"Well, you just made some very good arguments as to why DRM is idiotic and will never work as intended."
That isn't really the point, but thank you.
"[I]f your business depends on hiding things from people, stripping their legal rights and locking up public domain material as collateral damage, your business model has no right to exist... Let's say there's something in your work that should be public domain, but is locked up due to your DRM. Now lets say you have the only source of that material. Hey presto, part of our culture that should belong to the public is hoarded by you away from the rightful owners."
Ohhhhh boy.
A business plan does not have rights. If you are saying I don't have a right to have a business plan that you don't like, then you are claiming Thought Police powers far worse than what you accuse me of.
Hiding things from people? I'm allowed to do that.
Stripping people of their rights? My product doesn't prevent you from looking at images of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Or having such images. Or Photoshopping yourself into them.
Locking up public domain material? Sistine. Chapel. Ceiling.
Should be public domain? As far as I know, the proposed shall-not-impede proposal does not apply to things that you think should be in the public domain.
Suppose I had, say, the only existing copy of an unknown Whitman poem. If I kept it to myself that would be a shame, and if I decided to burn it, that would an atrocity, but it's not clear to me that these acts would be illegal. And in any case, this proposed law would not forbid them, so this "hoarding culture" argument is really irrelevant. (And "rightful owners" is pure hyperbole.)
"Unless you can describe the important ramifications of DRMing your product, and how it has any meaningful impact on your profit margins, then no, your complaints are not valid."
Umm... No, I do not have to justify my business decisions to you.
'Saying "I don't like the law because it doesn't let me do something I want to" is not a valid argument.'
"The general default position that there should be no DRM period. If that is the [case] your argument is moot."
I'm not sure what "general default position" you're talking about (maybe it's popular opinion or the consensus of the digiterati or something), and I don't see why I couldn't invoke the same thing for my side, and I'm actually opposed to DRM, but even if we agree that there should be no X, that doesn't mean that X should be illegal. (I hate racism, Japanese pop music and teenage witch movies, but I would strongly oppose any attempt to ban them.) And even if we agree that there should be a law against X, a law against X in some cases that makes it impossible to disentangle the lawful from the unlawful is a bad law.
"Second, if there is DRM where are my rights (Under US Law) to make an archive copy of the product for my own personal use? Yes, you as the producer may become guilty of breaking the law, but I as a consumer am guilty if I exercise my rights under the law. So what this option is doing is to force the producer into taking my rights into account."
(We're actually talking about Brazilian law, but never mind.) You are making assumptions about my DRM --and statements about US law that I am not competent to verify-- but you seem to be confusing a few different concepts.
If you are referring to anti-circumvention law (which I agree is bad), this "illegal to impede public domain" principle would not invalidate it. And repealing anti-circumvention would not, of itself, create the problem I describe. They are independent.
If you actually have a legal right to copy something, then it follows that the act of copying it cannot, itself, be illegal. Conversely, if the act itself is illegal, then you do not have such a right. Maybe you should have such a right, maybe a big body of law specifically did not forbid such an act, but that doesn't make a right.
A right to do something generally means that the law may not forbid you to do it. That doesn't mean that others are compelled to help you or to allow you to do it with their property. Freedom of speech does not mean I must give you a column in my newspaper, nor that you may put graffiti on my wall, and freedom to copy (if there is such a thing) does not mean that I must lend you my books or change the region code on a DVD I sold you.
If my product actually infringes your legal rights (and not just the rights you wish you had) then my product is already illegal, so why do you need another law against it?
"I cannot fathom who could possibly be against such a proposal, but I imagine we'll start to hear twisted arguments against it pretty quickly."
*ahem* Thank you Mike, good evening everyone.
Suppose I put out a product with DRM. It might be a game, or an encyclopedia I wrote, or a collection of artwork, or whatever. (And suppose I've gotten whatever permission I need from creators, owners, whomever.) Putting DRM on it might be a stupid idea, it might be annoying, it might dissuade you from buying the product, but as long as I don't cross the line into fraud (e.g. the book I sold you turns into blank paper) I think we can agree that what I have done should not be illegal. After all, I've harmed no one.
But now suppose that amid all of the other things in my product, there's something that's in the public domain. Say, an image of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Under this proposal, because my DRM impedes the copying of that image, I've broken the law.
And it gets better, in an eerily familiar way: it's sometimes very difficult to tell whether a given entity is in the public domain or not. I could think it's not, I could pay an artist or an agency for permission to use it, and then if it turns out I paid for nothing, I'm a criminal. Better yet, things pass into the public domain! That's by design, it happens all the time. Heck some people, myself included, think that artists should be able to put their works into the public domain at will. So what happens when something in my product goes public? Must my DRM automatically unlock itself in order to comply with this proposed law (assuming I can predict when this will be, see above) or can I put some kind of contractual obligation on the buyer to delete it before then? Or am I in the bizarre situation of being innocent until that day arrives, whereupon I become retroactively guilty of committing a crime years before?
And what about the other end of the spectrum? We can probably agree that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is not in the public domain, but the Bayeux Tapestry is. But what about a generic drawing of a knight in armor? What about a stick figure (that doesn't look too much like an Lascaux cave painting or Anasazi petroglyph, which would be public domain)? What's that category below "public domain" called, and now that one is illegal and the other isn't (I hope), how long will it take to build up some case law so that we can have a hope of knowing how to comply with this proposal?
It may sound like a good idea on the face of it, it may seem like a nice counterbalance for the excesses of IP law, but it's really just the same mistake over again: the intrusion of law into the domain of engineering, where it causes enormous trouble and no real benefit.
The so-called molecular gastronomy movement has innovated in myriad (and often bizarre) ways that have filtered down to more modest restaurants all over the world."
Did anyone else feel a loss of appetite after reading that sentence?
"20+% of our society will be permanantly unemployed or under-employed..."
To support that argument, you'll have to show that historically whenever a domestic industry employing lots of manual laborers declined, there was a corresponding and permanent rise in unemployment.
Who here can name the biggest example of a domestic industry that declined?
Mike, thank you. Thank you for brightening up our days with these wonderful stories, for putting us only two degrees of separation away from a major corporation trying to talk itself out of a completely indefensible position. Thank you for giving us front-row seats to screwball comedy in real life. "How much more doth beauty beauteous seem / By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!"
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: lights please
Agreed. And you've entirely missed the point.
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: lights please
That isn't really the point, but thank you.
"[I]f your business depends on hiding things from people, stripping their legal rights and locking up public domain material as collateral damage, your business model has no right to exist... Let's say there's something in your work that should be public domain, but is locked up due to your DRM. Now lets say you have the only source of that material. Hey presto, part of our culture that should belong to the public is hoarded by you away from the rightful owners."
Ohhhhh boy.
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: lights please
Should not what?
"Unless you can describe the important ramifications of DRMing your product, and how it has any meaningful impact on your profit margins, then no, your complaints are not valid."
Umm... No, I do not have to justify my business decisions to you.
'Saying "I don't like the law because it doesn't let me do something I want to" is not a valid argument.'
Straw man. Next?
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: lights please
Fire away.
"The general default position that there should be no DRM period. If that is the [case] your argument is moot."
I'm not sure what "general default position" you're talking about (maybe it's popular opinion or the consensus of the digiterati or something), and I don't see why I couldn't invoke the same thing for my side, and I'm actually opposed to DRM, but even if we agree that there should be no X, that doesn't mean that X should be illegal. (I hate racism, Japanese pop music and teenage witch movies, but I would strongly oppose any attempt to ban them.) And even if we agree that there should be a law against X, a law against X in some cases that makes it impossible to disentangle the lawful from the unlawful is a bad law.
"Second, if there is DRM where are my rights (Under US Law) to make an archive copy of the product for my own personal use? Yes, you as the producer may become guilty of breaking the law, but I as a consumer am guilty if I exercise my rights under the law. So what this option is doing is to force the producer into taking my rights into account."
(We're actually talking about Brazilian law, but never mind.) You are making assumptions about my DRM --and statements about US law that I am not competent to verify-- but you seem to be confusing a few different concepts.
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: lights please
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
lights please
*ahem* Thank you Mike, good evening everyone.
Suppose I put out a product with DRM. It might be a game, or an encyclopedia I wrote, or a collection of artwork, or whatever. (And suppose I've gotten whatever permission I need from creators, owners, whomever.) Putting DRM on it might be a stupid idea, it might be annoying, it might dissuade you from buying the product, but as long as I don't cross the line into fraud (e.g. the book I sold you turns into blank paper) I think we can agree that what I have done should not be illegal. After all, I've harmed no one.
But now suppose that amid all of the other things in my product, there's something that's in the public domain. Say, an image of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Under this proposal, because my DRM impedes the copying of that image, I've broken the law.
And it gets better, in an eerily familiar way: it's sometimes very difficult to tell whether a given entity is in the public domain or not. I could think it's not, I could pay an artist or an agency for permission to use it, and then if it turns out I paid for nothing, I'm a criminal. Better yet, things pass into the public domain! That's by design, it happens all the time. Heck some people, myself included, think that artists should be able to put their works into the public domain at will. So what happens when something in my product goes public? Must my DRM automatically unlock itself in order to comply with this proposed law (assuming I can predict when this will be, see above) or can I put some kind of contractual obligation on the buyer to delete it before then? Or am I in the bizarre situation of being innocent until that day arrives, whereupon I become retroactively guilty of committing a crime years before?
And what about the other end of the spectrum? We can probably agree that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is not in the public domain, but the Bayeux Tapestry is. But what about a generic drawing of a knight in armor? What about a stick figure (that doesn't look too much like an Lascaux cave painting or Anasazi petroglyph, which would be public domain)? What's that category below "public domain" called, and now that one is illegal and the other isn't (I hope), how long will it take to build up some case law so that we can have a hope of knowing how to comply with this proposal?
It may sound like a good idea on the face of it, it may seem like a nice counterbalance for the excesses of IP law, but it's really just the same mistake over again: the intrusion of law into the domain of engineering, where it causes enormous trouble and no real benefit.
On the post: Lack Of Food Copyright Helps Restaurant Innovation Thrive
Did anyone else feel a loss of appetite after reading that sentence?
On the post: Andy Grove Suggests US Protectionism For Tech Jobs
Re: You miss his point
To support that argument, you'll have to show that historically whenever a domestic industry employing lots of manual laborers declined, there was a corresponding and permanent rise in unemployment.
Who here can name the biggest example of a domestic industry that declined?
On the post: Andy Grove Suggests US Protectionism For Tech Jobs
Not really the point, but...
Does that ever work? Has it ever worked? Can government be trusted with "earmarked" money?
On the post: Revolving Door: Administration's ACTA Defender Jumps Ship To US Chamber Of Commerce
my card
I... would give almost anything to have that job title.
(I know, I know, it would just be a question of who killed me first, James Bond or my own boss, but still.)
On the post: AP's New Policy: If They Speak To You, They Can Reprint Anything For Free?
Let it be said again:
On the post: Woot Asks AP To Pay Up For Quoting Woot Blog Post Without Paying [Updated]
Re: Re:
On the post: No Fly List Members Sue The Gov't; Want To Find Out Why They Can't Fly
Re: Re: Re: I agree...
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