and China
of illegal selling have merit (I can't say; I've never
been either place). Of course DRM is a bludgeon where
a surgical pick might be called for.
There are also issues of fair market value. The discs
might cost $0.10 each to manufacture, but are frequently
sold for far above that price, especially for software.
>
> Look at that Universal case where they tried to claim *throwing away* a
> promo CD is illegal. It's perverse. This Intellectual Monopoly crap has
> to end. Now.
>
Would be nice; I'm not hopeful. Still, the RIAA is
looking a bit like a bunch of idiotic thugs for harassing
grandmothers (I suspect they let the kid play with their
'puter and s/he set up a Kazaa-like distribution point,
but would have to look) and claiming that even ripping a
CD for one's *own personal convenience*, not offering it
for sale or download, is patently illegal.
Next thing they'll suggest we buy 1 disc per device.
I have several CD/DVD players (one's a clock radio) and
several more in computer hardware that can be used as such
(my nx9010 does a very good job at playing DVD movies).
Are they that hard up for cash?
Assuming Congress has any spare cycles (there's some
more pressing problems right now, like foreclosures, gas
prices, good jobs, health costs, health insurance costs,
food prices, maybe immigration, ...), one hopes for a
modicum of sanity here, at some point. Maybe in 2009,
if we're lucky.
The only DRM solutions I can think of that might work at
all -- and they wouldn't work well -- involve a server
roundtrip, and assume the user a criminal even before
he sticks the disc in. Even if one wants to establish
auditing capability as opposed to prevention, one still
has the little question as to when exactly the information
of the user's usage habits vis-a-vis that disc are to be
transmitted, and to whom. (Assuming the device bothers
to keep it around at all; it's extra engineering effort
to equip a "boom box" with such.)
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
/dev/signature: Not a text file
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