On Digital Millenium Pirates
p2pnet.net News:- Here’s an interesting list of questions:
- Do strict copyright laws protect creativity – or stifle it?
- Does digital piracy only hurt U.S. media conglomerates – or small-time artists and authors in local markets as well?
- Is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act a much needed update to laws that lag technology – or a bludgeon in the hands of media companies that can’t come to terms with the future?
- Are all 70 million-plus music, movie, and software downloaders unethical thieves – or is there something wrong with the current system that needs to be fixed?
- Will suing customers, lobbying lawmakers, and sending out notice-and-takedown letters be sufficient to staunch piracy – or are their other solutions?
- Are you or your kids committing piracy – and if so, should you do something about it?
They’re raised in Pirates of the Digital Millennium by John Gantz and Jack B. Rochester who, "examine the past, present and future of copyright infringement and enforcement," according to a press release, which promises:
"Starting with ground-breaking research from IDC on software piracy around the globe, and fresh research conducted by IDC for the book on consumer attitudes about music and movie piracy, Gantz and Rochester cover the story from the streets of Bangkok to the halls of Congress, from secret duplicating factories in Paraguay to college dorm rooms."
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See:-
secret duplicating factories - How the Intellectual Property Wars Damage Our Personal Freedoms, Our Jobs, and the World Economy, Financial Times, Prentice Hall
November 22nd, 2004 at 9:11 pm
as an answer to first question mainly, yet also the following,
some excerpts of CED (Committee for Economic Development) : http://www.ced.org/docs/report/report_dcc.pdf
PROMOTING INNOVATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
THE SPECIAL PROBLEM OF DIGITALINTELLECTUAL PROPERTY :
Digitization offers the possibility, at least in the short term, of the most finely grained
control over information that can be imagined. This has created what the National Academy of Sciences has labeled the “digital dilemma.” As the Academy put it, digital technology has the “potential to demolish a careful balancing of public good and private interest that has emerged from the evolution of U.S. intellectual property law over the past 200 years.”
Chairman Greespan
“If our objective is to maximize economic growth, are we striking the right balance in
our protection of intellectual property rights? Are the protections sufficiently broad to
encourage innovation but not so broad as to shut down follow-on innovation? ”
If an intellectual property regime successfully encouraged vast amounts of creative production but none of this production was shared beyond the creator, would the regime be considered successful? Obviously, the answer would be “No.”
Should we have protected their claim in the same way that we do for owners of land? Or should the law make their insights more freely available to those who would build on them, with the aim of maximizing the wealth of the society as a whole? Are all property rights inalienable, or must they conform to a reality that conditions them?
The central problem with broad use of DRM is not that software code will be regulating users, but that content creators will be unilaterally regulating private uses of content and controlling the course of subsequent innovation.
NOW mine : stifle it.
November 23rd, 2004 at 9:48 am
Simple question: is this book just preaching about it or is it available to download for free? If it isn’t then why bother reading it.
June 26th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
The book is excellent, except from one fact. The autors are in the hands of the large software companies. I miss a reference to the fact that software companies abuse their power to “suck” money out of our pockets. Look at how software companies deny me buying a software in the US and have it shipped overseas. I have to buy it locally, even if I want a English language version. When you want the English version software you still have to pay for translating to local languages. That add ruffly around 50% to the US price.
Second example. Autodesk require me to upgrade everytime they ship a new version of Acad / AcadLT. If you break the line you will not be able to do a upgrade but need to buy a full version. Needless to say I can not afford that anualy upgrade and I am stuck with my Acad LT 2000.
Add to this the fact that you are buying a software package costing hundreds of US$. What do you get? Exactly the same as if you get a pirated copy of the software. The question then becomes; Why buy the software? Ok “Pirates of the Digital Millennium” gives lots of reasons for the consumers to act with morality, but does not require anything like that from the companies making the software. As a minimum, the book should suggest to go back to the old days where you got a propper manual with the software. Maybe, for consumer software like Windows, Office and like, run clases at non profit open only for holders of licenses. ( I still have my old folders with DOS 1.0 as eye-candy in my shelf. That is the way it should have been.) Microsoft Press “official” documentation for software can be bought by everybody, regardless of valid license or not. If that was not enough, Microsoft press official documentation often refer to “special literature” you need to add to what you already have bought. That makes good buisiness for third party manuals like the excellent QUE series of books.
To by DOS today you need to buy a Windows XP license and then “downgrade” to DOS. Of corse you need to find some old floppies to copy your selfe, but you have to pay microsoft.
My conclusion is the morality of the software manufactures is worse than the public and the software companies force us to so. The book should point the finger much more to the big companies.
The book is good reading and brings up lots of questions with guidlines to your own anser without dictating the answers. Beeing an europeeian with ties to asia I feel the book is focusing to much on American morality and way of thinking, but when one of the authors past is the US navy you have to expect so.
The book is reconmended if you keep this in mind.
Regards
Dagfinn Topland
Norway