[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [A2k] Re: [Wsis-pct] IP Justice Comment to IGF on Top Policy Issues for Athens

[Taran Rampersad]

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     Isn't the problem then with the German Law rather than the document?
>
> That is a strange assumption, that it has to be one or the other.
>   
I tend to agree. But the way it was presented, it seemed like the only 
option that was presented was one - and not the other.
> The newly proposed German law is bad, and the document is flawed
> because it doesn't oppose such proposals.
>
>     I think it's dangerous to dismiss DRM the concept.
>
> We should not dismiss it, we should oppose it.
>   
Well, you can oppose it. I believe content creators shouldn't be 
hamstrung in competing in a global market. DRM as we are discussing it 
is a poor way to manage things. DRM as a concept is something different; 
what the problem is remains the implementation.
>      The implementations
>     are where I have problems.
>
> Many implementations have secondary problems of various kinds, and the
> document is flawed because it criticized only these secondary
> problems, without condemning the thing that is basically wrong in DRM:
> that it uses your computer to restrict you.
>   
Let's do something novel. Let's eliminate the computer, the hardware and 
software - and talk about what digital rights are associated with 
copyright and patents. A book/magazine was effective DRM when (1) most 
people were not literate, (2) Gutenberg wasn't around yet, and (3) 
photocopiers didn't exist (pre-Edison). Once literacy became more 
widespread (note the term computer literacy), and then the printing 
press allowed people to mass copy, more people began to read. When more 
people could read, people figured out that they could sell copies and 
make some money (proprietary software). Oddly enough, the Royal Society 
was the first recorded organization I have found in history that 
basically said that human knowledge should be accessible to everyone... 
but then Newton started censoring from his position as he was censored 
before. As a sidenote, the fact that Leibniz and Newton came up with 
calculus independently is an interesting point that I have yet to hear 
used with patents.

At all points, creators somehow eeked out a living. Be they monks locked 
in rooms transcribing while their friends were getting sick with 'almost 
blue cheese...', or as writers who printed things on a Gutenberg press 
(or derivative) and sold to cover their costs, or even today where they 
get money for writing books through royalties.

Royalties. Wait a minute. That's how people make money. Royalties. It's 
also how they get screwed, but that's another issue.... still, creators 
somehow get paid. Some get paid too much, some get paid too little. Most 
never get paid their worth, for better or worse. But what is their worth?

Back to digital rights. Now we can burn CDs, burn DVDs, record magnetic 
media, store information on flash drives... now, the *cost* should go 
down for electronic works (and it hasn't!) since there's less material 
involved. With a larger market, less money per user should pay for more 
than it does now. DRM in it's present implementation benefits 
publishers, not creators. Creators sell their rights so that they can 
pay bills and buy other content. Maybe it's inflated (I think it is). 
But at the end of the day, creators get paid. The problem of the Sonny 
Bono Act and other issues really seems to be the problem.

And then there's the issue of privacy.

How can the GPL support encryption and not DRM? They could be seen as 
two different sides of the same coin.
>     DRM could have valid implementations - for example, to assure that the
>     rights of Free Software are maintained.
>
> That idea is a pipedream, completely impossible.
> (You would need magic, not DRM, to achieve that.)
>   
Again, you're thinking of DRM as it is implemented, not as a concept. 
Please read above. If you require magic beans, perhaps the Enola bean 
will be an entertaining diversio
> However, even if it were possible to do this, it would not justify the
> harm that DRM normally does.
>   
Then focus on the harm of implementation instead of the concept of 
protection of a creator's rights. Next year, they'll call it EIEIO. Will 
the GPL be rewritten for that, too?

-- 
Taran Rampersad
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cnd at knowprose.com

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