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NCC Calls for Laws to Protect User Rights
earthlingpink writes "We're used to reading articles about new and creative ways in which DRM and other such technologies can be used to prevent us from doing whatever we like with our media. The BBC offers us a glimmer of hope with a story about how the National Consumer Council (NCC) has made a report to a parliamentary inquiry in which it has highlighted the issues faced by many of us. From the article: 'Consumers face security risks to their equipment, limitations on their use of products, poor information when purchasing products and unfair contract terms.'"
Given how big business has subverted the Democratic process, expect those who proposed this to be quietly removed from office...
Terms of a contract strike you as unfair? Don't agree to it!
Back to the topic, IMO DRM encourages piracy as the "legit" has less options about what he can do with his product than the "pirate".
The best excuse for a President, a King or others *insert your words*, is God. God has still yet to find an excuse.
Thanks. I believe the word democracy is the worst villain in tyranny. The founding fathers likely believed it to be the case, but they were unable to battle off the big government founding fathers entirely. Hamilton and Clay were the enemies of the People, Jefferson and Washington were the enemies of the State. In the end, we're living in a world that Hamilton and Clay would have loved.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Ironically, the article is talking about England, not the US. :-)
At the end of the day, people want to use what they buy. Say you are making a home movie - and you want to use some music from the soundtrack of your favourite movie (which you have bought, on CD, online or however) to make it interesting/funny/epic, it shouldn't be a hassle to drop in an mp3 and edit it to your heart's content. If you can't, people just get frustrated and the whole era of 'easy multimedia' becomes a big joke.
I don't even get the concept of 'plays for sure' - if (eventually) all devices can play the damn song, whats the point of restricting it in the first place?
The problem with your protest is that the US is not - and has never been - a democracy. The vast majority of decisions are made for us by our duly elected representatives. I agree with you - completely - about democracy. However, the system in place is not responsible for the failure of our government, but the people who have abused it and abused the people of the United States.
The electoral system, I think, *is*, in large part, responsble for our predicament. The cost of campaigning is so prohibitive - and it's money that's simply gone, even if you win the election - that even if a politician starts out with the grandest of intentions and the most pristine ideals, in order to become elected, he or she has to find sponsors. And that money is not free.
The current situation makes a politician's first priority simply getting re-elected. And to get the money for that compaign, he or she must participate in quid pro quo. I don't think all politicians *start out* being lying, cheating, scheming, influence-peddling, traitorious bastards; but those qualities are insitutionalized by the system. Witness the abramofity of Washington.
Thinking outside my Head
I am glad that there are organizations protecting consumers' rights. They form a critical balance to self-interested business who are only looking out for themselves, with considerable legal and political clout.
But pronouncements like this bore me silly. You've got companies shouting "We must protect our property!" and consumers screaming "We must protect our rights!" and so the final result is an unprincipled compromise between the two by lawmakers desperate only to stop the clamor in both ears simultaneously.
I'd be much more interested in an article which talked about principled compromises. There are all sorts of technological and legal solutions to ensure BOTH the consumers' rights to use purchased content in a variety of ways, AND the producer's rights to sell their property to all the consumers who wish to buy it at a rate the market will bear without having the simplest part of the creative process, duplicating the final result, pre-empted.
Apple, for example, has a system which allows considerable, but not complete, flexibility in the way you use the music you buy. Rather than just having the NCC declare "We want more!" I'd prefer to hear them propose a better solution, one which helps protect the producer's rights as well as their own. Until then I'm going to keep tuning out their arguments.
1. Buy media. . .
.
6. Refrain from using the term "intellectual property" . .
As a corallary explain to them that one of the reasons for buying physical media is because it is property. They own it, not license it. They may use it as their property and its cash value is retained by them as an asset.
Do not buy "IP," buy property.
KFG
You are saying that the people who tax us get a lot more out of those $3/hr than we do (in your example, 1*10^9 per hour), so they can afford to cheat us out of even more money?
Sort of. I'm actually not saying $3 per hour, but $3 per year. $3 per year to you (the taxpayer) means $1 billion per year to the crony receiving the entitlement that the tax pays for. You won't work hard to get rid of the $3 per hour tax (will you call your representative every day?) but they will work hard to get the $1 billion entitlement (they'll not only call the representative every day but they'll wine and dine them).
What I do NOT get is how this applies to democracy, or DRM.
Democracy without limit is terrible. If 50%+1 can vote to take all the wealth of 50%-1, it is ok. The US constitution was supposed to give the central government VERY LIMITED power -- the power to do basically nothing.
1. In democracy, if the government does not give us our $3's worth, they get voted out.
They don't. By the time their power is abused, they've created the laws to keep them in office. In the US we have "campaign finance reform" laws that were written specifically to keep incumbents in office and keep third parties out of elections.
2. With DRM'ed records, if the consumer does not get his $15's worth, they buy elsewhere. I moved away from the Napster last year, to iTunes: arguably, I pay much more, but I get to do all the things I want/need to the music I buy, legally.
Legally but not in a market-driven way. In a free market, there is no way a CD (or music) would cost $1. By producing copyright that exists nearly forever, you're pay $1 for songs that should have been public domain 14 years ago. Beatles? All public domain. Disney movies? All public domain. Brazil (one of my favorite movies)? Public domain. Copyright is a monopoly used by the content cartels to keep you paying, over and over and over and over and over and over (Movie theater once, movie theater twice, Cable TV release, VHS release, LaserDisc release, DVD release, iTunes release).
Copyright in a limited fashion (7+7 years) is still evil in my mind, but I'll accept it. Copyright in an unlimited fashion (what is it now, 70 years beyond the creators death?) is completely evil.
If it sucks, don't buy it. But they'll say sales are down due to piracy anyway.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
The Federal government had no power to regulate trade -- they were provided to make sure the States didn't set embargoes or tariffs or taxes against other States
"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
The Federal government had no power to tax unless it was a tax that would be provided equally to anyone utilizing a product or service. The Income tax is unconstitutional in every way because it is different for each person.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
The Federal government had no power to perform many "duties" we now accept: FDA, USDA, FEC, SEC, IRS, FEMA, DOT, OSHA, FCC, FAA, EPA, BATF and so on and so on. Constitutionally all of these agencies are illegal.
"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
The US had a system with a weak central government, the Articles of Confederation, which failed.
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"at a rate the market will bear "
Where does this "market" exist?? got a location, an address? The big media companies and their partners in restrictions and maximizing profits the big vendors work in a global market, you and I consume mostly locally. If we try to consume globally, well, they got these pesky laws that say "no you don't" in a ton of cases. They take the same product, offer it in different nations/areas at vastly different prices, happens all the time. Why can't I buy it where it's the cheapest "market" then? Or, they don't even offer it in nation A or B, but it's there in C, but you must jump through black or gray market hoops to get it, running up against those pesky laws they lobbied for (bribed for) and got passed.
The big companies want it ALL in their favor, ALL the time, NO exceptions, EVERY place. And they have the large dollars bribe money to make it happen. It's not total yet but it's coming. It's global scale outright racketeering, yet no one takes them to any pseudo "court" over it, because they are international in scope and just *large*. Very very large with very very large wallets. Even when caught, such as the recent Sony actual criminal rootkit case, NO ONE at Sony or their DRM/trojan subcontractors has been arrested. Hacking computers is not a "civil tort" circumstance. They make "an arrangement" with "the lawful authorities" to "take care of it". If you try to bribe a cop for a speeding ticket, you might go to jail, a good chance. Some big corp pulls the same stunt on a large scale, they get a small fine, that's it. Any fines they get are a pittance, it's just business to them, they pass the cost back onto their customers with the next product. The ONLY time you hear of any big name money bags going to jail for breaking laws-even "market" laws is when they screwed some OTHER big name moneybags person or priveleged elite group. It NEVER happens with any normal joe sixpack as the victim. NEVER.
Lessons learned. It doesn't pay to be a small time crook, you're just a criminal then. If you want to succeed, be a BIG TIME crook, then you get to be a respectable "businessman" "bureaucrat" or "politician"..
And, it just goes to show how many RTFA or even the story when they talk about how the story would relate to a different jurisdiction.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
I've been toying for years with a couple of pet theories about the crisis with Democracy:
In a democratic system, people are suposed to elect some of their peers to represent them for a limited time period. The idea would be that elected representatives share opinions and experiences with the voters that chose them as representatives.
So what's going wrong?
- In most current implementations of Democracy, people don't personally know the people they vote for. In practice voting decisions are made on the basis of the image projected by the contestants (usually via the media), mostly during the campaign period. The result is that politicians are more worried about projecting the right image to their chosen target group than they are in actually doing policy choices according to the wishes of their voters. In practice people end up electing "salesmen" or "image experts" type of representative since those are the best at presenting the right image. In the same vein, exposure on the media is also important. In the US implementation of democracy more money available for the campaign means more exposure (mostly in the media). Thus either having the personal wealth to pay for a big campaign or receiving a lot of campaign contributions (in practice, owing a lot of favours) significantlty increases one's chances to be elected.
- Politicians have become professionals. Nowaydays they are in practice a separate group within the wider society. This has gone to such a point that politics has become a family business (the scion of a politician is probably a politician himself). Simply put: most politicians are not the peers of their constituents anymore - their life experience is far removed from the one of the people they suposedly represent, and they have trouble identifying themselfs with the "man on the street". What we see in practice is that politicians spend a lot of time doing policy about thing that only affect politicians. In practice they mostly defend and represent the social group from which they come - the "political class".
- Clubism. A lot of people chose political parties as they choose sports clubs - out of emotion. This means a lot of voters keep on voting for the same party (and defending them) no mater what, in the end the because they feel emotionally connected to it (in other words, they like it, it's THEIR party). The end result is that politicians can count on a unflinching, unthinking core of supporters and are much more at ease to make policies that actually have negative effects to the persons they supposedly represent.
How to fix this?
Sorry this is all about UK consumer law. The sale of goods act (1971) gives us extremely good protection against purchased goods and this petition/inquirey is all about making sure these rights remain as more and more purchases are electronic in nature. Most EULAs for instance are already illegal in the UK purely because they ask you to sign away rights they can't ask you to give up. Especially considering you can't read a EULA on the box before purchasing (and the fact that they never usually ask for someone over 18 to agree to the contract) From what I've read of US consumer law, you get very little protection comparitively and it's more designed to protect businesses than it is customers. Sorry but this would be far too huge a jump to be implemented in the US
To take an extreme example, the egyptian theocracy / royalty did fairly well for about four thousand years.
A couple hundred years isn't a sustained period of time by any stretch of the imagination.
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