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Gilmore On Hardware-Restricted Content 216

Posted by timothy from the all-in-wonder dept.
An unnamed reader links to John Gilmore's explanation of just why it's a bad idea to let companies (Intel in particular) cave to industry demands for so-called content protection in hardware. The upshot is that if such measures really are built in, the general-purpose computer may not have long to live.
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Gilmore On Hardware-Restricted Content More

Gilmore On Hardware-Restricted Content

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  • just what 'they' want. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Hertog ( 136401 )
    Isn't that what they are after?

    A machine to play your cd's/dvd's, a machine to do mail/web/stuff, a machine to do games..

    Hell, it would be a lot easier for them, no OS-es to worry about, no copieing to worry about, and more to sell to everybody!
  • if intel starts doing crap like this, it could help AMD if where lucky. more busness to amd = bigger budget = better processors.

  • Upshot? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by SuperLiquidSex ( 233263 )
    HOw is it an upshot to get rid of the general purpose computer? I kinda like mine. Any way they would have to get all compaines to agree to do it the same way in hardware, if one company decides not to do it then its useless anyway because evryone will use there chips and stuff.
    • indeed. I like having one machine that plays games, does work, and handles just about anything else I need to do. I can't see it being good to have a separate machine to do all of the things a general purpose computer can do (besides games). Having it all in one box is not only convenient, it's more environmentally friendly. There are heavy metals and toxic materials inside consumer electronics, and the fewer we send to landfills the better.
    • Upshot doesn't mean what you think it means.

      upshot -- 1. The final result; the outcome; 2. The central idea or point; gist.
      -- dictionary.com

  • Unconstitutional (Score:2, Interesting)

    by esnible ( 36716 )
    Amendment III
    No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

    I would like to see a 3rd amendment challenge to this.
    • Also, the 2nd ammendment says each citizen has the right to own weapons to fight tyrannical governments, if necessary. In the 18th century this meant rifles, today we may need digital weapons as well.

      "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; If I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am responsible for everything I do."
      (Robert Heinlein, "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", 1966)

  • People don't care... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @11:54AM (#3506256) Journal

    The sad fact of the matter is that as long as a product does at least the minimum requirements, people don't care. That's why eBay can get away with pop-up ads. That's why people buy software with EULAs which take away their right to fair use. That's why we cave in and sign up just to read NYTimes articles. That's why we put up with BFAs and inane copyright restrictions on slashdot. It's why Microsoft gets away with charging people over and over for the same operating system, just because they buy a new computer.

    Computers, the internet, the world could be so much better. But people constantly settle for mediocrity.

    • don't be such a pessimist! just spread the word and fight the good fight ;)
    • I would belive this if people didn't already have the freedom to copy their files, download their music to MP3 players, etc. The minute Napster went de-facto belly up, did people stop downloading music? No, they just found other ways to do it. Hell, people will download spyware and install it on their system rather than give up the ability to trade files online. There's a reason Pressplay and it's kindred services are going down in flames right now. Who'd pay money for a massively overprotected, restricted, paranoid, expensive music downloading system, when there's Kazaa, Gnutella, etc.

      The problem for Hollywood is that one person will find the way around their protection scheme, and the equivalent of a libcss file will enable a thousand more to write software the average Joe can use to circumvent "CSS-Plus", SDMI, or whatever it will end up being called.

      • The minute Napster went de-facto belly up, did people stop downloading music? No, they just found other ways to do it. Hell, people will download spyware and install it on their system rather than give up the ability to trade files online.

        But that's exactly my point. As long as these companies introduce their nonsense gradually, virtually no one cares. Copyright infringement is illegal. It's illegal for me to trade mp3s over the internet. And even though there are millions of people who are opposed to that law, you don't see any of them fighting against it. Instead they trade on napster, and when they goes down they trade on gnutella, and let the companies install spyware and other nonsense on their systems. The line keeps shifting further and further, until eventually it's almost impossible trade mp3s over the internet.

        The problem for Hollywood is that one person will find the way around their protection scheme, and the equivalent of a libcss file will enable a thousand more to write software the average Joe can use to circumvent "CSS-Plus", SDMI, or whatever it will end up being called.

        How many people do you know that have satellite receivers in their houses that haven't paid for the service? It's perfectly possible to come up with single-purpose devices which make it extremely difficult to "steal" content. Sure, you might have a few people who still insist on breaking the rules, but once you go into hardware solutions, the masses simply aren't going to go through the trouble of finding black-market retailers.

        And the DMCA is right there to make sure that anyone who does come up with those devices and distribute them will be risking jail time.

        • It's illegal for me to trade mp3s over the internet.

          As long as the copyright belongs to someone else, yes. If the mp3 is public domain, or you own the copyright, it's perfectly legal.

  • Companies like AOL Time Warner, Disney etc have been calling for this for ages. They're terribly worried that their huge back library of movies, songs etc will produce a lower and lower income each year as people illegally copy things rather than buy them at (inflated) prices.
  • The upshot is that if such measures really are built in, the general-purpose computer may not have long to live.

    What does that quote above have to do with the article? How is that an upshot? In the end of the article it says that if copy prevention is placed into computers what's probably going to happen is that no one will buy these as non-lamed systems will still be more flexible in working with other systems.

    Of course this may not be true as many people and companies buy from outfits like Dell, which already makes only Intel, how long before the RIAA gets Dell to sign a license that makes them copy protect every computer they make? No one'll stop buying Dell because its -dell-

    Still, I can't see anyone who rolls their own ever going for this. I know that you can't digitally drive speaker elements there must be an analog signal going to the coil inside of each speaker it'd be trivial to cut open the speaker and solder those wires to a standard male plug, plug them into your audio in on the sound card and hit record...
  • Since when does the concept of intellectual property benefit anyone at all?
    I'm sick of corporations and their self-promotion

    • Re:I'm sick of IP (Score:2, Informative)

      by shani ( 1674 )
      The idea of patent and copyright law is that if you allow someone a limited-time monopoly on inventions/publications then they will be able to make money on it. This encourages people to come up with wacky new ideas and thereby helps society in general.

      This makes sense to some extent. However, I don't buy that preventing anyone from copying this comment for 99 years after my death is going to help society a whole lot. (Especially since I don't plan on dying for a long time.)

      To prove my dedication, I hearby release this comment into the public domain. :)
    • And why does it seem that only works produced by the "major" media companies are worthy of these protections? You can be almost certain that, whatever the form of "protection" is adopted that the mechanism to create the protection will not be readily available to Joe Public or Local Band to apply to documents/media they create.
    • Thanks. I forgot.
      Innovations won't exist unless people can make money off of them :)

      Does the prospect of money even promote "innovation?" or does it encourage corporations to do everything they can to fight via the market against progress on the part of their competitors?

      Thank goodness for GPL!
      Peter

  • Geez, actually on-topic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ZoneGray ( 168419 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @11:55AM (#3506266) Homepage
    This one IS appropriate for the YRO section. You should have the right to buy any computer, with or without copy protection in hardware. Of course, this is not a right that's very well protected by the Constitution.

    Efforts to force inclusion of hardware copy protection are simply the work of a special-interest group. It's as if Microsoft or Sun wanted a law that mandated that every computer have the Java or .NET runtime included, or if AOL wanted to madate inclusion of AOL software(Ironically, MS, Sun, and AOL have been pretty successful at distribution of their clients, even without legislation).

    That's what Hollywood is trying to accomplish, to use legislation to build their distribution channel. Get off your asses and figure it out yourselves.

    • The Constitution IS Enough, If it isn't Ignored (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @01:15PM (#3506572)
      This one IS appropriate for the YRO section. You should have the right to buy any computer, with or without copy protection in hardware. Of course, this is not a right that's very well protected by the Constitution.

      It is a right very well protected by the constitution. Any powers not explicitly granted the federal government by the constitution are reserved for the states, for municipalities, or for the people (10th amendment).

      The Federal government has been granted no explicit authority by the constitution to regulate the sale or construction of computers.

      The problem is that the government hasn't been abiding by the constitution for at least 70 years now, so we really can't expect it to start now.

      Instead, for the sake of expediency over constitutional law, the courts routinely misuse the so-called commerce clause to extend the federal government's powers into all kinds of areas it is constitutionally barred from, but are nevertheless popular with the people to regulate anyway (War on Drugs, Child Pornography, etc.). By diluting the power of the constitution with these causes, irrespective of their legitemacy, we are now in a situation where real social and political pressures are coming to bear on our way of government (the Copyright Cartels' attacks on our most basic freedoms, the War on Terrorism and many of the unconstitutional methods being used to wage it domestically, not to mention the recent election debacle), and we no longer have a strong constitutional foundation to fall back on.

      We sold it cheap in the name of "the children" to wage our War on Drugs, our War On Pedophiles, now our War on Terrorism and, comming soon to a computer near you, Our War On Copyright Violators.

      The future is no longer terribly bright. Indeed, by selling out our most fundamental values for a perceived short term societal gain (who wouldn't want child pornographers jailed?) we've now insured that the future is a dark, bleak, ugly place ... one with virtually no rights and few liberties, and one we are now going to be very hard pressed to change.
      • The Federal government has been granted no explicit authority by the constitution to regulate the sale or construction of computers.

        The Federal Government has been regulating these sorts of things based upon interstate commerce which becomes incredibly broad if you consider the variety of places source components for 'computers' come from. This isn't necessarily extra-constitutional but one of the many ways that the Federal Government has exercised its authority over state governments in a broad trend going back to arguably the Civil War. Another ancient chinese secret of the Federal Government is to attach strings to Federal Dollars based upon the compliance with Federal regulations. The 55 Speed Limit is a prime example. If the states wanted Federal Highway money, the states would have to comply with the 55 speed limit.

        Aside from that, I agree with your post. The future is not looking terribly bright and ineed is growing dimmer by the day. It is my humble opinion however, that it is more of a function of the centralization of power (economic, governmental, moral) in the country as well as the world. Our system of government was established for a population of approximately 3.8 million people, fewer than half of which were actually enfranchised. Compare that to the modern United States of 280? million. Even one state (California) has 10x as many people as the entire nation for which the constitution was written.

        The time has come for massive devolution of power such that people can again have a significant impact on issues which affect their lives.

    • Efforts to force inclusion of hardware copy protection are simply the work of a special-interest group. It's as if Microsoft or Sun wanted a law that mandated that every computer have the Java or .NET runtime included, or if AOL wanted to madate inclusion of AOL software(Ironically, MS, Sun, and AOL have been pretty successful at distribution of their clients, even without legislation).

      Yeah, except in general, a JVM adds functionality to your computer. It doesn't interfere with your ability to use your computer for anything you would have used it for before. This argument would apply to the CLR as well except that I'm guessing the CLR either has copyright management capabilities either built in already, or has architecture to enforce a copy protection standard once one is announced. That by itself doesn't mean much- just don't use software that requires the CLR- unless MS succeeds in putting the CLR in charge of the machine so that normal win32 programs have to constantly ask it for permissions. In that case, Jack Valenti owns your box.

      As for AOL, well, that's a bad example too. Putting an AOL disk in a computer doesn't add functionality as much as it screws up the machine beyond repair. :)

  • Who pays? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by dnight ( 153296 )
    And who ends up paying for the technology to allow them to restrict content? We do.

    Ideas like encrypting audio between playback device and speakers, HDTV copy protection and any other method they come up with will eventually get to market. Ask questions and know before you buy.

    Don't buy your own set of shackles.
  • The only way this will fly is through legislation. Intel has a few smart cookies working for them. I don't think they will do this unless they are forced. For two reasons: You can't alienate your customers. More than a few corporate suits and home users would be a little miffed about this. Two: Something like this will probably cost quite a bit of money.

  • Game plan (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Syntari ( 575766 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @12:03PM (#3506298)
    I'm not sure how likely the hardwired "content protection" scenario is... but, a pessimist by nature, I think we should start preparing as though it is going to happen.
    The simplest version is if Intel unilaterally decided to cave in to Disney, AOL/TW, RIAA etc. and build its own hardware with little censor chips in them. In this case, the response is straight-up economic. Turn to alternative hardware vendors. I don't just mean in your personal purchases. Slashdot readers who are sysadmins or IT specialists at corporations should start preparing their explanations of why the company really should move away from the risks inherent in having unintelligent censorware control the use of potentially mission-critical data. If large corporate clients start abandoning Intel as a result of content-control, you can guess which product-line will get scrapped pretty quick.
    The two other scenarios are legislation and regulation that will prevent anyone from seeking out alternatives, by making those alternatives illegal. This is more problematic, because slashdotters punch well below their weight politically. However, in both cases there will be a political "hook" - in the case of legislation, one can write one's congresscritter (for whatever good that will do), and in the case of FCC regulation, there will be a notice-and-comment period. So take notice, and make comments :)
    As a penultimate line of defense, there is always the courts. In addition to the obvious first amendment claims, there could be an interesting "restraint of trade" (antitrust) claim based on denial of "essential facilities" (computing services).

    In the long run, however, I think the answer to content protection is, "fine, go take away your ball and go play with it by yourself. I have a better game now." When all manner of content (not just free software) is made without any desire to restrict it, and when that content is both quantitively and qualitatively superior to restricted content, there will be no point to having hardwired censors. Even if people all use "approved" monitors and computers, they will be using them to view "free content" (free as in free speech, not free beer). So the "oligarchy" will wither, and there will no longer be any significant force pushing Intel to continue making hardwired censors...
    How likely is that end-scenario? *shrug* Ask yourselves.

    • Re:Game plan (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anne Thwacks ( 531696 )
      Last time I counted 90% of the world's population is not American, and not required to obey American laws.

      If Intel do this, then they lose 90% of the world market. I see a major opening for a Russian chip foundry!

      If it walks like a duck, and walks like a duck, then don't bloody well vote for it

      • Too true. Don't look to Russia in the future, look to Taiwan in the present. Where do many, if not most motherboards come from? Chipsets? Taiwan. I don't see Via [via.com.tw] knuckling under to the US Congress (Via still produces chips based on the Cyrix / Winchip cores). Sure, their CPUs do not boast as much performance as Intel's, but they are cheaper, and right next door to the largest markets in the world.

        When stuff like this starts becoming part of international trade agreements (think prerequisite for WTO membership), then look out. Hopefully, self-interest and world demand for non-crippled hardware will keep the Taiwanese government from following the stupidity of the US Congress.

    • Even if people all use "approved" monitors and computers, they will be using them to view "free content" (free as in free speech, not free beer).

      One of the nasty features of this sort of hardware "rights protection" is likely to be the tagging of any content WITHOUT DRM as "pirated". This is because the media companies know that no encryption scheme is crack-proof, and if they can't prevent cracking, they have to instead prevent anyone playing the cracked content. This has the added benefit of crushing smaller indy content producers who don't have the $$ or desire to use DRM. Surprise! Your "free content", distributed without DRM technology, won't play. Too bad, go rent "Men in Black III" instead.
      • True, they want it to be like DVD players and cable boxes. Nobody would even bother buying a DVD player without a decoder in it because it would be very useless. There is very little DVD content not CSS protected. (I have seen one sold in Yellowstone National Park not region protected)
        They want computers to be the same as a Cable TV box. No protection, no new releases. New releases need content protected boxes to play. They are trying to legislate the chicken and egg sysdrone. There just isn't enough protected boxes out there to provide a market for their content. The answer is to force everyone to have a subscribable box. Then the content can be sold to the masses without them sharing it with each other.
        That's why they can't just leave the PC's alone. Unprotected content and players (PC's) destroys their sales distribution model. If I want Pay Per View, I know how to subscribe. Please don't make my PC a cable box!
  • Hardware companies are smarter than that ... aren't they? Why would you build a product that no consumer wants? So that people wont buy it? What a brillian business strat.
  • I am not sure anyone could "bury" a general purpose architecture as the PC has become; no one piece "defines" it any longer, nor is irreplaceable, right?. If Intel doesn't work for us in the future, ditch them as their have always been competitors. Support those who design, engineer a stand-alone generic, hardware reference platform that has uses beyond the home (data logging, control, robotics, etc.), allow people to buy the components individually, and THEN layer an OS (Linux?) onto it; this would keep it difficult to attack legally as the hardware would have very justifiable existence on it's own.

    • I am not sure anyone could "bury" a general purpose architecture as the PC has become; no one piece "defines" it any longer, nor is irreplaceable, right?

      I define a PC as a computing device with these qualities:

      • The device is made according to well-known hardware standards.
      • The device is sold to the general public at a price around $1,000 when new.
      • The device can load and run an untrusted kernel.

      The irreplaceable part is a BIOS that will try to load any kernel you throw at it without complaining that the kernel is not signed by the hardware vendor. Otherwise, you merely have an embedded system.

    • Support those who design, engineer a stand-alone generic, hardware reference platform that has uses beyond the home (data logging, control, robotics, etc.), allow people to buy the components individually, and THEN layer an OS (Linux?) onto it;

      Ummm....computer hardware manufacturers and retailers already do this. ...and it may become difficult to figure out who to support (assuming enough of the public will care). They could make the "copy protected" components work with existing "unprotected" ones--then in phase two ease in the components that no longer work with anything that is "unprotected." The consumer wouldn't be able to tell which components were "unprotected" or "protected" in the phase one way.

      The only reason this hasn't happend is that it hasn't been in the interest of the manufacturers--legislation, lawsuits, FCC mandates, or making it so that DRM is the only way to access the MPAA/RIAA's "content" would change this. IMO the latter is the best hope as decent people could make their own "content" and the stupid would just buy the MPAA/RIAA machines, however the MPAA/RIAA members don't want this because they know they'd lose massive marketshare. Their real goal is to get one of the first three going so they have the capability of controling the entire market like they have in the past...

      ...this would keep it difficult to attack legally as the hardware would have very justifiable existence on it's own.

      The thing is the hardware already has a justifiable existence--even if computers could only browse the web and do wordprocessing. Hollywood doesn't care, congresspeople don't care, all they care about is how much money/power they can milk out of the situation.

  • ...and all new hardware required, and implemented horrifically draconian anti-copy-anything protection which both took away the ability to copy for reasonable use, or took away nick the l337 h4X0r's ability to copy 'stuff', ancient second hand hardware, free hardware, is going to become rather desirable. Best start warehousing a few spare boxies.

    OK, that's tongue in cheek, but it's one end of an extreme where computers are pushed to being made less and less useful. When I look at it bringing about such strong change like that, it feels it can't happen. Am I being too optimistic?

    Besides - if all your old hardware gets too slow - buy a few more and beow.... you get the idea :D

    a grrl and her server [danamania.com]

    • The term "pre-ban" (Score:2, Informative)

      by yerricde ( 125198 )

      and all new hardware required, and implemented horrifically draconian anti-copy-anything protection which both took away the ability to copy for reasonable use, or took away nick the l337 h4X0r's ability to copy 'stuff', ancient second hand hardware, free hardware, is going to become rather desirable.

      You're not the first to think of "pre-ban computers" along the lines of "pre-ban assault rifles." If you're interested in this line of thought, read more: Google pre-ban cbdtpa [google.com]

      • My original post was little more than a prod for curiosity - I'm on an archaic hardware kick at the moment, however another thought struck me which may have relevance. Legislated & enforced copy protection on this level isn't going to happen in a worldwide sense - at least not immediately - the countries who escape the effects are not only going to run on computer systems unburdened by anti-copy-everything protection, but may even end up with hardware manufacturers relocating, if the US goes the wrong way.

        My predictions however, can be usually counted on to mean bugger all - but it's a thought.

        a grrl & her server [danamania.com]

  • Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SmileyBen ( 56580 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @12:16PM (#3506342) Homepage
    I've said this before, but it's important and needs saying. The most important part of what Gilmore is saying is the bit about 'A mandate from all concerned parties' without consultation of consumers. You just know that the 'content industry' would argue that consumers are /never/ going to ask for their rights to be curtailled, but that's exactly the point.

    The *essence* of copyright is that all the people got together and said 'Let's curtail our rights, let's say that if any of us wants to copy something that someone else wrote, they have to pay for it, for a limited period of time'. They did this to promote the public domain - to get more stuff written by allowing authors a temporary monopoly on their works.

    But the point is, the moment the public mandate for copyright is gone, there can be **no** justification for copyright. It's not a moral right. It's not a natural right. This isn't like saying that we shouldn't kill people. The point is that it's a mutual agreement on the part of a population, for their own gain. And the moment society decides it doesn't get anything from copyright any more copyright is defunct. You can't argue 'But copying is *wrong*'. It's not. All that is wrong, and all that would make copying wrong, is if everyone in society has decided to take on this copyright burden, and a few people decided they would be freeloaders.

    As it is, I think that time has come. Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. I'm inclined to agree. Once, it took a long time to copy a book, and if you 'published' something, copyright was your only protection from other people selling it. But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point. The person that got their first would be such an advantage due to having a head-start that they'd make tons of money anyway...

    • Re:Copyright (Score:3, Informative)

      by handsomepete ( 561396 )
      The *essence* of copyright is that all the people got together and said 'Let's curtail our rights, let's say that if any of us wants to copy something that someone else wrote, they have to pay for it, for a limited period of time'.

      From A History of Copyright in The U.S. [arl.org]:
      1790: US Constitution Copyright law in the US is derived from English copyright law (Statute of Anne) and common law. The framers of the U.S. Constitution made copyright law purely federal: "The Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts . . . by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries." Congress subsequently enacted the Copyright Act of 1790 and major revisions to it in 1831, 1870, 1909, and 1976.

      After 1976, of course, revisions started piling up to accomodate technologies. But in essence it seems to me that it was there to protect ideas so others would innovate. Innovation in regards to mass media is not something we're seeing a whole lot of (I would go so far to say that it's discouraged by the mainstream). I agree that there's nothing gained by copyright now in mass media cases because all we're subjected to is the same ol rehashed junk. Why does Britney Spears even need a copyright on her songs when Christina Aguilera is just singing basically the same things?

      But the point is, the moment the public mandate for copyright is gone, there can be **no** justification for copyright. It's not a moral right. It's not a natural right.

      Definitely not a moral or natural right, but it is a protected right. Copyright doesn't exist completely without backing. Besides, I'd say if you look outside of the scope of movies and music, you could find some justification for copyrights (at least in the fields of science and technology).
      • it was there to protect ideas so others would innovate

        That's why the Constitution only grants those rights to Authors and Inventors. Thoday, the holders of copyrights and patents are, almost always, corporations.

        Another distortion of the basic idea came when they started granting copyrights to people who performed the works. Actors are not authors, singers are not authors. They are just doing a job, and should be paid - just once - for doing it, like all other workers. Why should Britney Spears or any other singer be paid millions for singing a song that someone else, probably a 9-to-5 office worker, wrote?

        If the intent of the Constitution were to be applied, only people who wrote something, be it books, plays, screen scripts, music, watever, would be entitled to own copyrights.
        • Another distortion of the basic idea came when they started granting copyrights to people who performed the works. Actors are not authors, singers are not authors. They are just doing a job, and should be paid - just once - for doing it, like all other workers. Why should Britney Spears or any other singer be paid millions for singing a song that someone else, probably a 9-to-5 office worker, wrote?

          Because there's quite a lot of effort that goes into crafting a style--easily as much effort goes into RECORDING a song as does WRITING it. Plus, a performer's copyright only applies to their performance. Remember: the constitution was written before timeshifting music was possible at all.

          If the intent of the Constitution were to be applied, only people who wrote something, be it books, plays, screen scripts, music, watever, would be entitled to own copyrights.

          No, that'd be the letter. The Constitution's copyright / patent powers are there so Congress can protect the right of "creative people" to their work for a "limited time." The fact that both of these definitions has been extended to a much longer period of time is neither unexpected (we live longer, and people are creating new ways to create things) nor, in itself, a problem.

          (The problem, btw, lies in distorting the IP rules to apply to something else [copyrighting what should be patented, patenting what should be trademarked] and continually pressing the "limited time" part of copyright.)
          • ...quite a lot of effort that goes into crafting a style...

            But that's exactly what it is: a craft. It takes a lot of effort to learn how to do many different jobs right. The Constitution's intent was to protect creative work, not hard effort.

            Suppose you are a composer. You have created this new music, but you cannot afford to hire a drummer to record it, so you "sample" the drums from some other recording and use it in your own work. Whose work represents more the "progress of useful Arts", mentioned in the Constitution: your own new musical creation, or the job of some drummer who applied his skill, style, and craft to play a sound which can be used indifferently in a great number of musical styles?
        • That's why the Constitution only grants those rights to Authors and Inventors. Thoday, the holders of copyrights and patents are, almost always, corporations.

          This is pretty much unavoidable. Inventions and literary works are rarely done singlehanded. Copyright and patent law must allow the possiblity that works are a joint effort of more than one creator, and that opens the door to corporate ownership. I've seen this objection a lot, but I have yet to see a practical alternative that preserves the rights of groups of creators while preventing corporations from being able to own patents or copyrights.

          Another distortion of the basic idea came when they started granting copyrights to people who performed the works. Actors are not authors, singers are not authors. They are just doing a job, and should be paid - just once - for doing it, like all other workers. Why should Britney Spears or any other singer be paid millions for singing a song that someone else, probably a 9-to-5 office worker, wrote?

          This is a much less significant change than you make it out to be. If you aren't going to grant copyright for a specific recorded performance of a work, you're left with two options. Option 1 is that the copyright to specific recordings is held by the author of the script, score, or whatnot. The result of that approach is going to be essentially the same as the current system, just with all of the money going to the original author rather than to the performers. I fail to see how this is dramatically more equitable than the current system. Your complaint that Britney Spears makes millions for performing a song is just as readily applied to the author of the song. Why should he make millions of dollars for writing the song just once?

          Option 2 is that there be no copyright protection at all for recordings of performances. This seems even less equitable than Option 1, because under that system neither the author nor the performers get anything.

          The current system seems more fair than either of those two options. Authors of scripts, scores, etc. do get author's royalties today, so they are fairly compensated for their writings. At the same time, performers can copyright their specific performances, so they receive compensation for their efforts.

    • Re:Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Carnage4Life ( 106069 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @01:04PM (#3506530) Homepage Journal
      As it is, I think that time has come. Clearly people no longer thing there's anything to be gained from copyright. I'm inclined to agree. Once, it took a long time to copy a book, and if you 'published' something, copyright was your only protection from other people selling it. But as it is now, the moment you start selling a book, a CD or whatever, you can publish so many copies that there would be no point in others trying to sell the same thing. Once a book is on the store shelves, nobody is going to type up the whole book, lay it out, and print it - there just wouldn't be any point. The person that got their first would be such an advantage due to having a head-start that they'd make tons of money anyway...

      This entire paragraph is inconsistent and makes little sense yet the fact that it is currently at +4 insightful just goes to show that any anti-copyright rant no matter how incoherent will be well received on Slashdot. If there was no copyright then the incentive to write books would drop significantly. Currently writing a good book (both fiction and non-fiction) is a significant effort that requires research, perseverance and a large expendition of time.

      If after expending n amount of months or years someone can just copy books I author for free then the Opportunity Cost [econlib.org] of writring books will become to high for me and I'll find another line of work or write less.

      The main problem with rants like yours is that they are throw the baby out with the bath water solutions. Most people agree that life of author + 70 years is an obscene amount of time to hold copyright on an intellectual work and is harmful to society in the long run. Similarly the lengths that content producers are beginning to go to so as to prevent copyright infringement have begun to intrude on the rights of consumers. However saying that intellectual works should be devalued as to where they should be offered no protection is just as harmful to society if not more.

      Would you also suggest abolishing the welfare or health systems because there are inefficiencies therein and people who cheat the system? I sincerely hope the answer is no.

      • Re:Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:59PM (#3506926) Homepage Journal
        The trouble is, in a digital society, intellectual works have only functional value. Any intrinsic value of a copy (printing costs, materials etc) is nil.

        It's like talking about the value of a James Brown record as art and arguing it can't be art because it's mass-produced. It depends on how you define it, and there is no one 'hand-crafted' record out there from which all the others are prints (a master isn't the final product and can't be played on record players), but even though the James Brown record is a mass-produced object it has use-value that makes it more than a chunk of plastic.

        Well, in digital society, the medium is even more worthless than a chunk of plastic- and even transporting the bits around will typically involve making lots of copies of the work. Every time this very sentence goes to one of the half-million Slashdot readers, a copy is made. You're not 'going' anywhere to see it, a copy of the IP is made on your local computer to show you, assembled bit by bit from instructions given by another computer. In fact, a quick traceroute shows my own path to Slashdot as containing more than 20 hops- sprintlink, newyork.cw.net, exodus.net... so we're talking about 10 million copies of the IP made in order to bring the sentence to the eyes of Slashdotters.

        Yet these copies are valueless- the only value present is if someone reads it, and goes 'hey!' and decides it's a good, insightful argument on the reality of digital media. Perhaps the reader is a lawyer- and wins a court case by making the points I'm outlining. Suddenly, this IP has value- suddenly it's serving a functional purpose.

        Imagine a James Brown record travelling around on the Internet as mp3s. As it goes from server to server, local copies are made and discarded- and have no value. 90% of the time, it ends up on the hard drives of data-hoarders who don't even play it- again, resulting in no value. And then it finds its way to the hard drive of a DJ who works playing music at dances, raves etc: and that DJ sets it aside specially, for times when he needs to make people get up offa that thing! And when he plays it, people dance! THEN it has value, huge value- it can move people who otherwise wouldn't be dancing. Use-value means you look at what it's DOING, not what it IS. It's only a string of bits, when you look at what it IS.

        The trouble with copyright is, it's not equipped to make any sense of the digital situation. It focusses solely on what the IP IS, on whether a string of bits is effectively the IP (a 128K and a 256K mp3 are different strings of bits, but can both be the 'same' IP). Copyright cannot comprehend the notion of IP being copied willy-nilly as a normal activity. You don't transport books by lining up a bunch of people with pencils and having them looking over each other's shoulders and copying what they see- yet this is how digital data is transported over networks. In some cases, it's only the 'stream of letters' being carried, and in others the whole work is stored temporarily on the server, such as Usenet posts. It's all copying.

        By the same token, copyright cannot distinguish between IP being copied into a totally meaningless, no-value situation, and being copied into a situation where it has the same value a physical item would have. Copying a James Brown record into a James Brown fanatic's collection is the same as buying the record, functionally. Copying the James Brown record to border11.ge3-0-bbnet2.nyc.pynap.net as part of the working of the internet carries NO value- yet both of these copyings are the same to the computer.

        Copyright is worthless if it cannot make these distinctions- and actively harmful if it gets in the way of the workings of modern communications networks. And it's not unthinkable to count Napster users (or their current equivalents) as communications networks themselves. Which of them are making use of the IP, and which of them are serving basically as organic components in a titanic data caching scheme?

        The future is this: if you can think of a thing, you can see it, read it, listen to it, watch it, within seconds. It's not just the computer networks but the human networks bringing this about. You can get ANYTHING within seconds. Once I was reading a Hunter S. Thompson book, in which he referenced Mencken's famous, brutal obituary of William Jennings Bryan. Half a minute with Google, and I was reading that obituary, like a footnote Thompson hadn't bothered to add. It's possible he didn't have rights to reproduce it- but could he have envisioned a world in which any online reader of his book could go find that reference in seconds? If so, would he have seen it as a dangerous crime, or as a public benefit? Would Mencken have seen this as a crime or a benefit, to so easily place his work before a curious reader- given that Mencken's agenda was to expose Bryan as a dangerous, stupid, destructive fool and buffoon? Mencken wanted to be read and understood. I'm not sure who owns the copyright to his words now...

        Copyright IS incompatible with the future- unless we're seeking to bring about a new Dark Ages in which the common people don't have access to education, information- don't have access to IP. Intellectual property is knowledge, information. It's fine to want people to be compensated, but to seriously work to cut off access to knowledge and information means something is wrong.

        The thing that is wrong is this: we're heading into a future where nobody ever need be illiterate or uneducated- where we're swimming in an absolute sea of information for all, rather than dying of a drought of it- and we have people wanting to stop that, because they want people to be only as informed and educated as they can afford to be.

        Copyright as it's being extended is wrong, and it must be thrown out.

        • > The future is this: if you can think of a
          > thing, you can see it, read it, listen to it,
          > watch it, within seconds

          This is, so sadly, not true.
          One of the big changes in digital and modern technology is that the hardware required to play things, to copy them, and to create them has become disparate. Once, if you wanted to play a song, you played it on your own instruments.. which you could use to create just as well. Once, if you wanted to copy a song, you copied the sheet music, and you could write new music on the same thing.
          Now if you want to play a song you need a CD Player or Winamp. If you want to copy a song you need a CD Burner or an internet connection. But if you want to create a song that can compare to others you need thousands of pounds of hardware.
          The future, it seems, is: if you can think of a thing, you can see it, read it, listen to it, watch it, within seconds, PROVIDED SOMEBODY ELSE REALIZED IT. And that somebody else isn't necessarily talented or anything like that; they're just rich enough to afford the creation hardware.

      • Okay, to address your points in the opposite order: no, I wouldn't abolish the welfare or health systems because these are to protect *moral rights* / complete society's obligations. I believe that it is wrong to let someone starve or die of a disease that could be prevented.

        Copyright, however, is completely the other way round. We don't have copyright because we feel that it is a moral obligation to make sure that anyone who has a book in them can write it down. We have copyright because we agreed that we want to promote the *luxury* items that books are. Sure, an argument could be made that scientific discovery is what is being promoted by copyright, but if that were so, I think it would be wrong - governments should be ensuring that, say, medical advances are made, not the 'whim' of the consumers. Also, largely scientific advances are 'given to the public domain' - people build on one another's advances, so people don't restrict how widely this knowledge is disseminated.

        But to get to the central point of your complaint about my paragraph above, yes, I am serious when I say it, and no, it isn't inconsistent. By and large these days, books have a single print-run. Yes, there are a very small fraction (of very visible books) that have multiple print-runs - namely bestsellers. In these cases, it's never the question between the author starving or not, but between them getting very rich or only moderately rich. And even then, this is limited to the first book they write - the first run of, say, the *second* Harry Potter book was very large, and enough to make JK Rowling the enormous amount she did without a second run.

        But essentially, if you buy a book, the likelihood is that it will be a first-run. What does this say? Well it says that the person who printed it had a great advantage in having a head-start. Even if someone else was allowed to print books, they couldn't do it fast enough. The simple fact is that it's the first *month*, not the first year, let alone 70 years, after a book has been published that determines how much the author gets - once you have or haven't got reviews, that's about it. Even if people had the opportunity to print other people's books, they largely wouldn't - since you don't get people telling each other to go out and buy this amazing book which was newly released for the second time!!!

        Fact is, it's not a matter of people spending time printing stuff anymore - books appear from the publisher, and once that happens nobody else has an opportunity to steal the contents and print their own version.
      • I am not a consumer. I am a citizen. I both consume and produce goods, intellectual and otherwise.

        If I am a consumer with my rights of authorship and fair use stolen from me, then so are you.

    • There's a huge point your missing: Copyright doesn't just protect big media companies, it also protects the little guy. I can even demonstrate this in slashdot terms...

      Say copyright is thrown out the window and all intellectual property becomes a giant free-for-all. Let's assume that "Bob Smith" wants to publish his works on the net. Under your thinking, because he's the originator, and the first to get it online, he'll make "a ton of money anyway".

      For weeks, no one buys Bob's book. Then some guy claims on Slashdot that it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and everyone hits his site at once to purchase it (or just read it for free with advertisments--whatever). Only problem is that Bob's site is on a DSL line. Hence, the Slashdot effect (this happens in the real world to lots of products actually). Bob's site goes down and all the sudden his product is VERY scarce.

      An enterprising person with deep pockets and a fast connection/beefy server suddenly starts mirroring Bob's work and charging their own fee for it. Suddenly everyone has a mirror of the writing and because there's no copyright, Bob has no recourse... And he's "lost" tons of money.

      This same rule applies to big business trying to rip off the small guy and take his stuff national (or worldwide).
    • I am so tired as being called a consumer.

      I am a CITIZEN!

  • I won't buy a harddisk where I am not in 100% control of what is on there, no way no how. I will never allow a company to buy it, as it more than likely will affect the business negativily (not being able to make proper backups, harddisks refusing to copy files, compiles going down the drain, servers fucking up).

    The day I notice that I have bought a CD that I can't play in my computer or portable CD player I will go back and raise hell, I will refuse to ever buy that crap.

    Why oh why do they have to punish people who want to buy quality versions of CDs/DVDs etc. Give me great quality and great price and I will buy, make me WANT to buy your products, give me a reason. Bullying me will piss me off. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest you get pissed too.
  • is that you can't copy them. If I had a DVD player that could record video/audio it would become a useful technology. Until that time it's a HALFWAY good technology. If the computer gets crippled it becomes a HALFWAY good technology too.

    Why the hell does anyone want to take an extreemly useful technology and limit it. It's like the ability to drive anywhere I want is a very usefull technology but if the governemt decided that automobile manufacturers had to put devices in the steering wheels to prevent people from turning left makes it a HALFWAY good technology.

    HALFWAY ain't good enough for the car and it's not good enough for the DVD and it sure as hell isn't good enough for MY computer.
  • The original item is dated November 2000. Intel announced their chipset for "secure monitors" somewhat before that. As far as I know, though, no monitors with that technology ever shipped as products.

  • Companies Who Are Inept at Protection will Triumph (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @12:46PM (#3506448) Homepage

    Gilmore's main points:

    1) The costs of copy protected systems aren't paid by the "content" holders -- they are paid for by consumers. Essentially, you will end up paying more for a less capable computer, while Disney laughs its way to the bank.

    2) For a copy protected computer to work, every peripheral -- from monitors to speakers -- must have copy protection built in. Think you're having trouble getting your Wintel box to behave now? You ain't seen nothing yet.

    3) This is all being decided by government, so that no rogue manufacturers can ship non-protected computers. If that weren't the case, Apple might skip imposing copy protection, and we'd see 75% of Wintel users buying Macs so that they could avoid copy protection.

    Gilmore seems puzzled by the fact that Intel isn't telling the content companies to cram it. Obviously, Intel must think it's financially in their best interest to side with the content guys. Why they feel this way hasn't been answered.

    It seems the pivotal question here is: will the Hollings bills require all manufacturers to build end-to-end protection throughout their computers and peripherals? If not, what degree of protection does the bill require?

    A wrinkle in this that nobody has thought of. Suppose end-to-end encryption is required. Each company's protection would be a little different, as we're talking about hundreds of components from various vendors. It might turn out that Apple or AMD sort of messes up their encryption (oops!) -- and by that "mistake" captures 75% of the computer market. After all, would you rather own a machine with rock-solid protection, or one that has a huge chink in the armor?

    I know I'd want to buy my computer from the supplier who was most competent at designing machines and least competent at providing 100% protection of content.

    Want to start a successful computer company? Just hire designers who don't know or care about ensuring robust protection.

    • I'm reminded of the Apex DVD player in which the engineers "forgot" to remove the "loopholes" menu which enabled switching NTSC/PAL, setting region, and disabling Macrovision. I immediately bought one.
    • > Obviously, Intel must think it's financially in
      > their best interest to side with the content
      > guys. Why they feel this way hasn't been
      > answered.

      They probably hope to snag an exclusive license from the content providers.

  • The only way (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kscguru ( 551278 )
    The only way any industry will ever get everyone to accept hardware "rights management" like this is if they make a better product. That's right: they have to make some DVD-player system (or whatever else they feel like) that has MORE features and more useful goodies than the modern computer.

    Why are people switching from old videotape to DVD? It's the addons - no degredation of quality over time, extra interviews, a smaller disc, you can play a DVD on your computer, or whatever else it is that Joe Consumer happens to like. Laserdiscs didn't have as nice a "feature set" as DVDs, and we can see how few people actually have laserdisc players...

    If the content industry wants people to use rights-management hardware, they have to make the hardware desirable (or pass a law banning everything else...). And if they don't make the hardware SIGNIFICANTLY better than the stuff we all have already - our boxes, our DVD players, etc., then the market is going to drop "rights management" like a hot potato.

    And if the content industry actually DOES create a better product, and gets the market, I say more power to them! Then, and only then, are they actually working in a capitalist economy. But I don't see that kind of creativity on the part of the content industry, or whoever else wants "digital rights management."

    • If I understand your post correctly, you are confused. It seems you say the industry should make a system that people want and also has copy protection. Then you go on to say it should be just like DVD. DVDs already have a "rights management" system (CSS, regions, etc...). It is weak and primitive, but it is there.

      Even this primitive scheme has serious problems--as do all copy protection systems. Read these two articles listed below. Note that voodoo3 cards have a tv out, which the DVD consortium apparently decided is evil.

      This kind of crap is why I haven't bought a DVD player/drive. The thing is useless if you can't play anything due to copy protection. ...or you are forced to watch a bunch of commercials! ...or cannot use the OS of your choice!

    • The only way any industry will ever get everyone to accept hardware "rights management" like this is if they make a better product.

      This is impossible, because "good product" and "copy protection" are contradictory terms.

      Copy protection is an artificially introduced capacity for failure. In other words, they are creating failures and and breakages where none would exist otherwise. If the copy protection isn't there, the product is less expensive and more reliable. So what are consumers going to buy: The cheap, reliable product, or the expensive, flaky product?

      Schwab


    • The only way any industry will ever get everyone to accept hardware "rights management" like this is if they make a better product. That's right: they have to make some DVD-player system (or whatever else they feel like) that has MORE features and more useful goodies than the modern computer.
      BS. That technological lead will last for all of 3 seconds until someone puts out an identical product without DRM. Why people continue to mod arguments like this up is beyond me.

      -a
  • I hope this bill gets passed. The REAL upshot of it will be that peeps outside of the US will buy equipment from Asia & the EU (that will circumvent copy protection messures) and avoid US manufacturers altogether. And many within the US will import and still keep rippin and warezin.

    As it is the USA has garnered a lot of bad feeling interneationally since Bush came to power, and I for one am sick of the USA attempting to thrust its legislation down my throught. Dont get me wrong - America is a great country with many fine people - but your politics SUCK!!

    Go ahead, do it - see if the rest of the world gives a shit as the US economy goes into a nose dive!!
    • Dont get me wrong - America is a great country with many fine people - but your politics SUCK!!

      And this makes us different from the rest of the world how? =P
  • To those of you who conclude that these copy-prevention technologies will only be mandated in the US, leaving the rest of the world free to carry on with the business of innovating at will, I offer the current draft [eff.org] of the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group [eff.org], to which the co-chairs (from Intel, Fox and Mitsubishi) have added the following language:

    Scope
    This document sets forth requirements to be imposed on certain products that receive unencrypted digital terrestrial broadcast content to protect such content against unauthorized redistribution [outside of the home or personal digital network environment].2 The document assumes that the requirements will apply in the United States, although it is anticipated that the requirements could be modified, as necessary, for use in other jurisdictions.

    Got that? The conspiracy knows that it's going to have to extra-territorialize if its going to acheive its ends, and it's rarin' to go.

  • Time to destroy hollings (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 ) <samuel AT bcgreen DOT com> on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:26PM (#3506825) Homepage Journal
    This raises only one question in my mind:
    What would it take to deny Hollings the democratic nomination in his next election bid? This is really the only way to stop him (others of his ilk will respond when they see him die a thousand deaths).

  • changing times (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:33PM (#3506847)
    The 'content' companies like Disney etc. are trying to use legislation and technology to stop progress and allow them to keep making profits. This is such a short sighted view.

    As a (hypothetical) example, take music CDs. A new CD costs £15 over here, and before I buy it I can hear maybe one song off it on the radio if I'm lucky. That's a big investment for something I might only listen to once. So I don't buy many CDs, and I rip oggs of other peoples' music.

    But what if the music companies offered different versions of CDs? A cheap one, with just a paper sleeve and the name on the front for a three or four pounds, and a 'premium' edition with extras, proper case, lyric sheet etc at full price?

    The fans will buy the full price disc anyway, and everyone else will buy the cheap one. Thus, more sales, less copying(why bother copying when you it doesn't cost you much to get a proper copy?). Greater listening audience means more fans in the future, leads to more sales of the premium version.

    I get the music I want without breaking the law, the music industry gets to make its profits still. Everyone is happy. Or is this a dangerous communist anti-american view that will have FBI agents trying to get me extradited?

  • MPAA and RIAA are stupid (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @02:51PM (#3506899) Homepage
    if I can see it or hear it then I will have it in a form that is not controlled by them. They cant stop it and they never will short of creating laws that have the death penalty attached to it. Even then I dont see it stopping. Documents,movies,video,music,audio,art. it will exist in open and unrestricted forms in greater numbers and shared rampantly no matter what they do or what they try.

    Why? because the general populace will never be stupid enough to believe that when they buy a CD or DVD they didn't buy anything but are only holding a delicate license to view it a limited number of times until the morther company wants to revoke it for any reason. The general public wont put up with it... and we dont.. looking at how "protected cd's" get ripped and on Gnutella,kazza,opennap,etc... minutes after release is proof enough.

    Hey Movie companies, recording companies, writers, actors, musicians.. Thanks for the entertainment, but try and tell me how to enjoy it? then you can go straight to hell and

    It's time we all stand up and collectivally flip off anyone that is for content control.
    • Quoth Lumpy:

      Why? because the general populace will never be stupid enough to believe that when they buy a CD or DVD they didn't buy anything but are only holding a delicate license to view it a limited number of times until the morther company wants to revoke it for any reason. The general public wont put up with it... and we dont.. looking at how "protected cd's" get ripped and on Gnutella,kazza,opennap,etc... minutes after release is proof enough.

      Ah, but we aren't the "general populace"!
      Part of my job(s) is doing technical support, and let me tell you, most people still treat computers like black-boxes: inscrutable, beyond understanding. If something doesn't work, they might get mad, they call me, but if I say I can't fix it either, they leave it at that. After all, if Ster can't fix it, it can't be fixed!
      Most people don't have the know-how that Slashdot posters (think they) have. They come across a CD that won't play in their computer, they curse the computer and play it in a CD player instead.

      -Ster

      • Yet these same people happily loan each other the Office 2000 and Xp cd's, virusscan software, etc... when you tell them, "that's illegal" they laugh and say, no I own it, I can loan it to him.

        and the general user can easily use kazaa and the likes... we just supply them with the control-free copies...

        Funny, they happily download those too....

        Herein lies what will happen... the few of us that have enough brain cells to understand PC's will feed the braindead sheep the content-control-removed versions.

        This is how it is now, and this is how it will be, nothing will change that.
  • When ALL hardware is incapable of copying, the protection being in the very hardware itself, since most audio and video mastering systems are heavily computerized these days, they're not immune, the problem will disappear along with the Luddites who mandated it.

    Their membership won't be able to produce, reproduce or distribute ANYTHING and their income will spiral down to zero.

    Then you can expect for this insanity to come to an abrupt end.

    Personally, I'd LOVE te see Valenti's and the RIAA cunt's heads on some pikes. The sooner the better.

  • Gilmore's interesting use of terminology (Score:3, Funny)

    by God! Awful ( 181117 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @03:22PM (#3507036) Journal
    Does 'mfrs' stand for manufacturers or motherfuckers? Or is that the point?

    -a
  • The upshot is that if such measures really are built in, the general-purpose computer may not have long to live.

    How the fuck is that an 'upshot'!?

  • The Great American Hardware Fork (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nice2Cats ( 557310 ) on Sunday May 12, 2002 @08:06PM (#3507965)
    Okay, let's assume this becomes U.S. law. Now, is the rest of world going
    to say: Hey, look at this new technology invented by the U.S. government
    that will let U.S. industry control our computers and stereos and CD
    players to protect the interests of giant U.S. media corporations. Wow!
    What a fantastic idea! Let's adopt it!

    I think not.

    I don't see the Germans buying computers with U.S. mandated content control
    chips for their parliament, or Sony putting in U.S. designed chips into the
    CD players they sell in Tokyo, or the Russians forcing all tape decks off
    their market that haven't been approved by some U.S. media consortium. The
    idea that the U.S. can force the rest of the world to implement what will
    be immediately seen as a U.S. designed and controlled crypto system into
    every machine that blinks, beeps, or boots is so brain dead that you just
    know it can only come from a member of the U.S. Congress.

    This is the Clipper Chip all over again.

    When it comes down to it, the rest of the planet doesn't give a rat's ass
    if their citizens aren't cooperating when 20th Century Fox, Microsoft, or
    AOL-Time-Warner try to make the next billion Dollars so that these
    <I>American</I> companies can get richer, give that money to their <I>American</I>
    stockholders and top <I>American</I> executives and maybe even pay <I>American</I>
    taxes that help finance <I>American</I> infrastructure, or, to put it bluntly,
    the <I>American</I> military machine. They'd rather see their citizens spend
    their money on local bratwursts, sushi, or vodka: That way it gets fed back
    into the local economy.
    their citizens rip, copy, and burn anything out of America they possibly
    can. If you are a Chinese CS student, you can either spend money on a
    Windows license, which means that your Yuan would join those 40 /billion/
    Dollars that Microsoft is stockpiling to buy Iceland and turn the whole
    place into a ski resort for their top executives. Or, you can pirate the
    Windows CD, and spend that money on, say, a Chinese book on C programming
    at your local Beijing book store and kick those running imperialist
    pig-dogs with Red Flag Linux. China is interested in getting their economy
    on an information age footage, and they need operating systems for that,
    the less expensive, the better. Why should they want machines that prevent
    that?

    No, what will happen if that law is passed - and remember, we're talking
    about the country blissfully that is ignoring the fact that the rest of the
    world has basically adopted one common mobile phone standard (not to
    mention the metric system), still transfers money by sending slips of paper
    in the mail, and who live with a television standard that is aptly named NTSC
    - Never The Same Color - is that those people in Taiwan and Korea will
    happily produce hobbled computer, CD, radio, TV, DVD and other parts for
    the U.S. market, while continuing to ship the free technology to the rest
    of the world. Hey, it's a global economy with billions of people hungry
    for computers, and only about 270 million Americans who's computer market
    is saturated anyway. What would you do?

    Now because Content Controlled America is getting specially made parts,
    they immediately miss out on the price cutting effects of mass production.
    In other words: Hardware and electronics prices in the U.S. skyrocket,
    because the other 5.75 billion people on the planet are using the old,
    free, trusted, mass produced hardware, while Americans effectively have to
    have every chip custom built. What we have after a few years of this is a
    /hardware fork/ - the U.S. goes off into one direction, the other countries
    in the other.
    In the mean time, U.S. customs has started rectal searches of all
    long-haired males coming back from Paris, France to make sure they aren't
    smuggling free RAM into the country. You can't buy a CD in Britain because
    they won't run on your content controlled player - just like the DVD
    regional codes, but for real. And your TV station doubles the number of ads
    during the next Olympics because they had to pay for those signals to be
    transfered into U.S. content controlled format...

    Great idea, guys.
  • But no-one's complaining about not having to be a computer scientist to record TV shows so let them encrypt all they want in hardware.

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