From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Thu Apr 10 2003 - 08:28:38 MDT
On Wed, 2003-04-09 at 17:54, Hal Finney wrote:
w.
LDC wrote:
> > So the only way for the rights-limited content to have any value is
> > for the law to recognize the author's rights to restrict access to
> > his creations, and for the many reasons I've outlined on this forum
> > and elsewhere, I don't support such laws. This technology legitimizes
> > those laws: it makes the assumption that the author has the right to
> > control access to information made public, and provides a means of
> > enforcing that assumption. But it wouldn't be valuable without the
> > laws behind it, and it's the laws I really object to.
Hal wrote:
> Okay, I think this argument makes sense in its own terms: DRM only works
> if there is the threat of force behind it, because otherwise people would
> break the restrictions and get the data for free. It is this use of
> force to restrict information that you find evil, and since DRM relies
> on force, it is inherently evil as well.
### This is a fascinating thread in which I can't participate as much as
I want because of time constraints, but let me make one observation:
Trusted computing could work even without a threat of force behind it
(in the sense of forbidding the use of non-trusted systems). There are
huge databases of content, which are too complex and fragile to exist in
a reliable and cheap manner on P2P networks. An example is the sum of
all biomedical literature available on Medline, including the full-text
articles. Trusted access points to this database would simplify selling
it to users outside of universities. Now, a person with an access point,
a camera pointed at the computer screen and a robot to type commands
could circumvent any DRM restrictions, and copy parts of the database
into non-trusted systems, but he could not provide on-demand access to
the full database (which is crucial to the scientist) without either
copying everything (impossible/expensive), or maintaining the trusted
access anyway. In this case, the owner of the database would have an
economic advantage over the bootleggers, and as long as the price of
trusted access is not unreasonably high, the market for bootleggers
would be quite limited. Trusted computing would enhance this economic
advantage.
It would be very important in this case to maintain the "fair use"
provisions of current law and to extend them to P2P networks. They would
act as a check on the power of the database owner - if he decides to
increase prices too high, P2P networks could undercut him, but as long
as he remains price/hassle competitive (=the total burden of price +
inconvenience for his product is lower than for the P2P access), he
would stay in business. This would be a win to all sides, with built-in
non-governmental means of staying balanced. The copyright law would only
proscribe *commercial* abuse of protected data, giving enough of a
stimulus to produce it, but without the unrestricted monopoly that would
exist without P2P networks.
Rafal
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