Content Faction v. Tech Faction

An Anonymous reader writes: "This essay describes the current battle between two former allies in the DMCA fight - The Content Faction (Universal, MPAA, etc.) v The Tech Faction (IBM, Microsoft, etc.). It gives a great overview of what the battle is, who is taking what position, what's at stake - and how consumers are going to be taking it in the *** no matter who wins, it's just a matter of how rough it will be. "

Comments

compelling content?

[TTop]

article says:

What's been missing from the debate so far has been the users themselves. It seems safe to say that most computer and Internet users like to have choices -- choices both of the content they consume and of the kinds of tools they should get to use. Still, maybe citizens would say they're willing to give up "general-purpose" computers and willing to use, instead, systems designed to prevent them from engaging in willy-nilly copying, if that is the price you have to pay for compelling music and movies and television over the Internet.

I guess I don't hear people clamoring for "compelling music and movies and television" over the Internet. I already have devices that do all three of those things just fine -- what's going to compell me to buy new devices to do these same things? I don't really want to sit in front of my computer to watch movies or television anyway, and I don't see the digital televisions coming into the _really_ affordable range (sub $1k) anyway.

I'd be happy to keep it that way as long as nobody tries to mandate how my computer treats bits! Why would I want to give up my existing devices for new content-controlled, digital rights managed devices? Is it somehow going to be "better" for me? What are the benefits to the consumer? It seems like (almost?) all the benefits are for the content companies, not me! Why would somebody pay money for this?

The sound of Inevitability...

[Bonker]

"Do you hear that, Mister Andersen?"

Listening to this argument is interesting, because you can see just how much these companies, the Tech giants on one side and the Distribution giants on the other continue to rail against what they call the 'Destruction of the Intellectual Property Industry', at least as what they said in the article.

All I have to say is: The Sooner the Better.

Seriously. These guys are fighting obsolescence. They were obsolete the second the first computer disk was digitally written. That was the shot that killed them. Not Napster... not Gnutella, not Morpheus. Not even DivX or DeCSS. What these industries do not know is that they've been doomed to slow death the second mankind invented digital storage. The ability to store and manipulate data in a digital format is one of those watershed inventions, like fire, the wheel, gunpowder, or the combustion engine. Too much has changed for the existing order to survive. Just like there are no wagon makers any more, there will be no 'content distributors' in the future.

The fact that information can be reproduced endlessly, perfectly and easily by individuals, invalidates all the companies who sprung up in order to fill the gap that existed before digital information storage was possible.

The record industry bitterly, bitterly regrets the invention of the CD. It's very nearly a perfect format for storing audio. The people who make CD's and hardware for and software for creating CD's sure as hell don't, though. Roxio, as well as others like Phillips and Magnavox all have commercials on TV that encourage their customers to make CD's full of 'free' MP3's.

Yeah, right. As if. 'Free'. Sure....

The same thing is going on between the distribution industry and the computer hardware industry. Sure, it's a good thing for hard drives and CPU's to be altered so that information cannot be copied on them. That makes them a lot more expensive to produce, however. Why should one industry suffer because another is obsolete? That's the thought going through the minds of the people at Maxtor, Western Digital, and Iomega. It's also the thought going through the minds of people at Intel and AMD.

For the recording and entertainment industries to survive, they're very literally trying to cripple an entire industry with players from all around the globe. They're buying legislation right now because that's the only chance they have to force companies like ABit and Acer, who aren't even headquartered in the United States to tow the line.

But it's already too late. The first step in any kind of revolution is civil disobedience. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes the flow of ideas is just too powerful to allow the existing order to stay in power. Gandhi believed this when he led India against Britain, and he ended up being right.

Even if the recording and entertainment industries manage to buy all the legislation they want, they're still faced with the daunting task of stopping the civil disobedience they've created. They'll very literally have to march into every home and take away non-DRM compliant computers and TVs.

Here's a quick hint. The U.S. government tried to do this in the 30's with alcohol. It ended up being one of the single greatest failures of the government and has created criminal and social problems that live on today.

So, the long and short is not how long you can hold on to your computers... It's how long the RIAA, MPAA and any other companies that make money by restricting the flow of information can hold on to life.

Die, bitches, die...

Re:which is worse

[Buran]

"Have a wallpaper of some copyrighted picture? Yeah, that's illegal."

Is it? Not really... unless you bought it from, say, a "bundleware" CD of stuff that is supposed to be free (many freeware programs explicitly say in their readmes that this is not allowed) or it's an illegally resold commercial item (stolen goods?)

Fair use is an interesting thing. Browsing the machine that hosts my web site (I'm one of a number of virtual hosts on it) I came across this page once:

Q: I love that drawing of yours, may I use it as the desktop wallpaper on my personal computer at home?

A: Sure you can. You're enjoying it personally, after all. This doesn't mean you can use if for your wallpaper on a webpage though! Private viewing of my work, such as on a PC desktop, is just fine.

In other words, this is fair use. The image may be copyrighted, but since you are not reselling it and are viewing it "in your own home" as those FBI warnings on home movies put it, there's no real harm. The images are provided for that purpose, after all -- what's the difference between dropping it on your desktop and floating windows over it and just leaving it in your browser? This is an example of what is intended by the fair use copyright law. A real shame that more content providers (in this case an artist) don't "get it" like this one does.

Yeah, I have a fair amount of copyrighted images on my computer. No, I don't redistribute them. Most of them are there as results of discussions ("this is what that looks like, so you know what I'm talking about"). That falls under "academic" use, which is largely what the recent arguments of fair use are about (Prof. Felten is a prime example).

I'd be a lot worse off if my own computer denied me permission to do that. The worst part of all this isn't the lost profits for one of these two camps.

It is going to be when academic freedoms, long held almost sacred here in the US, start to die. Compared to that threat, which has huge potential for long-term damage, the short-term worries about movies and music are a joke.

But that's typical of the MPAA/RIAA lately. Make money now and screw over the future. I bet the space station engineers at NASA and Boeing would be nodding their heads right now if they were reading this ...

suing the record companies

[Alien54]

There was this blurb recently:

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/1348770p-14 18333c.html

Elton John, No Doubt and the Eagles are among a group of musicians who will perform at five benefit concerts the night before the Grammy Awards telecast to raise money for a legislative fight against the record industry. [...] "It's about time for artists to take control of their work and how it is presented to our fans," said Dexter Holland of the band Offspring, which will perform as part of the effort. [...] The tentative lineup is Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, the Eagles, Dixie Chicks and Stevie Nicks at the Forum in Inglewood; Offspring, No Doubt, Weezer at the Long Beach Convention Center; Ozzy Osborne at the Los Angeles Sports Arena; rhythm and blues acts to be announced at the Universal Amphitheatre; and country artists at an undetermined fifth site.

Of course, the record companies are denying any allegations.

On the news

[r_j_prahad]

It almost brought tears to my eyes when I watched this week's news footage of Afghani citizens out in their back yards in Kabul, digging up old VCRs and TV sets that they had buried to keep them from being seized by the Taliban. One old gentleman had constructed a secret room in his house to hide thousands of books, magazines, and videotapes that would have been destroyed had they been discovered. People were lining the streets listening to music again after a decade long ban, and many were openly weeping for joy.

But what really choked me up was the whole time I was watching that story, I was thinking to myself "this is your future, this is you digging holes in your yard, in the U.S., to hide computer parts and copies of Linux from your oppressive government".