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Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Demand helping Supply 
Bravo Cato
| | Today, the copyright industry is exerting increasing control over playback devices, cable media offerings, and even Internet streaming. Some firms have used the DMCA to thwart competition by preventing research and reverse engineering. Others have brought the weight of criminal sanctions to bear against critics, competitors, and researchers. |
| | The DMCA is anti-competitive. It gives copyright holders — and the technology companies that distribute their content — the legal power to create closed technology platforms and exclude competitors from interoperating with them. Worst of all, DRM technologies are clumsy and ineffective; they inconvenience legitimate users but do little to stop pirates. |
| | Fortunately, repeal of the DMCA would not lead to intellectual property anarchy. Prior to the DMCA's enactment, the courts had already been developing a body of law that strikes a sensible balance between innovation and the protection of intellectual property. That body of law protected competition, consumer choice, and the important principle of fair use without sacrificing the rights of copyright holders. And because it focused on the actions of people rather than on the design of technologies, it gave the courts the flexibility they needed to adapt to rapid technological change. |
| | When the next breakthrough media device is invented, its inventor should not face a legal system in which the deck is stacked against him, as Streambox and DeCSS did. He should be free to focus on hiring the best programmers, designers, and marketers, rather than on shopping for a good law firm. If industry incumbents attempt to prevent his product from working with theirs, he should be allowed to circumvent the restrictions as Accolade did in the Sega case. And if the device has a "substantial non-infringing use" and is developed and marketed for such use, Congress and the courts should uphold its legality, even if it threatens the business model of an established industry. |
| | The Founding Fathers gave Congress the right to recognize copyrights in order to "promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts." It hardly promotes progress to give a handful of companies the ability to tightly control how consumers use copyrighted content. Rather, progress is promoted in a technological marketplace of interoperable products, consumer choice, and fierce competition. The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA betray the constitutional vision. They impede rather than promote the progress of science and the useful arts. |
| | Curious to see if this helps educate Congress. |
Projections
| | Everything at the whole Arts Project is killer stuff. Go dig it. |
Quote du jour
| | Sheila Lennon: don't call us consumers unless we eat your product. |
Amen, sister
| | Have you ever thought about what public broadcasters mean by "membership"? I thought I had, until I read this: |
| | PBS and NPR ask for "members" to support their programming by giving funds, but do they want to actually hear from their members or to be accountable to them? By giving them support, the assumption is made that we approve or have chosen their programming because it is what we want. Aren't we really giving our support just to keep them alive, because even if their programming is not of our choice, we like it marginally more than the commercial offerings? Therefore, we are not really members, but simply financial supporters. |
| | PBS and NPR have built their public personae around the emotion of membership, out of the public's need for a sense of ownership and involvement. However, for supporters on the receiving end of programming, the limited dialogue of calling in to a specific radio show, talking to a volunteer at a pledge drive, posting an email, getting a magazine or wearing a sweatshirt has had to suffice for a "relationship" and the only voice they are collected into is one with a bottom line. As for content, the reverberation of agreement or dissatisfaction, the groundswell of support or bubbling up of new ideas for programs cannot be generated when individual voices are left to echo around in each communication's silo. |
| | Does PBS or NPR actually want members? If they do, then they have to be willing to enter into an authentic relationship with their supporters and give us the privileges of membership. In other words, give us a voice, and more than a voice, a dialogue - with them and with each other. |
Anals of Advertising, cont'd...
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