Companies tossing aside consumers' freedoms

The San Jose Mercury News ^ | Sunday, January 18, 2004 | Dan Gillmor

[DMCA]

In you opinion should media/computer companies be allowed, under force of law, to prohibit all copying of their copyrighted materials?

If you say yes then you have just made sites like FR that depend on Fair Use rights current methods of operation illegal. Is that what you want?

[gonzo]

"...Au contraire. I thought that phrase summed up the point nicely..."

Mon Dieu! So did I! It was the end of entropy that I got a kick out of reading.

Geez, now I get to keep the prize...............FRegards

[BlueNgold]

Your comments are completely overboard and not germane to the conversation. I am not at all arguing against fair use provisions. The 'reporter' in the article is railing against corporations using technology to provide reasonable and legitimate safeguards for their copyrighted work product, most specifically audio and video media.

His comments include statements such as:
Content-management controls like Microsoft's can allow greater user freedom or none. They can, if a copyright holder wishes, block customers from any activity except listening to a song or viewing a movie. No copying allowed, then -- not for backup or quoting in another digital work or even to play on other devices.

The reporter sees this as an abomination to 'freedom of technology' or some such thing and even uses the phrase 'copyright industry' in an attempt to slur the name of media outlets that hold legitimate and protected copyrights.

This has nothing to do with fair use. The generator of the copyrighted material has no obligation, to my knowledge, to provide their material in a digitally friendly copiable media to provide for 'fair use'. If you want to exploit 'fair use' it is at times incumbent on you to put fingers to keyboard to reproduce written work, or put a tape in the VCR, or play the CD on a system that allows for copying it (such as a good old fashioned stereo with a tape recorder). The copyright holder does indeed, and should, have the ability to limit the ability of users to copy the material. Hence the term 'copy'-right.

[Revolting cat!]

Amidst the accusations of thievery and other idiocies above, the deep thinkers predictably miss the implied question of the article: Why should HP or Microsoft build into their products protection for the "intellectual property" of some Joe Schmucker who wrote the trite lyrics to a hit song by the Archies in 1967? To begin with, if Mr Schmucker was concerned about others misappropriating his property he should have kept in his head. As he didn't, millions of people took his intellectual property into their heads, some did it unwillingly, for about a month in 1967. Schmucker got cheated of his royalties by record company, by his music publishers, and now I'm told that a kid downloading a binary file which contains a reproduction of of this recording is the real criminal. Computer hardware and software companies and high fidelity equipment companies have no business conspiring to cripple the capabilities of their products to satisfy the whims of the RIAA and other mafioso outfits.

[DMCA]

Those safeguard that you speak of do not take Fair Use into account. If the producer of the copyrighted work says no copying then the DRM software/hardware stops it even if Fair Use allows it. And getting around such blocks is illegal due to the DMCA.

It's kind of like when the gun grabbers say they will only stop the 'bad guys' from having guns. Funny, it never stops just the 'bad guys' does it?

[BlueNgold]

Your 'right' to use others people's copyrighted works is in no way equivalent to 2nd Ammd freedoms. Just because the law allows you to use somethung under fair use does not mean the publisher/generator has to make it easy. Under your argument every book and newspaper should be required to be available in digital format ... note that some newspapers require subscriptions, even online, and the law has protected their right to do so. Stop whining. This is not the demise of the 1st Ammd.

[DMCA]

1: I never said it was the same as the 2nd adm. I said your LOGIC was the same.
2: I am not saying that everything should be in a digital format. Not once did I type anything like that.
3: I never said that subs where wrong.
4: I never claimed this was the demise of the 1st.

Now a question for you. Do you always place words in others mouths when you are losing an argument? I humbly suggest that you review the founders writings on what they intended the right of copyright to be.

Note to the moderators: If this is out of line please let me know. Reading over the FR rules of conduct I do not think it is but I have no desire to be banned.

[sinkspur]

Computer hardware and software companies and high fidelity equipment companies have no business conspiring to cripple the capabilities of their products to satisfy the whims of the RIAA and other mafioso outfits.

LOL!! First, you say that Joe Schmucker has no right to extract any royalties for his 1967's music from some kid in 2004, then you say that MS has no right to build protections for Joe Schmucker in their equipment, if they choose to.

You're damn good at telling other people what they can and cannot do with the stuff they own.

[Old Professer]

Napster hasn't ruined anything; the music industry is not making anything worth paying real money for.

[Old Professer]

What source code do you own personally?

[sinkspur]

Napster hasn't ruined anything; the music industry is not making anything worth paying real money for.

Then don't buy it.

But if somebody wants this music, they have to pay for it. It is someone else's intellectual property.

[sinkspur]

What source code do you own personally?

I don't own any source code, but the company I work for does.

[rdb3]

What source code do youown personally?

Goo-gobs. Of course, I wrote it.

[meyer]

analog, analog, analog. Its safer.

[Paul C. Jesup]

The major backers of DRM and striping consumer freedoms are not even mentioned in this article, they are the RIAA and MPAA.

[avenir]

"Napster has ruined the music industry..."

Bull.

Napster was a happening, a realignment of the status quo. Failure to accept this and adapt to it have "ruined" the nice little empire the music industry was running, on THEIR terms.

They can get by with less, just like you and I do.

[sinkspur]

They can get by with less, just like you and I do.

What is it about "you don't have a right to someone else's property" don't you understand?

I don't care what people in the music industry make. YOU don't have a right to take what they sell, for free.

[Taliesan]

Napster was a happening, a realignment of the status quo.

Napster was the cyber equivalent of the LA riots. Mob psychology is nothing new. Suddenly, everyone was aggrieved, and had a right to walk through someone else's storefront and carry out the neat stuff.

The mob thinks that one thief is a criminal, but a zillion thieves is "a realignment of the status quo."

Sure, and the army of the people has a right to stable their horses in the cathedral. To the ramparts. Etc.

[DMCA]

If you buy a computer do you own it? If you say yes then you should be upset by laws that prohibit what you can do with your property. Or does the right to do what one wishes with ones own property only apply to large media and software companies?

[sinkspur]

If you buy a computer do you own it? If you say yes then you should be upset by laws that prohibit what you can do with your property. Or does the right to do what one wishes with ones own property only apply to large media and software companies?

I don't have a right to use my computer to make duplicate copies of software, or music, or movies (all things which are the property of someone else) and distribute those copies for free.

I have the right to use my computer for my use. If I want to download something, I either pay for it, or it is distributed for free.