Rick, I agree with your comments. Unfortunately the DRM agenda is currently steered by people and companies acting in their own interest rather than our Public Interest -- and I include in this group our elected representatives in the House and Senate who are elected poor but exit their tenure rich, really rich. I spent a lot of time in the Washington political arena (communications and media); it was pretty much understood that the Congress was for sale -- and that many special provision of law could be purchased and at surprisingly low cost. For example, the recent scandles re Jack Abramoff and Indian casinos.
But even more importantly, media middlemen and trade associations acting in their own self-interest, rather than artists and end users, are driving the DRM framework. Worse there are many such as Sony who are all things: inventors, hardware manufacturers, media producers, media manufacturers, media distributers, TV and Radio owners, and................ And with big "political persuasion" budgets.
What is needed is a new and more responsible definition of "fair use" that reflects the digital revolution.
What is happening now, re: fair use, is not unlike the perpetuation of their telephone monopoly by ATT for 80 years until the early 1970s. ATT used a combination of powerful political lobbying -- at every concerned Federal Agency and every State and concerned State Agency (literally thousands of lobbyist/employees) -- and technical mysticism characterized as "harmful foreign attachments". For example, a company called Hushaphone in the 1940s attemped to market a molded sponge rubber "cup" designed to fit over the telephone earpiece to minimize extraneous noise; ATT declared it to be a "harmful foreign attachment" and it was litigated at the FCC and in the courts for years. And the list could go on and on -- including the first telephone answering machine developed by Carterphone of Dallas who went bankrupt with litigation expense.
I doubt that the outcome of the DRM policymaking will be in the Public Interest.
Right On!! and the US Congress seems to be unwilling to do anything about the litigation problem which is seriously undermining the economy -- probably because they are mostly lawyers. Re innovation, I don't understand why a P2P operation doesn't set up offshore in a location untouchable by US Law. DRM is really getting out of hand!
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Rick, I agree with your comments. Unfortunately the DRM agenda is currently steered by people and companies acting in their own interest rather than our Public Interest -- and I include in this group our elected representatives in the House and Senate who are elected poor but exit their tenure rich, really rich. I spent a lot of time in the Washington political arena (communications and media); it was pretty much understood that the Congress was for sale -- and that many special provision of law could be purchased and at surprisingly low cost. For example, the recent scandles re Jack Abramoff and Indian casinos. But even more importantly, media middlemen and trade associations acting in their own self-interest, rather than artists and end users, are driving the DRM framework. Worse there are many such as Sony who are all things: inventors, hardware manufacturers, media producers, media manufacturers, media distributers, TV and Radio owners, and ................ And with big "political persuasion" budgets.
What is needed is a new and more responsible definition of "fair use" that reflects the digital revolution.
What is happening now, re: fair use, is not unlike the perpetuation of their telephone monopoly by ATT for 80 years until the early 1970s. ATT used a combination of powerful political lobbying -- at every concerned Federal Agency and every State and concerned State Agency (literally thousands of lobbyist/employees) -- and technical mysticism characterized as "harmful foreign attachments". For example, a company called Hushaphone in the 1940s attemped to market a molded sponge rubber "cup" designed to fit over the telephone earpiece to minimize extraneous noise; ATT declared it to be a "harmful foreign attachment" and it was litigated at the FCC and in the courts for years. And the list could go on and on -- including the first telephone answering machine developed by Carterphone of Dallas who went bankrupt with litigation expense.
I doubt that the outcome of the DRM policymaking will be in the Public Interest.
Right On!! and the US Congress seems to be unwilling to do anything about the litigation problem which is seriously undermining the economy -- probably because they are mostly lawyers. Re innovation, I don't understand why a P2P operation doesn't set up offshore in a location untouchable by US Law. DRM is really getting out of hand!