File-sharing, Digital Rights Management, Etc.

Politech has a couple of good articles on political developments in the post-Napster world. (That's almost a Katz phrase there, isn't it?) The folks behind Kazaa, when they're not busy spying on their userbase, took the time to write to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after a bashing they took a few weeks ago. Kazaa's new owners suggest a general royalty fee, perhaps similar to the recent webcasting fees, be put in place to compensate intellectual property holders for file-sharing. Meanwhile, the European Commission takes a look at digital rights management. Looks like Europe will get its own version of the SSSCA.

Comments

Errrr

[SevenTowers]

Soak
Wash
Repeat

I'm getting fed up of this bullshit. We all know that in 20 years the technology for online music exhange will still be here and it'll be legal. The music industry is doing the exact same thing the petroleum cies did, boycott the product until they own it. Then market it and prepare the market (ie. electrical cars), and finally say you played along the whole time, while unveiling your product.

The birth of a new monopoly, the same as before, just different packaging.

SSSCA is Wishful Thinking

[buford_tannen]

There are so many people out there sharing music and other files, that it would be difficult to actually stop them. The RIAA thought that people would give up on downloading mp3s after the death of Napster, but instead the music exchange continued (and may have even grown). Schemes like gnutella have been largely invulnerable to attack from the {RI,MP}AA, although they could still be improved to further protect their users.

My point is this: no matter what they do, people will find a way around it. There may be some martyrs at every turn, such as Emannuel Goldstein and Derek Fawcus with DeCSS, but now CSS is all but broken, and virtually anyone can find DeCSS if they look. A DRM OS, while evil, can still be broken, and tracking down the subversives who use Linux/BSD and other "unAmerican" OSes would prove difficult. And if the governement started coming after the people, they just might have a revolution on their hands.

This isn't something to get overly depressed about. We should be fighting it, but even if they win the battle of legislation, we are still able to continue the war.

Re:This Makes No Sense

[renehollan]

Unlike you, I shall not hide behind anonymity.

I've often thought that one should use whatever means are commensurate with the threat at hand to defend one's constitutional rights, including killing those who would take them away, collateral damage be damned, if it comes to that. Otherwise, such rights are meaningless.

The only issue then, after (for example) killing the dozen cops trying to arrest you for daring to run Linux, is whether you have a constitutional right to do so.

If so, you go scott free.

If not, you fry.

I'd think that, with the stakes so high, we would not see very much murder in the name of defending bogus rights that do not exist.

Re:That's the whole point of harmonisation

[wfrp01]

I think you're absolutely right. There's a bigger problem here - I want to use the word "globalization", but that words been so overused of late I'm not even sure it really has a meaning any more. Call it the smothering of nationalism. When nations are sovereign, it's much harder for the evil robber barrons to impose such draconian legislation. People can always route around the damage.

When I was a kid, I used to think "Wouldn't it be great to have one world government?! No wars. Peace and prosperity for everyone." Now the notion scares me to death. Soon there will be no place to turn. Mega-corporations will rule the world.

Eisner testifies at the SSSCA hearings. Why? How many ordinary citizens, who will shortly be declared criminals, had an opportunity to speak to these assholes? None. Zippo. So much for social progress. The corporate CEO has become the fuedal lord of the new milleneum.

Re:Isn't price really part of the problem???

[mpe]

CDs cost less than cassettes, but are priced higher, "because of apparent value".

The actual cost of pressed CD's is very low. Consider the number of computer magazines which come with at least one disk or even the way AOL send out postal spam with their disks.
CD's are priced based on what the market will bear. Similarly for DVD's, except that they came up with the idea of regions, so as to charge what the market will bear in each of those reagions...

Imagine a dissenter nation

[maxpublic]

Imagine if this law was passed in the U.S. and in Europe, but not, say, in Canada. Many programmers would protest, ineffectively, and decide to live with it no matter how distasteful; but a not insignificant minority might say "Canada's looking pretty good right about now".

If even this minority decided to move to Canada the country would suddenly inherit a wealth of technical expertise - unfettered technical expertise - which would result in a boom in its technological industries. Along with a resultant expansion in the economy and the creation of thousands of new jobs.

All you need is one savvy, future-oriented nation to say "no thanks" to these kinds of laws while it sits back and reaps the rewards of dissent in other nations. Not to mention the sales (roundabout or direct) of non-crippled devices to countries which have outlawed their own industries from producing these goodies.

(I'm using Canada as the example because, so far, they don't appear to be caught up in the same sort of digital hysteria that seems to be sweeping the U.S. and Europe. I could be wrong - any resident Canadians, feel free to correct me.)

Max