Political Bloviation

Big Content would like to outlaw things no one has even thought of yet

If you have any current or future interest in using digital content or consumer rights, take a look at that link. Content providers aren’t content with odious anti-consumer legislation like the DCMA and the broadcast flag. They want to make sure it’s illegal to do anything with content that they haven’t already thought of. I can’t conceive of a better way to turn the US into a technological backwater and limit innovation. Forget about fair use rights, meet “customary historic use.”

There were some interesting posts on the ARS Technica forum associated with the orginal article cited above, since it requires a login I’ll just excerpt some I thought were well spoken:

gregman:

In 1850 there were no speed limits. If you could figure out a way to go 200mph there were no laws stopping you. Now that there are cars everywhere there are traffic laws. Most people except them as part of what’s required to keep the roads safe including the law that requires you to have a license before you are allowed to drive, something that also did not used to exist.

So, my point is, arguing that IP laws should remain the same because they’ve always been that way (”fair use”) is ignoring the fact that the world has changed. 150 years ago there were no cars on the road and no need for traffic laws. 50 years ago there was no way one person could distribute content to the entire online world overnight and hence no need to prevent people from copying.

I’m not saying DRM or DMCA are good, I’m only saying the world has changed and we need to be discussing the situation as it is now, not as it used to be when the world was different.

DriverGuru replies:

I agree with the principle but not the conclusion.

My conclusion is that there is no reason to expect that copyright protection — a concept that evolved around words on paper and paintings on canvas — is a valid concept for media that must be copied to be used.

It’s an outdated concept and needs to be re-examined from the beginning. If it is really true that to enforce copyright we must give the content industry the power to cripple the home electronics industry, then copyright as we know it has to go. It isn’t worth the cost.

The world has changed. When electric lighting replaced gas, did the gas lighting companies demand protection from the erosion of their business model? Well, I’m sure some of them did, but they either adapted or died.

The content industry should do the same. They are no more deserving of legally mandated protection from technological change than was the gaslight industry.

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