Slashdot Mirror
Surefire Way To Stifle Innovation
denissmith writes "C|NET has a very funny piece by Patrick Ross, where he pooh-pooh's Congressman Rick Boucher's (D-VA) efforts to protect Fair Use by claiming that it will stifle innovation." From the article: "If HR-1201 becomes law, every consumer could legally hack any TPM by claiming fair use, and as fair use isn't codified, there would be as many definitions of it as there are consumers. Consumers would be legally sanctioned to break their contracts with the content provider. No sane business operator enters a contract in which one party has the right to disregard its terms at will, but that's what HR-1201 permits. That hated TPM would disappear from the market, as there's no reason to employ a lock if everyone has a legal right to the key. But as TPM leaves, so do the digital offerings that come with it."
And surely bills from either side encompass strictly a single regulation and would never be used for pork.
It really peeves me when we add laws on top of laws rather than repealing bad ones and drafting new ones to cover changes. Innovation has occurred for thousands of years without copyright or patent protection. Free use wasn't even a phrase until we started to see tyrannical laws that abuse basic rights, inherent to all humans regardless of what their governments say or do.
Whatever movement is made in the law books, nothing will matter. The Internet combines the wishes of billions, disregarding every law. Funny thing is, the Internet really lets the free market shine without trampling on the basic human rights.
The Net won't murder, won't rape, won't rob from your home or incur taxes you don't want to pay. It won't restrict your right to speak freely, it won't take your guns away, it won't harbor troops in your home.
As more people embrace the Net, more will use the rights they were born with. More will commit legal crimes that are morally acceptable.
In the long run, maybe we'll see laws that protect life, liberal and property rights rather than laws controlling thought or non-violent actions.
Do bloggers worry about copyright? Do musicians on purevolume worry? Do researchers posting their theses care?
Everything I dream of in my free market world is coming true online, and no law is stopping it. Boucher's bill won't do jack. Repeal copyright and you'll see more innovation than ever.
Why release good music freely? Fans may pay you for more, or a production company might hire you to write something for them, or you might gain customers for your live shows, or you might get people to your site to gain AdSense revenue. Copyright won't protect your income-via-monopoly much longer.
> That hated TPM would disappear from the market, as there's no reason to employ a lock if everyone has
> a legal right to the key. But as TPM leaves, so do the digital offerings that come with it.
We always hear this crap, that all these just over the horizon but so wonderous digital offerings will go away. But they are all as bad or worse as Divx (the Circuit City crap that was rejected by 'Consumers', not the popular codec) so good riddance. I really don't see how my life will be worse if these wonders never come and can all too quickly see how they will be worse with everything DRMed. So if DRM that actually works is the price for Hi-Def or online content I am more than content to keep buying CDs and DVDs.
Democrat delenda est
And I smell someone who is REALLY confused. Check my comment page. That says, "AKAImBatman's Latest 24 of 5957 Comments", not "24 comments".
;-)
:-)
:-)
And this guy (AKAImBatman) who's come out of nowhere
To quote tweety bird, "He don't know me wery well, do he?"
claiming to be confused and making bizarre convoluted claims which come down with the non-obvious conclusion that the article is correct in declaring that Fair Use is bad and will stifle innovation.
No, that would be your interpretation of what I said. Free yourself from the groupthink man! Fight the... err... anti-man... um... after you fought "The Man"... eh... and all that jazz. Or you could just think for yourself.
Seriously, these things are always more complicated than Slashdot often makes them out to be. Creating a law that redefines Fair Use to an extreme *may* be as bad as the DMCA itself. It's important to understand what it's all about before getting behind it. Personally, I think that this at least shows that some of our representatives are thinking about their actual constituants. Unfortunately, I can't say if I support this bill until I've read it. (And yes, I've read the DMCA. And no, it's not entirely bad.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade