Slashdot Mirror
The Internet Backlash
An AC wrote to say that "telepolis has an article telling you why the DMCA and the companies who pushed it forward are doomed to fail. It's nothing new but a good summary of the neverending copyright discussion." The author's summary is good but I disagree with the conclusion -- there's no reason to believe that some deus ex machina is suddenly going to save net users from a police state.
As for preventing people from knowing that they have these rights... well, again the Internet will tell them. And if they don't feel the urge to go look, then obviously they're not using these rights, and so it doesn't matter whether they know about them or not. A shame, but then they probably used AOL anyway. The savages.
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Yes. Go to http://www.baen.com.
They're selling digital books over the Internet, at approximately $2.50 each, way less than the paperback version.
I've had a RocketReader since they first came out. However, I never purchased any books for the device. I didn't want to deal with the hassle of re-licensing books if my reader ever bit the dust (which is likely considering how many times I've dropped it already). Too much like Divx (the failed DVD format) for my tastes.
In contrast, Baen sells books unencrypted, in formats like RTF and HTML. I feel safe buying these books, because I know I'll always have software available to read the format. This is a very good thing.
There's a very good essays on their site explaining their philosophy, and why they think it works. Jim Baen clearly sees which way things are going because of advances in technology. He gets it. Which shouldn't be too suprising since he's a SF publisher...