3 ms·
You are reasoning from what might be better described as an artifact of a limited period in time that will never come again reasoning from happenstance as if it
by michaelmrose 3y ago
You are reasoning from what might be better described as an artifact of a limited period in time that will never come again reasoning from happenstance as if it were a fundamental source of meaning.
It's trivial with backups to retain digital data forever. Even going just a bit further back in time books and vinyl can last a lifetime. What you are hanging your argument on is the lack of durability of optical disks a factor for ~40 years vs the inherent infinite durability of files forever after.
We shouldn't expect infinitely durable things to emulate tangible things that wear out because it would be convenient for rights holders if it were so.
The interests of rights holders is rarely aligned with the public. Its a multitude of barren fields that have never yielded anything because they are capable of buying art but not capable of making it. Even creatives have largely been compensated for their work many times over and are largely offering society bondage in return for nothing. More manure than fertile field. I suppose this is an overly long way to say fuck em.
Instead of quite frankly over complicated nonsense just don't legally let people use the term buy if the company can by any means whatsoever reclaim their rights EVER. They should have to use the word rent and give a duration and that duration should be enforced. The simplest way to enforce this is if you use the word buy you cannot encumber the PURCHASE with DRM whatsoever.
Current rights holders should have to provide a means to remove existing DRM. Failure to do so should imply forfeiting the entire purchase price. Rights holders that offer rentals and don't meet the duration should have to offer a prorated refund for the time stolen from users.
The sky wouldn't fall. People would still make movies, music, and write books.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago> We shouldn't expect infinitely durable things to emulate tangible things that wear out because it would be convenient for rights holders if it were so. Not only that, it's copyrights which are supposed to expire. The idea that physical media should be expected to degrade through the passage of time sooner than works will enter into the public domain is absurd.
- seoulbigchris 3y agoWhat provision does DCMA have, if any, for removing DRM when a copyright expires?
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoAfter the copyright expires it's no longer a copyrighted work and then you're not circumventing DRM that protects a copyrighted work. The real problem is that circumvention tools are prohibited regardless of what you use them for, so then they use the same DRM system on works that are still under copyright and you nominally can't provide someone with tools to break the DRM on the ones in the public domain. (In practice people just ignore the law or distribute circumvention tools from servers in other countries.) It's not completely obvious that it actually works this way. For example, if someone's "DRM system" is that the box it comes in is screwed shut and you're intended to use some I/O pins provided on the outside, does that mean a screw driver is a circumvention tool and therefore screw drivers are illegal? Obviously problematic if so, but in the reverse case where anyone else using the same system for something other than protecting a copyrighted work means anyone can distribute tools to circumvent it, third parties would just put public domain works behind the same DRM system as copyrighted ones so that anyone could distribute circumvention tools. The prohibition on circumvention tools is batshit crazy.
- seoulbigchris 3y agoSo for example, if a diligent company offered a DRM removal tool, perhaps in escrow, for its media for which copyright had expired, it would be breaking the DCMA. Can DRM media be considered to be in the public domain if it is locked up by a company that’s probably out of business by the time copyright has expired, and breaking the encryption is illegal under DCMA? If the company is still in business, I suppose they could publish the keys publicly