I immediately thought of this short story Richard Stallman wrote in 1997:
The Right to Read
Here’s how it starts:
“For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.
This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.”
Michael Geist mentions the recent Vista Cost Analysis and goes on. I had to quote the end of his article:
When Microsoft introduced Windows 95 more than a decade ago, it adopted the Rolling Stones “Start Me Up” as its theme song. As millions of consumers contemplate the company’s latest upgrade, the legal and technological restrictions may leave them singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” - source: Michael Geist
Ah, the joys of reading slashdot again. Here’s a little gem from a recent Linus Torvalds interview:
“One reason I really dislike DRM is that it is technologically an inferior solution to not doing DRM. It actually makes it harder for people to do what they want to do. It makes it harder to do things that you really should be able to do,” said Torvalds. - source: DRM, GPLv3 just ‘hot air’: Linus Torvalds
(more…)
Si vous ne l’avez pas déjà lu, l’article qui critique les effets du DRM de Vista sur l’industrie de l’informatique a été traduis.
“Les spécifications de la protection de contenu de Vista pourraient très bien constituer la plus longue annonce de suicide de l’histoire.”
(more…)
La loi sur le droit d’auteur pourrait être amendée dès le mois prochain…
“Des observateurs proches du dossier affirment que tout indique que le nouveau régime améliorera la protection des grandes entreprises des milieux du disque, du cinéma et des médias ainsi que celle des artistes en terme de droits d’auteurs impayés, mais qu’il ne comportera aucune exemption pour usage à titre personnel de contenu protégé par le droit d’auteur.” - source : presse canadienne
A Sun scientist working on Sun’s DReaM/Open Media Commons DRM system, Susan Landau, gave a talk today [PDF] and Benjamin Mako Hill was there to report.
I really hope Creative Commons will not engage in this slippery slope.
“But DReaM enforcement of CC licenses is a bad thing and the bad taste that it inevitably leaves in many commoners mouths is not hard to explain:
- Many commoners are not comfortable with the idea of DRM because it shifts power over users’ computing devices away from the users and makes computers obey the will of a copyright holder. That’s true of DReaM just as much as as it is of Apple iTunes or Microsoft DRM.
- Many commoners are not completely comfortable with all CC licenses, so the idea of technical protection measures enforcing these terms, even those allowing for fair use lines and in line with the will of the author, is seen as dangerous.
To solve the first issue, CC needs a more strongly worded anti-DRM clause — ideally one tied to a parallel distribution clause. To solve the second, we will ultimately need a new banner under which only truly free cultural works will reside.” — source: Dare to DReaM? by Benjamin Mako Hill
(more…)
