5 ms·

Freedom is almost always lost in small steps. Sure, discontinuities happen in extreme cases (e.g., the WTC's destruction -> the PATRIOT Act), and when they do

by kwantam 15y ago

Freedom is almost always lost in small steps. Sure, discontinuities happen in extreme cases (e.g., the WTC's destruction -> the PATRIOT Act), and when they do a lot of people notice. The more subtle losses in freedom that occur gradually (the DMCA and its progeny, for example) are harder to notice until one day you look back and say "huh, how did we get here?" The concept of the Overton Window [1] is interesting and germane here. 20 years ago the idea that you couldn't lend a book you own to your friend or loan them the new album you just bought would have seemed insane. Over time, a gradual shift in the concept of ownership has changed the scope of the issue to the point where many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else. People at the edge of the Overton window are like our canaries in the coal mine. Gradual shifts in the window are hard to notice from the middle, but easy to notice as the "edge" passes over you. In that respect, to me RMS seems most valuable to us for precisely the reasons others call him a crackpot. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

lukejduncan 15y ago
And on that note, the Patriot Act is in the process of being extended
urbanjunkie 15y ago
> many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else. Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very useful. My (personal and anecdotal) experience is just the opposite - people seem more willing to lend out physical possessions - where they still have them. So, books, XBox games, clothes, etc - I see these things being shared all the time.
- kwantam 15y ago
  Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very useful. How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Really, I don't think I'm making a hugely strong claim here.
  - durin42 15y ago
    I don't know anybody that doesn't at least express regret over the fact that books on their Kindle can't be shared, and I know more than one family that shares one giant account for all their purchases as a workaround. It's definitely not something people are completely happy with, although they're not as up in arms as I'd like...
  - urbanjunkie 15y ago
    > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. > How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? What does this have to do with me asking you for some evidence that people were more accepting of the fact that they can't lend books out? > How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Again, not sure what this has to do with you saying people accept that it's reasonable to not lend out books. I think we understand different things by "evidence" - you're positing hypotheticals. [updated to add missing not in my penultimate sentence]
    - sparky 15y ago
      > > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? > Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. That's his point. Not many people are boycotting the Kindle, despite its titles being less lendable than their physical counterparts. This seems like evidence to me; it's not likely that you'll find a longitudinal study of people's attitudes towards book lending over the past 50 years, but anecdotally I think it's reasonable to posit that people would have scoffed at Kindle-like lending restrictions on physical books 50 years ago (and probably still would). What sort of evidence would you require?
      - urbanjunkie 15y ago
- Splines 15y ago
  Even bits on physical media are slowly being made un-lendable. EA's "Project Ten Dollar" is an attack at the used games market, and a side affect of this is that you can't lend the whole game to a friend. All Steam games require you to have steam installed, and the physical CD is just a convenience. Once you've installed the game, you might as well throw the CD away. people seem more willing to lend out physical possessions - where they still have them Doesn't that bolster the original claim "many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else."? As more and more media moves to digital distribution, the concept of lending is entirely foreign.
jonnathanson 15y ago
Are people actually more accepting of not being able to share, or is it simply the case that they can't or don't know how? It's a pretty easy and painless gesture to lend someone a physical book for the weekend. It's a much harder gesture to lend someone your entire Kindle or iPad in order for them to access the book. Until/unless sharing features become more available, better known, and more widely used, I think we're really just seeing the effects of "I don't know how" rather than "I wouldn't."
- rwl 15y ago
  I think you're right that people simply don't know how to share, and that they probably would share if they did know how. But isn't it troubling that sharing requires some kind of special knowledge? that sharing is a "feature" to be added (or not) at the producer's whim? And isn't it troubling that people don't seem to be upset about that?
  - hugh3 15y ago
    And isn't it troubling that people don't seem to be upset about that? The fact that they're not presumably indicates that people don't lend their books to their friends all that often. I mean, I have hundreds of books, and I've lent a couple of 'em to friends on a couple of occasions, but if I were physically incapable of doing so then I doubt it would have bothered me too much. Paper books vs eBooks are just different products with different properties. You can read and lend paper books and use 'em as paperweights and sell 'em second hand... but you can't copy 'em, and you can't fit more than a few in your carry-on luggage. eBooks, on the other hand, you can carry around hundreds at a time, but you can't sell or lend 'em or use 'em as paperweights.
- ajross 15y ago
  People had no trouble "sharing" media on floppy disks (or email, etc...). The fact that it's been made (deliberately, IMHO) difficult might be part of the proximate cause for the lack of sharing, but I don't see how that refutes the original point about the Overton window: people's perception of what is "sharable" has shifted over the past 20 years. And that's sad.
endgame 15y ago
You articulated my opinion of rms much better than I've ever been able to. I've always called him a counterweight for the discussion. In letting these DRM schemes take hold and become commercially acceptable, I feel that as a profession, we have failed the general populace. (I am certainly not innocent here. Although I've not developed anything, I've bought quite a few DRM'd games.) Only a few groups (such as the FSF) have stood up and tried to raise awareness of what's going on, but it's not been enough. Observation: I don't think the FSF's tactic of renaming everything helped (iBad, iGroan, Treacherous Computing, Digital Restrictions Management, ...), as it adds another barrier to explaining things to Joe Public. I can see what they're trying to do (make these things sound less friendly), but for the nontechnical end user it just muddies the water.
- technomancy 15y ago
  > iBad, iGroan, Treacherous Computing, Digital Restrictions Management iBad is tacky and groan-worthy, but I think Digital Restrictions Management is quite apropos.
  - endgame 15y ago
    Agreed. Of the ones I listed, it's the only one that stands a chance of sounding plausible. It helps that the discussion about DRM usually refers to it by its initialism.
  - jerf 15y ago
    Digital Restrictions Management has the advantage that it isn't really a renaming, but an upgrade of the descriptiveness of the term. It isn't snotty or obviously juvenile, it is actually more accurate. It is the only expansion I use, because "Rights" is actively deceptive.
aneth 15y ago
First, this is not a loss of freedom. You are free not to buy products, and people are free to write and distribute their work without compensation. Thanks to technology, publishers and distributers are now only relevant for works where the author wants to be paid. Otherwise they would just push a PDF onto their website and you can share it all you want. Second, if consumers could buy books at 10% of the price on the condition that they not loan them to others, this is not a loss of freedom. It's a good deal. Third, when you purchase a book, electronic or not, you are not purchasing the global distribution rights for the book. If that's what you want, it's available for a price I'm sure. Fourth, I feel far more free to access books and information than I did before ebooks. My mother can loan me a book across the country without Fedex. For $10 (less than the price of Fedex'ing that book) I can permanently own a copy of that or nearly any book instantly, anywhere, anytime. I can carry all my books around with me all of the time. I call that freedom. Fifth, let's not forget Amazon's library program! (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2011/04/amazon-to-launch-library-lending-for-kindle-books/1 http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/...) This paranoia is completely unfounded and melodramatic. Take off your tin hats!
- mvalle 15y ago
  You don't permanently own it.
- rapala 15y ago
  Technology is supposed to push humanity forward, make possible the things that once were impossible. The developments in printing made it possible for us, the common people, to own books in the first place. But now technology is also used to limit our use of the books that we own, and I wouldn't call that "a good deal". I recognise the problems in free distribution of digital goods, author compensations beeing the top one in my mind. But as someone already said, we tend to fix the problems with kludges rather than trying to come up with more long lasting solutions.

by kwantam 15y ago

lukejduncan 15y ago

And on that note, the Patriot Act is in the process of being extended

urbanjunkie 15y ago

> many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else. Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very useful. My (personal and anecdotal) experience is just the opposite - people seem more willing to lend out physical possessions - where they still have them. So, books, XBox games, clothes, etc - I see these things being shared all the time.

kwantam 15y ago
Really? Some evidence for this claim would be very useful. How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Really, I don't think I'm making a hugely strong claim here.
- durin42 15y ago
  I don't know anybody that doesn't at least express regret over the fact that books on their Kindle can't be shared, and I know more than one family that shares one giant account for all their purchases as a workaround. It's definitely not something people are completely happy with, although they're not as up in arms as I'd like...
- urbanjunkie 15y ago
  > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. > How fast would I get sued if I made a magical piece of software that allowed people to lend digital music purchases to their friends in some hypothetical way exactly analogous to lending them a physical CD (i.e., only one copy ever exists)? What does this have to do with me asking you for some evidence that people were more accepting of the fact that they can't lend books out? > How fast is the RIAA lawyering up over Amazon et al offering services where I can store my music in their cloud and stream it to myself? Again, not sure what this has to do with you saying people accept that it's reasonable to not lend out books. I think we understand different things by "evidence" - you're positing hypotheticals. [updated to add missing not in my penultimate sentence]
  - sparky 15y ago
    > > How many people are boycotting the Kindle because the lending feature is broken? > Yesterday Amazon announced they're selling more titles on Kindle than hardback and paperback put together. That's his point. Not many people are boycotting the Kindle, despite its titles being less lendable than their physical counterparts. This seems like evidence to me; it's not likely that you'll find a longitudinal study of people's attitudes towards book lending over the past 50 years, but anecdotally I think it's reasonable to posit that people would have scoffed at Kindle-like lending restrictions on physical books 50 years ago (and probably still would). What sort of evidence would you require?
    - urbanjunkie 15y ago
Splines 15y ago
Even bits on physical media are slowly being made un-lendable. EA's "Project Ten Dollar" is an attack at the used games market, and a side affect of this is that you can't lend the whole game to a friend. All Steam games require you to have steam installed, and the physical CD is just a convenience. Once you've installed the game, you might as well throw the CD away. people seem more willing to lend out physical possessions - where they still have them Doesn't that bolster the original claim "many people would now accept that it seems reasonable that you can't lend your books to someone else."? As more and more media moves to digital distribution, the concept of lending is entirely foreign.

jonnathanson 15y ago

Are people actually more accepting of not being able to share, or is it simply the case that they can't or don't know how? It's a pretty easy and painless gesture to lend someone a physical book for the weekend. It's a much harder gesture to lend someone your entire Kindle or iPad in order for them to access the book. Until/unless sharing features become more available, better known, and more widely used, I think we're really just seeing the effects of "I don't know how" rather than "I wouldn't."

rwl 15y ago
I think you're right that people simply don't know how to share, and that they probably would share if they did know how. But isn't it troubling that sharing requires some kind of special knowledge? that sharing is a "feature" to be added (or not) at the producer's whim? And isn't it troubling that people don't seem to be upset about that?
- hugh3 15y ago
  And isn't it troubling that people don't seem to be upset about that? The fact that they're not presumably indicates that people don't lend their books to their friends all that often. I mean, I have hundreds of books, and I've lent a couple of 'em to friends on a couple of occasions, but if I were physically incapable of doing so then I doubt it would have bothered me too much. Paper books vs eBooks are just different products with different properties. You can read and lend paper books and use 'em as paperweights and sell 'em second hand... but you can't copy 'em, and you can't fit more than a few in your carry-on luggage. eBooks, on the other hand, you can carry around hundreds at a time, but you can't sell or lend 'em or use 'em as paperweights.
ajross 15y ago
People had no trouble "sharing" media on floppy disks (or email, etc...). The fact that it's been made (deliberately, IMHO) difficult might be part of the proximate cause for the lack of sharing, but I don't see how that refutes the original point about the Overton window: people's perception of what is "sharable" has shifted over the past 20 years. And that's sad.

endgame 15y ago

You articulated my opinion of rms much better than I've ever been able to. I've always called him a counterweight for the discussion. In letting these DRM schemes take hold and become commercially acceptable, I feel that as a profession, we have failed the general populace. (I am certainly not innocent here. Although I've not developed anything, I've bought quite a few DRM'd games.) Only a few groups (such as the FSF) have stood up and tried to raise awareness of what's going on, but it's not been enough. Observation: I don't think the FSF's tactic of renaming everything helped (iBad, iGroan, Treacherous Computing, Digital Restrictions Management, ...), as it adds another barrier to explaining things to Joe Public. I can see what they're trying to do (make these things sound less friendly), but for the nontechnical end user it just muddies the water.

technomancy 15y ago
> iBad, iGroan, Treacherous Computing, Digital Restrictions Management iBad is tacky and groan-worthy, but I think Digital Restrictions Management is quite apropos.
- endgame 15y ago
  Agreed. Of the ones I listed, it's the only one that stands a chance of sounding plausible. It helps that the discussion about DRM usually refers to it by its initialism.
- jerf 15y ago
  Digital Restrictions Management has the advantage that it isn't really a renaming, but an upgrade of the descriptiveness of the term. It isn't snotty or obviously juvenile, it is actually more accurate. It is the only expansion I use, because "Rights" is actively deceptive.

aneth 15y ago

First, this is not a loss of freedom. You are free not to buy products, and people are free to write and distribute their work without compensation. Thanks to technology, publishers and distributers are now only relevant for works where the author wants to be paid. Otherwise they would just push a PDF onto their website and you can share it all you want. Second, if consumers could buy books at 10% of the price on the condition that they not loan them to others, this is not a loss of freedom. It's a good deal. Third, when you purchase a book, electronic or not, you are not purchasing the global distribution rights for the book. If that's what you want, it's available for a price I'm sure. Fourth, I feel far more free to access books and information than I did before ebooks. My mother can loan me a book across the country without Fedex. For $10 (less than the price of Fedex'ing that book) I can permanently own a copy of that or nearly any book instantly, anywhere, anytime. I can carry all my books around with me all of the time. I call that freedom. Fifth, let's not forget Amazon's library program! (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2011/04/amazon-to-launch-library-lending-for-kindle-books/1 http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/...) This paranoia is completely unfounded and melodramatic. Take off your tin hats!

mvalle 15y ago
You don't permanently own it.
rapala 15y ago
Technology is supposed to push humanity forward, make possible the things that once were impossible. The developments in printing made it possible for us, the common people, to own books in the first place. But now technology is also used to limit our use of the books that we own, and I wouldn't call that "a good deal". I recognise the problems in free distribution of digital goods, author compensations beeing the top one in my mind. But as someone already said, we tend to fix the problems with kludges rather than trying to come up with more long lasting solutions.