The Road to Dictatorial Hell
The MPAA and RIAA just submitted comments to the American Intellectual Property Czar, Victoria Espinel, laying out their proposal for intellectual property enforcement. They want us all to install spyware on our computers that deletes material that it identifies as infringing. They want our networks censored by national firewalls. They want border-searches of laptops, personal media players, and thumb-drives. I am enough of a techno-pessimist to believe that baking surveillance, control, and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices, and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell. Chekhov wrote that a gun on the mantelpiece in act one is sure to go off by act three. The entertainment industry's pursuit of its own narrow goals has the potential to redesign our technology to be the perfect tools for oppression.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/16/digital-economy-act-cory-doctorow/print
"I bought a CD, not a license"
I strolled into the store, located the CD I was after, paid for it in cash and left. At no stage was I asked to sign a licensing agreement -- not even a post-sale agreement like those for software. It was a simple transaction of cash for a physical product. "No," cries the music industry, "you are bound by the licensing agreement that you did not sign and that we cannot produce for inspection." Fine, let's suppose I now have a licence for personal use applying to all the CDs I own. I should be able to take advantage of that. A CD I bought ten years ago now has a scratch down the middle so that five of the ten songs refuse to play. Luckily for me, this problem is solely with the physical medium. After all, my licence for personal use should allow me to reacquire ''my'' content. "No," cries the music industry, "you bought a product, not a licence. You are not entitled to a free replacement, you need to buy it all over again. And when you do, you will be covered by another identical licence. Until something happens to this new physical medium."
http://gcn1.posterous.com/i-bought-a-cd-not-a-licensing-agreement
How to Destroy the Book
Anyone who claims that readers cannot, will not, and should not own their books are bent on the destruction of the book, the destruction of publishing, and the destruction of authorship itself. We must stop them from being allowed to do it. The library of tomorrow should be better than the library of today. The ability to loan our books to more than one person at once is a feature, not a bug.
