RE: Intellectual property: another shot accross the bow

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Jul 04 2001 - 22:31:58 MDT


Alex Bokov wrote

> http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html
>
> (synopsis: copy protection and especially the legal
> manipulations aimed at enforcing it are illogical,
> technically problematic, and will destroy our freedom)

Here are two excerpts!

> By restrictive laws like the Audio Home Recording Act, which killed the
DAT market. By "anti-circumvention" laws like the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, which EFF is now litigating. By Federal agency actions, like
the FCC deciding a month ago that it will be illegal to offer citizens the
capability to record HDTV programs, even if the citizens have the legal
right to.

> Pioneer New Media Technologies, who builds the recently announced
recordable DVD drive for Apple, says "The major consumer applications for
recordable DVD will be home movie editing and storage and digital photo
storage". They carefully don't say "time-shifting TV programs, or recording
streaming Internet videos", because the manufacturers and the distribution
companies are in cahoots to make sure that that capability never reaches the
market. Even though it's 100% legal to do so, under the Supreme Court's
Betamax decision.
<

The entire article is pretty scary; there's even an eventual threat
to the use of nanotechnology to alleviate scarcity.

Lee Corbin



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