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I know you are antiWoD and that is exactly why this should cheese you off. I bet the WoD could be won by installing a drug use detector in your house. When shall I have the installers arrive? Trust me, it will not be used to spy on you.

Oh, don't like it? Presumption of innocence? Security of person, documents, and effects? Are these things important? Then maybe you ken why nobody wants the damned 666 Fritz chip.

Now the really bad news: There may be NO ANSWER. It may be that recorded music as an industry will shrink massively, only because it is more important to more people that they retain their privacy and Ist and Vth rights than it is that the recording industry continue to thrive.

The Constitution was written to protect individual rights against everything short of national security. If IP protection cannot be enforced without trampling those rights, then the working presumption of the Founders would have been: Too freaking bad, it is not as important. Read the IP protection clause: it is not one of the primary rights. It is not considered to be derived from a natural right. It is the only thing I can think of in the Constitution based almost completely on a collective benefit. Lots of worthy-seeming laws could be enforced if the Constitution could be ignored - and it is a good thing they cannot be.

More importantly, the technology ALSO allows the musicians to inexpensively sell their recordings DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC. Folkies and other "niche" music genres have been doing this forever. Some big bands are releasing their music direct to the Net.

The real point of all this is, the "Fritz" chip is the RIAA/MPAA/MS/et al trying to hold on to a monopoly that they see is crumbling. I'll run GPL code on an older box before I buy a box with built-in DRM. . .

OK I'll give you deliberate chain jerking, well done.

But here's our problem: if there isn't an answer the RIAA will get everything they want. I present this same challenge to hippy landmine haters (you're reaction is better than theirs, they call me a baby killer). Landmines suck, especially if the people that put them out aren't real good about cleaning up after themselves. But the fact is that on a dollars/effectiveness reading landmines do give you (I have to say it) the most bang for your buck. They're a very effective perimiter defense (something armed man has had to worry about for the entire history of war), they're cheap and it takes about 10 minutes to learn how to use one and less time to deploye it. Subsequently no amount of hippy whining will get rid of landmines (OK stupid places like Europe will get rid of them... until the next time they're invaded). If you want to get rid of landmines you've got to replace them with something better.

Same thing here. If you want to get rid of the Fritz chip you need a better answer. I hate it. I know when it hits mass deployment I'll be watching the smart techs like you and downloading your short circuits (just because, like I said I don't even rip for personal use). I don't have an answer, but I know if we really want to fight back we need one. And "don't store your IP in a machine readable format" just ain't gonna cut it and people that use that should be shouted down because they make the people with rational complaints look like idiots by association.

Now the really bad news: There may be NO ANSWER. It may be that recorded music as an industry will shrink massively, only because it is more important to more people that they retain their privacy and Ist and Vth rights than it is that the recording industry continue to thrive.

That is the most salient thing posted on this thread. If the recording/music industry goes the way of the buggy whip makers, it goes the way of the buggy whip makers. We'll all just have to soldier on.

The Constitution was written to protect individual rights against everything short of national security.

I seem to recall hearing a report that Clinton put copyright protection at a higher priority level than that, pulling resources off anti-terrorism to chase down bootleg movie operations -- anybody know more about that?