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Consumer Technology Bill of Rights?
thrilliams writes "The WSJ's Walt Mossberg has a story about DigitalConsumer.org, a new lobbying group that's pressing for a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. It would aim to protect the right to time shift and space shift media, make backups, allow for platform independence and translation between formats. Given the current DCMA/SSSCA climate, even these basic rights seem ambitious, but check them out and do what you can to support this nascent effort." There's also an NYT article on the SSSCA debate, with an unintentionally humorous quote from the head of News Corporation (which owns 20th Century Fox): "without copyright protection we will change our business models".
Because it's not news. The flopbox has utterly failed in Japan. The worst console launch ever. The flopbox is wasting away in last place in the US on MS payouts to no name companies with all the major console houses either with no plans for future product for it or at most treating it as a cheap porting platform after the PS2 versions of their games have shipped. The flopbox is irrelevant. Or no more relevant than the Dreamcast is now. The PS2 and GameCube are all us in the console biz care about.
To address the myraid of issues concerning consumers' rights in the modern age. Digital copyrights are an obvious issue, with the whole Napster/RIAA/P2P stuff that's going on these days. And privacy is another one -- I would argue that all email lists should be opt-in, so that consumers can explicitly choose who has the right to contact them. Of course, I doubt that would ever fly -- spam has existing in snail format far longer than the electronic version has, so there's probably not enough reason there to limit it.
I also think this would be a perfect time to nail Microsoft's shoes to the ground, in terms of how they bundle new modules into every subsequent release of their operating system. Their most recent gripe is that the OS is so closely bound to each of its (formerly standalone) components, it would ruin the OS if they had to split it up. I think it should be every consumer's unalienable right to be able to select which pieces of discrete functionality exist on their computer. Every other softwar manufacturer on the planet has an uninstaller program to go along with their install -- why should Microsoft be any different?! If they want to go ahead and bundle their stuff together, that's fine -- but they would also have to design it in such a way that I could remove Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player, if I so chose.
Finally, I think that spyware should be made illegal -- or, at the very least, every installer of spyware should come with a simpified explanation of what information will be transmitted to where, under what conditions, and for what use. Violating those rules should be grounds for stiff penalties and the purging of all offending information -- so if a company sells data to a 3rd party without the consent of the user, A) they're liable for it and B) the company which obtained that information is obligated to erase it. Hell, make it a telescoping fine, for repeat offenders -- first infraction, $xxx per violation; second offense, $x,xxx per violation; etc.
But of course, all this is but a pipe dream -- the very thought of our representatives in this country siding with the people, and not Big Business, is laughable at best. Or do we need to look any further than the recent decision to postpone requiring the auto industry to clean up its act?
You can find pictures of real X-Box here
And there is news ( in finnish again ) about happening where people got their X-Boxes first in Europe. There were only about 10 people waiting for X-Box according to story. And one who won X-Box said that he wouldn't have bought that console anyway..