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From the "Right to Read" 1997-02... "Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central L
by jaekwon 15y ago
From the "Right to Read" 1997-02...
"Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing." -> Streaming content, DMCA tech
"It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel." -> Jailbreaking
"But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that." -> trusted computing
"But ordinary users started using [free debugging tools] to bypass copyright monitors, and eventually a judge ruled that this had become their principal use in actual practice. This meant they were illegal; the debuggers' developers were sent to prison." -> DeCSS, Sony
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From "The Dangers of Software Patents" 2004-05-24...
"Copyright covers a work of authorship. A patent covers an idea. ...... But a patent is an absolute monopoly on the use of an idea. Even if you could prove that you had the idea yourself, that would be irrelevant: you're still not allowed to use it." ->
Apple filed U.S. application Ser. No. 10/842,862 entitled “Multipoint Touchscreen,” filed on 2004-05-04 and published as U.S. Published Application No. 2006/0097991 on 2006-05-11.
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From "Copyright and Globalization" 2001-04-19... (Selected bits that were interesting to me)
"In the ancient world, books were written by hand with a pen, …… you could copy a part of a book, then write some new words, copy some more and write some new words and on and on. This was called “writing a commentary” — that was a common thing to do — and these commentaries were appreciated. …… Now copyright was developed along with the use of the printing press and given the technology of the printing press, it had the effect of an industrial regulation. It didn't restrict what readers could do; it restricted what publishers and authors could do. …… copyright law no longer acts as an industrial regulation; it is now a Draconian restriction on a general public. It used to be a restriction on publishers for the sake of authors. Now, for practical purposes, it's a restriction on a public for the sake of publishers. …… To enforce it requires surveillance — an intrusion — and harsh punishments, and we are seeing these being enacted into law in the U.S. and other countries." -> NAFTA which is mentioned in the talk, SOPA, Protect IP, etc
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- pg 15y agoPredicting DRM phoning home in 1997 does not seem startlingly prescient. Nor locked down systems; those already existed. The only novel idea I see here is the point that copyright, which was originally a restriction on publishers, has now become a restriction on consumers. But that doesn't seem so dystopian. Everyone is a publisher now.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- chipsy 15y agoStallman's arguments are not strictly against market forces. He also attacks authoritarianism, which has a long history of using any justification to control information; so long as we have an authoritarian impulse in our politics, his dystopic vision holds weight.
- jaekwon 15y agoYes. Laurence Lessig (in his book 'Code') argues that market forces is what paves the way for locked systems, which naturally leads to abuse.
- siglesias 15y agoDidn't market forces lead the iTunes music DRM to be eliminated?
- skore 15y agoIt certainly has the power to do both and the usual course of action is indeed to jump into closed systems only to open them up later. That's all fine and well if we're only talking technology, but a number of companies increasingly invest in a dual strategy where they also make governments do their bidding when it comes to technology - that started out with software patents (clearly a pandoras box, opened, now) which are already harming innovation and is now leading into things like SOPA where, transparently, policy is proposed to 'fix' the technological empowerment that we have enjoyed on the Internet for so long in favor of protecting the deep pockets of a few corporations. Remember - technology is only a tool and what happens with that tool is always guided by the ones who yield the most power. It was possible for Apple to eliminate DRM only because they maneuvered themselves into a position of power where media corporations were being lead by Apple and not the other way around. I think the actual reason why DRM was abandoned was because it was just not feasible, for music - remember the horror stories with Windows DRM for music, for instance. Removing DRM was both damage control by Apple and a 'hip' thing to do in the wake of consumer dissatisfaction. I have yet to see a similar push in any other field than music - extremely restrictive licensing and DRM are still alive and well in proprietary software and video content, respectively, and it doesn't seem like there is any change to that on the horizon. It probably helps that the Apple->Jobs->Pixar->Disney link is a very strong one and that video content is used fundamentally different compared to music. Anyhow - it's always both - big corporations do have to pay attention to the market and both follow the will of the consumer and what is best for their own bottom line, which sometimes overlap. But sometimes they get weary of that and short circuit the system through politics (although that is often initiated by companies that are not primarily in technology). That's where any degree of authoritarianism is quite an asset.