EFF Compiles Endangered Gizmos List

Hungry Student writes "The EFF has published an "Endangered Gizmos" list of technology that is at risk of extinction from the lobbyists of the entertainment industry. Extinct species include DVD X-Copy and Napster 1.0. Among those fighting for survival are Morpheus and HDTV tuner cards. The BBC has commentary on this as well." From the article: "The EFF intends the list to be part of a wider educational and awareness project, and it will be updated regularly as more gadgets and technologies are saved or killed off."

Comments

Forgive me for pontificating

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about companies and artists being "stolen" from. It's about corporate entities finally having the kind of leverage to exert full control over content distribution from inception to consumption.

If a company can control the distribution of its "intellectual property" - e.g. a song - from the moment it's recorded until it hits your ears - then there's additional opportunities for a revenue stream at any point in that line. For instance, you can purchase a song from iTunes. Or you can pay XM $10 a month for the privilege of listening to that same song on their satellite service. Or you could go to the record store and purchase a disc you can put in your CD player and play.

But the act of copying said content, and giving it to a friend - that's completely outside the revenue stream, and the content companies seek to stop this type of action. Even if the creator of the content - the artist - would see benefit from this action. (An example: a friend recently made a copy of the Secret Machines album for me. I bought a copy for my brother, and then a copy for myself. How is this bad for the artist?)

Music, video, and other entertainment content is *not* intellectual property. Trade secrets, manufacturing methods, software - that's IP. But music in specific is undergoing a transformation. Content control is not natural in the broad scope - it's an artificial control mechanism put in place to generate revenue.

Re:Forgive me for pontificating

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Why is copyright not considered IP? OK, there is a joke about not requiring intellect to make, but it still falls within the IP scope as far as I can tell.

Heck, why is software considered IP and not media? Heck, a broader definition of software includes media even if it is linear and doesn't require a computing device to decode it.

Trademarks are a sub-type of IP, as are patents, copyrights, trade secrets, etc. They each have their uses and abuses.

Re:Forgive me for pontificating

[no_opinion]

I recommend that you not speak for people who make a living off of music, because copyright violation is exactly what it's about. We want to let consumers do whatever they want with their music *for their own enjoyment*. The fact that you bought copies of a shared CD puts you in the minority. Most people would not bother buying something they already got for free.

As an aritist, I have a right to decide how I want to make my music available. A consumer's desire to get it for free does not trump my right to sell it - at least not in America since we don't live by communism. Try and make the same rationalization in the context of something like a movie theater. Just because you think a theater is charging too much to watch a movie does not give you the right to sneak in for and see it for free.

Re:Forgive me for pontificating

[GoodNicsTken]

Your right, this is about copyright violation. The works of a society belong to that society. Copyright law was ment to give a TEMPORARY period for you to have control of the content to encourage works.

That idea was lost long ago, your copyrights as an artist will outlive you and probably your children. Society is currently getting the raw end of the deal so Mickey Mouse doesn't end up in the public domain.

I wish people would see both sides of this issue instead of, "he's Stealing from me."

And how does this help?

[blanks]

In regards as to why this is happening...

Does this create inovation?

What about jobs, any new jobs? Or less jobs?

How about the customers? This helps them right?

Who exactlly does this help other then a few very large companies with very bad/old business models?

From what I understand, this suffercates inovation, really hurts customers, and causes many people to lose jobs, and many many more over the next couple of years.

Re:And how does this help?

[doublem]

It bolsters the business models the wealthy are already using.

If real innovation were permitted, media companies would have to spend money on R&D to keep up, and even roll out new product lines instead of milking the old ones.

Do you think we'd have DVDs if people hadn't found many easy ways to copy VHS tapes? Nope. Same with CDs. They exist because they're cheaper to produce than tapes, yet can be sold for more because of the "higher quality" and because they were, at the time of their release, damn difficult to copy.

Re:PCHDTV HD-3000

[GIL_Dude]

Because this is Linux - you are supposed to enjoy the pain of recompiling stuff, using GCC, etc. You aren't supposed to be one of those wuss windows users who expects a setup.exe to do magic for you.

Re:PCHDTV HD-3000

[AKnightCowboy]

Just get a Hauppauge WinTV PVR250 card. They work fine. HDTV is overrated... I don't expect it to take off. Other than high resolution Janet Jackson boobies, what's the point? Survivor in high definition? Who cares how good the picture is if the content sucks?