[Info] Re: [Upd-discuss] Comments on Mossberg: Media Companies Go Too Far in Curbing Consumers' Activities

[Adam Moran]

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 09:01:17 -0800 Seth Johnson wrote:

> The best thing would be to just stop putting policy related to
> TPMs under the umbrella of copyright policy.  Really, what's
> being attempted with "DRM" and TPM is a weird effort to do
> something less than actual publishing of information.  The theory
> that controlling public uses of published information is a
> natural function of copyright, is really, really specious, to put
> it mildly.

French MPs vote to open up iTunes - 21 March 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4828296.stm

Apple attacks plan to open iTunes - 22 March 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4833010.stm

> It isn't the work, ultimately, that we want out of copyright;
> it's the shared (published) information, the knowledge and
> understanding and facts and ideas which promote the progress of
> science and the useful arts.  The information within the work,
> when we make a distinction from original expression, is free to
> be used.  That this is the case is not a mere legal artifice; it
> is in the intrinsic nature of publishing any information at all. 
> It's nothing new; it's not a result of the digital revolution;
> it's a result of the nature of information, regardless of the
> medium or the form in which it is represented -- and this has
> always been the case, and will always be the case.

Supreme court to rule on patent for your thoughts - March 21, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1735468,00.html

> Distinguishing copyright and private interest uses of TPMs lets
> you start sorting things out and begin articulating a sensible
> policy that lives in the real world.  You want to control a
> transaction, use access control.  That's more of a private
> interest concept than copyright policy is designed to accomplish.
> 
> You want to set special terms for exactly what sort of
> transaction is taking place when someone obtains a work from you,
> then we need to confront those policy implications forthrightly. 
> But what's going on there isn't really copyright: even though
> TPMs may be strengthened by enforcement under the misnamed
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the terms that are imposed in
> these transactions are not really in principle valid under
> copyright -- and on the other hand they're often not really good
> models of valid, consensual contractual arrangements.
> 
> Now, to look at it from that perspective, contractual
> arrangements that go beyond transfers of specific exclusive
> rights that authors hold, are about private interest and they
> also happen to be consensual; whereas authors may exercise their
> exclusive rights under copyright even without a consensual
> contract.  There's a deep mismatch there.  The rights that we
> choose to give to authors under a copyright policy appropriate
> for the digital age have to be considered in this light.
> 
> The confusion evaporates after you recognize these distinctions
> between copyright and attempts to impose prior restraints on how
> others can use the information contained within expressive works.
> 
> I might add, that clarifying the above is completely inconsistent
> with a basic purpose behind the various attempts to promulgate
> the notion of "DRM": the idea being to mix copyright policy with
> private interest perspectives until something very, very
> different from valid copyright can be established, and a new
> precedent can be set, that will hopefully trump traditional
> jurisprudence.  If this cannot be accomplished through laws
> enacted by representatives directly accountable to their
> constituencies, then the intention is to do so through
> international treaties enacted by unelected representatives.

Playing the trump card - A matter of give and take
http://tinyuri.com/f0m9 &
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1733549,00.html