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TR: What about the act that Rep. Zoe Lofgren has introduced into Congress, BALANCE, for "Benefit Authors without Limiting Advancement or Net Consumer Expectations"? It would take some teeth out of the provisions of the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] of 1998 that make it illegal to circumvent copy-protection technologies.
BS: It would be neat if that passed -- but never underestimate the power of the lobbyists to kill that stuff. Lobbyists are clever.
TR: Let's talk about the antivirus companies. The Sony BMG rootkit was the kind of thing that antivirus software should have detected on people's computers. Yet it wasn't reported by anyone, until the Finnish security company F-Secure started looking into the matter.
BS: It is a black eye for the antivirus industry. But if big corporate buyers say to Symantec and other antivirus companies "What the hell were you doing while all this happened?" things are more likely to change. There are press reports that the Department of Homeland Security was really annoyed that their antivirus software didn't catch the Sony rootkit. Now there's a consumer with a little more leverage! The question is: Is all of this just noise, or will it turn into a change in behavior?
TR: It appears that Sony BMG, at least, won't behave this way again.
BS: Why not? A few years from now, after the controversy goes away, why wouldn't they, unless they're told not to? The media companies have a business model that's fighting for survival. And this time around they have realized that they can extend their business model through the legal system, by lobbying for laws like the DMCA. So they're not going to go away quietly. They are going to defend it even after it stops making sense.
Guest (Richard Tedrow)
...lame as it sounds in the world of $6 bill a year lobbying in DC, is still best. Be polite and brief but forceful:
"I have a very strong interest in __________ and it's a deal breaker for me. You vote for my interests, I vote for you. Or not. Thank you, etc."
Lobbying money means nothing if your guy isn't re-elected.
Guest (Chris)
Guest (Martin)
DRM is being used to prevent dubbing old videos to DVDs, a right one has to make a backup copy is infringed thereby. As VCRs are going away, there ought to be a way to override the copy protection. Any ideas?
Guest (movielover)
I wish I knew. I just ran up against the new HBO copy protection.In the past, I downloaded movies with TIVO, then made one dvd copy for my collection. This is something that viewers have been doing since the VCR was invented. Now HBO prohibits more than one copy...and the TIVO recorder has the one copy. Thus, a dvd cannot be made. This is crap. I complained to TIVO, SONY (my recorder) and HBO. I guess I need to write my congressman, too.
Guest (Chris)
Guest (ms)
A few years ago, I bought a Sony portable digital recorder to record my children's musical performances. When I tried to copy the recordings digitally, the device's copy protection software wouldn't let me do it. Sony's response to my complaint was, roughly, "tough". I vowed then never to buy another Sony product (and I haven't).
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Guest (vso@peervision.com)
The meaning of “owning” is blurred
Content owners have every right to protect their interests and consumers protect their rights. This creates conflicts in the digital world because the meaning of “owning” is blurred. Should we change to rent instead of buy?
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Guest
Wouldn't that be called "pay to play", or "pay per view"?
People are already balking, that's why they're not buying. Punishing them with malware isn't going to make anyone's sales increase. Make it easy and safe to get content over the net. Yes, you'll lose some profit to thieves, but most people are honest and want to do the right thing.
See napster, itunes, etc. for examples. Why shouldn't HBO, ABC, Disney, SONY, WB, etc offer similar options?
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Guest (Don)
Content/software "ownership"
Read the fine print associated with what you "buy"... Entertainment content has much in common with software -- you usually buy (license) the right to use a copy, not the content or software itself. The meaning of "owning" is indeed blurred by semantics here, and the entertainment industry seems to still be grappling with how to "license" its wares for public use.
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Guest (Joe Moore)
The meaning of "owning" is blurred but...
I own my computer and nobody is claiming that I rent it. When some company secretly installs software that hides files from me on the computer that I own, someone from that company should go to jail for violating the same laws that computer virus and worm spreaders violate.
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