| Wednesday,
February 26, 2003 The
Digital Rights Management (DRM) discussion continues.
Roland had opened by announcing his intention to abandon Intel systems and
switching to Apple.
The real problem with all this DRM stuff isn't its
use for DRM - it's the fact that in order to perform DRM, it has to be
all-powerful and pervasive.
Which completely opens the door for compromise and
abuse writ large.
Remember the Clipper Chip? Policy issues aside,
there were huge technical problems with it, not the least of which was
that it was an explicitly-defined backhole which could be exploited by
miscreants.
This is Clipper for your PC, only it has far more
power and reach into your system than Clipper would've exerted over your
encrypted telephone. This thing can be used to -prevent you from doing
things- with your hardware and software, and since by definition it is
preventing you from doing things by -doing its own things behind your
back-, it is a diabolus ex machina for which you will be paying good
money.
This is a HUGE security risk. Once exploits for this
system have been developed (and, trust me, they -will- be developed; just
look at the progress made on XBox by a ragtag bunch of games-fetishists,
then magnify that 10000x with the interested parties and concomitantly
higher level of interest, and thus expended effort, of those who'll be
VERY to gain the keys to the Intel-based-PC kingdom), and once it's become
pervasive because people are forced to buy it if they want to use content
(watch DVDs, play games, access an online game, whatever), your data will
never be safe again.
Money is fungible - every dollar spent with Intel
furthers the implementation of this abomination. So, spending money -now-
on non-DRM-enabled Intel processors and so forth provides them the funding
to develop and deploy this stuff (much like spending money -now- with
Microsoft funds -their- ongoing and future misdeeds; I don't think it's
coincidence that Microsoft just announced their new 'rights server' at the
same time that this Intel TPC crap comes to light).
No, thank you. I'm opting out, and the best way to
do that, IMHO, is to support one of the two major manufacturers who ISN'T
beholden to Intel and its schemes - i.e., Apple (Sun doesn't make laptops
at the moment, AMD isn't a major manufacturer, though this stupidity of
Intel's may change that). Because I am metaphysically certain that
forthcoming generation of Intel processors won't work without this stuff,
irrespective of whose motherboard one uses.
Otherwise, it just wouldn't make sense.
Roland Dobbins
I don't find that as compelling an argument as
Roland does, but for the moment I'll stand aside and let Bob Thompson
answer:
AMD isn't any better. They're just as guilty as Intel. They sit on the
same committees and sign off on the same standards documents.
Roland replied:
Then it seems to me that Apple's the only logical choice, at this
point. They haven't participated in TPC-type foolishness, at least so far.
They can certainly be -obnoxious-, but they aren't -dangerous-.
I now view Intel, along with Microsoft (and AMD) as downright
-dangerous-.
This is unlikely to be the end of the discussion.
My own view is that it is difficult to stop a juggernaut by standing in
its way; and that Intel has done a lot of good for this world. We would be
better off without the need for boycotts.
Moreover, it wouldn't take a lot for government
to get into this act and require some kind of hardware DRM in all new
systems sold. I doubt that boycott of Intel and a switch to Apple, even by
10% of the computer using public -- and that's a lot of people to persuade
-- will have much impact.
Clipper was stopped without boycotts.
I also suspect that technology has a way of
overcoming wishful thinking.
And finally, everyone seems to have lost track of
the real point: is there a way to protect intellectual property without
causing a train wreck? (Hint: we might begin with more realistic
expectations of what we are protecting: I doubt anyone can enforce the
perpetual monopolies Disney wants, nor do I suspect anyone I much respect,
including the ghost of Walt Disney supports the Big Corporate positions.)
More on copyright itself below.
I would also suggest that
the following story is more relevant to the DRM discussion than you might
at first think:
Jerry,
File this under the "You've GOT to be
kidding!" department:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/
news/front/5262794.htm
From the article:
"By 6 p.m. Saturday, 71-year-old Margaret
Richitt had already endured a difficult day."
<snip>
"Tired and shaken up, Richitt walked to the
baggage claim area, planning to rent a car. Then she realized she had left
her coat on the plane, and that's when her bad day got worse.
Bomb-sniffing dogs were called, and checkpoints were
shut for 55 minutes after Richitt retraced her steps to Gate F6, walking
the wrong way through the terminal's checkpoint exit lane.
"This woman breached the screening
process," Philadelphia Police Capt. Dominic Mingacci said. "I
checked the ladies' room, the men's room, the trash cans, any place
something can be hidden."
Henry Stern
As Mr. Stern observes, "But we were born
free."
Arbitrary and discretionary authority to public
officials are dangerous powers to give, but taking away all discretion
leads to idiocies like shutting down an airport because a 71 year old
woman forgot her coat.
The proper remedy is to keep jurisdictions down
and limit the scope of government, and then stop trying to reduce
everything to a set of "zero tolerance" rules. But that would
not only be sane, it would limit the number of government employees: and
the purpose of government is to take tax money and use it to pay
government employees.
On Schools and the military:
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Thanks for bringing to my attention the issue of
teachers harassing children of the military. I have forwarded the article
to friends and family and my ex-wife, who is also former military. My own
children, right in the age group mentioned, attend a school which borders
the senior NCO housing area for Fort Bliss; I don't think it should be a
problem for them. I know their teachers this year and we get along very
well. If, however, I find that this harassment ever has gone on during my
tour here in Korea, I plan to return to El Paso with blood in my eye and
violence on my mind. This is foul even given the state of modern
education. "Oppose the war if you wish, but hurt my children and I
will hurt you."
Disgustedly yours, Frank
PS: all is still quiet here, despite wandering MiGs
and missile firings.
"Make haste to assure us that you at home
love and support us as we love and support you; for if we find that we
have poured our lives into these desert sands for nothing, beware the fury
of the legions." A Roman Centurion writing to his Senator uncle
in about 400 AD
I'm not a big proponent of the war (but I also admit
I don't have a better solution)
At least someone in Denmark remembers who their
friends are.
Interesting that the ban on Germans is conditional,
the ban on the French is forever.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_
754383.html?menu=news.quirkies
-- John Harlow
Then we have this logic:
Jerry,
Your reference for current math thinking < http://mathematicallycorrect.com/johnleo.htm
> is copy written May 1997 (6 years old). In our current instant
society this is ancient history.
Along with "The Bell Curve" (Richard J.
Herrnstein and Charles Murray1994)
this belongs in the good intentioned but Stupid Idea
bin.
I believe this is just another case of someone
dragging some obscure reference
and trying to play it as the "Liberal/NEA"
norm.
As the child of 2 dedicated school teachers, this is
a bit unfair.
They both worked very hard and believed in teaching
and living diversity as well
as requiring complete and accurate work form their
students.
doug
Douglas McCaw Senior Web Applications Consultant
PS - I won't think that Conservatives are all Racist
Pigs if You don't think Liberals are all Commie Pinko's, agreed?
I am not sure this needs any comment. Is it self
parody? Meanwhile, you may -- and will -- think as you like. I don't know
what a Commie Pinko is. I do know fuzzy thinking when I see it.
I also know that most of the anti-war
demonstrations are organized through the Worker's World which is
subservient to His Amazingness Kim Il Jong and North Korea. Are they
Commie Pinkos, or have the Communists thrown them out for left
deviationism?
And if you are convinced that your meritorious
parents are typical of today's school system, words fail me. For the Bell
Curve comments see below.
Robert Bruce Thompson on
Copyright:
It seems to me that 28 years renewable for another
28 years is only slightly less ridiculous than the current terms. By
"limited" the Founders certainly were not thinking of a 56-year
term. In fact, as I'm sure you as a Constitutional scholar are aware, many
considered the original 14 year plus 14 year term grossly excessive.
The relevant portion of Sectin 8 says: "To
promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited
Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective
Writings and Discoveries;"
which seems pretty clear to me. The intention was to
encourage authors and inventors to make their creations public, not to
provide them with a lifetime annuity. It's also pretty clear that there is
no Constitutional basis for protecting recorded music, movies, and so on
under copyright. Such things can in no reasonable way be regarded as
"Writings", and to cover them under copyright would require a
Constitutional amendment.
As far as term, you argue that lifespans were
shorter then, but that seems to me to miss the point. A lot of things are
different now, and most of them argue in favor of shorter copyright terms,
not longer ones. At that time, the pace of life was much slower, as was
the rate at which knowledge grew. Many fewer books were published, and it
might take literally years before a book published in one country was
eventually published in another.
If we are to continue to have copyright at all, and
it is by no means clear to me that copyright is any longer viable, the
term should be much shorter. I think one year non-renewable is reasonable.
As you know, the vast majority of books, fiction and nonfiction, earn
close to 100% of their eventual profit within one year. In fact, most
novels earn 90% or more of their eventual total profits within one month,
as any honest publisher or bookstore owner will tell you.
Certainly established authors like you may enjoy
residual royalties over a period of years, but that is the exception
rather than the rule. But you might argue reasonably that, for example, a
movie studio might wait a year and a day to begin making a movie from one
of your novels, and that would be unfair. You're right, so let's take a
two-tiered approach. You enjoy absolute copyright protection for one year.
After one year, anyone may freely copy your material for non-commercial
use, including posting it on the web, making freely-distributable e-books,
etc. But for any commercial use, such as making a movie derived from it or
publishing and selling the work in hard copy, your work remains protected
for, say, 14 years renewable for 14 more years. How does that strike you?
Incidentally, I put all of my own work under the
Founders' Copyright <http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright>
and I encourage any author to do the same.
-- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com http://www.ttgnet.com/thisweek.html
http://forums.ttgnet.com/ikonboard.cgi
You thirst for my property, don't you? What you
write is, like my columns, essentially worthless after a dozen years; you
need to get all your money up front, as I do for topical non-fiction. Of
course the State has its means of punishing that with
"progressive" taxes. It also taxes me for Social Security I will
not get, and taxes the interest on my savings unless I put them into
strange accounts that I can't touch until I am old.
But one thing I have, or would have if it were
not for people like you, is the accumulated value of my works. I recently
sold an option on BIRTH OF FIRE, for quite a lot of money if they make the
movie, which may well happen. I wrote BIRTH OF FIRE in the 70's, and got
very little for it; but over the years it has been in print and made me
some every year, not a lot, but some.
MOTE IN GOD'S EYE was written in the 70's, more
than 30 years ago. You would now put Moties in the public domain; as well
as the words Niven and I wrote, and all the concepts in that book. I make
no doubt there are many out there who would just love to take those
concepts and write about them while paying me nothing. Over the years MOTE
has made me a bit every year, and only recently has technology got to the
point that one might make a movie of it; but if you have your way the
studios will be able to grab that book and make their movie and pay me
nothing at all.
Writing fiction is hard work, and not all that
rewarding. There is, as you know since that's what you do, more immediate
money in topical non-fiction. I used to do well out of writing the science
columns for the National Catholic Press. The pay was good -- darned good
in the 70's when I was first trying fiction -- and there were no
residuals. Just as you seem to want.
And if I had been trying to maximize immediate
income, I would have been forced to expand my topical non-fiction. More
articles for American Legion (which paid $1,000 and more for 20
double-spaced pages back in 1976 when that was real money). More
journalism.
Would the world -- would you -- be better off if
I had done that and not written BIRTH OF FIRE and MOTE IN GOD'S EYE,
and THE MERCENARY, and WEST OF HONOR? And do you really think publishers
will pay much to fiction writers if they can't have the copyright for more
than a dozen or so years?
Why do you thirst for the fruits of my labors?
Why do you want to confiscate my work as quickly as you can get your hands
on it? Why do you want me to concentrate on what pays quickly and not
bother with a work that might take years to write and won't earn much for
many more years?
I replied to Thompson's letter with a shorter
version of the above, and added "You have made a convert. In future
I'll support the Author's Guild position of Life Plus 90 Years, since my
opposition to that in favor of going back to 26 + 26 seems to have earned
me some dislike by my fellow authors, and doesn't seem to be winning many
converts elsewhere. His reply:
I fail to see how your position differs in substance
from that of Disney. You apparently believe that copyright was intended to
provide a lifetime annuity for authors, which I don't think was the
intention of the Founding Fathers. Realistically, your 56-year term is a
lifetime annuity, except for those very rare authors who publish before
they are, say, 20 years old and then live longer than their expected life
spans.
As I understand it, "limited" was intended
to encourage authors to write and publish their work by giving them a
short period during which they could benefit from a monopoly on selling
that work. The trade-off was that authors in return agreed that after that
short period their work would become public domain, for the benefit of
everyone.
I don't think I recall signing that social
contract. In any event, I had my say above.
Dear Jerry: And here I thought we were all done with
this topic. But someone got your Irish up, I see. Of course I fully
endorse your position, especially regarding fiction, which has a higher
level of protection under copyright law than factual works. It is damned
hard work. As you know I've been working on a "first" novel for
the last two years, with another one to go. Despite the fact that I've
written and published hundreds of non-fiction articles, the funding for
this effort does not come from that work but from an inheritance.
Having made my living doing magazine articles for a
number of years I can tell you that it is far from the path to riches that
most outsiders imagine it to be. I am often complimented for having done
so much work. My reply is that "It's called 'making a living'."
Most of it was purchased for one-time publication at a low rate of pay.
Other rights were not discussed, much less purchased.
The Copyright Act is supposed to provide incentive
for people to take the time and effort to create new work. That incentive
should consist of being comfortable if not rich and free from care so you
can concentrate on the work. The public already enjoys certain freedoms
from cost. If they don't want to buy a book, they can borrow it from a
friend or a library. No charge, as there is in other countries. They can
make a copy for research or archival purposes as long as its done without
commercial intent. It's called "Fair Use".
That's not enough for a lot of people. They simply
don't want to pay, ever. They would be outraged if someone wanted them to
work for free or for insufficient wages, but they expect writers and
artists to do so. Copyrights are valuable property and Big Media firms are
currently intent on grabbing all that they can. However, the Copyright Act
provides a level playing field for the little guy...if you meet the
registration requirements and can find lawyers brave enough to take on the
big firms.
Part of the problem is that writers and artists are
usually such lousy business people. They don't know what they have has
value beyond the moment and they are too easily persuaded to give up
rights they should keep. Copyright can be overridden by contracts.
My own solution for all this is to amend the
Copyright Act to include compulsory licensing for short text, just the
same as for music works. That way everything would be out there,
available, but everyone who creates would get paid for the use made of
their work. This is probably too simple a solution.
As for DRM, its a way to make sure that everyone
gets credit where credit is due. Right now publishers routinely claim
copyrights they don't own and use that to steal rights. Publishing has
become the only business that makes Hollywood look moral.
If consumers don't become more sophisticated about
these issues and quit trying to ride for free every chance they get, then
creative people will not be able to make a living at their art and will
stop producing, at least in part, because they will be forced to make a
living someway. We all lose when that happens.
We all live in a global market economy. We all
expect and deserve to get paid for our work. There is nothing romantic or
fulfilling about "starving for your art". That just sucks. The
thing that irritates me most is the implied insult that the work has no
real value. If that were true no one would bother to steal it, would they?
Regards,
Francis Hamit
Well, the usual protest is that intellectual
property is a construct. Making copies of something doesn't deprive the
originator of it, so therefore it's all right.
Note, though, that ownership of land is a
construct also. Indeed, Henry George pointed out the essential unfairness
of land ownership, and based a rather libertarian economics on the
"Single Tax" which would tax rents and land ownership and not
much else.
The "natural" state for land is a
commons, only we all know that a commons is a very bad concept for both
environment and production; see "farms, collective, USSR" for
more details.
Oh. Well. And see below
And
Subject: The tactics of technology.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/
2003/0224/cov-dod-02-24-03.asp
Roland Dobbins
Good article.
And then we have JUSTICE, new American style:
Subject: " . . . property isn't worth human
life"
http://www.suntimes.com/output/
news/cst-nws-booby25.html
Roland Dobbins
Brave new world that has such jurors in it. And
see below.
And for those who like real
literary criticism, I bring you (with permission of course) a letter from
another discussion group. It's very much worth your time:
Subject: RE: Was Joseph Conrad racist?
Hi Steve. Good to have something new over which to
disagree with you! I visit the topic of Achebe's attack on Conrad's
"Heart of Darkness" in my new book, "Diversity: The
Invention of a Concept." A summary: The controversy Achebe has
stirred up is whether Conrad's views of Africans (and by extension the
views of a lot of other Europeans) are essentially dehumanizing. Achebe
wrote at one point that the novel is "a story in which the very
humanity of black people is called into question." With this in mind,
Achebe enlists Conrad to the ranks of those who made colonial exploitation
of Africa easier on the conscience of white Europeans.
But Achebe is mistaken. The story shows Kurtz--the
one time idealist and philanthropist--as someone who gives in to a morally
disastrous temptation to identify with the primitive "other."
The book is not an unintended lesson in the need for greater
open-mindedness in the face of cultural diversity. To the contrary, Kurtz
is open-minded--way too open-minded. He meets his downfall not out of
hatred for the culture of the Congolese, but through some kind of
infatuation with them.
True, the narrator doesn't share this infatuation
(though he feels it a little) and Kurtz recovers his sense of himself in
his dying words, but the novel offers us a completely compelling account
of a European man losing his own cultural identity in a self-destructive
embrace of another culture. We should recognize this for its familiarity.
Millions of Europeans and Americans today feel a similar temptation.
Readiness to make such imaginative leaps, out of one's own dreary culture
into worlds (falsely) imagined to be richer, more "authentic,"
and closer to root human identities is what drives a lot of the
idolization of Third World Cultures and cultural self-loathing that is
characteristic of our diversity-besotted civilization.
Is Conrad's portrait of the Congolese unfair? Well,
he is representing the views of ordinary men making their living as
sailors and riverboat adventurers, not the views of anthropologists and
professional interpreters of foreign cultures. In that sense, Conrad is
true to the characters he imagines. But beyond that, this is the same
river flowing through the same country that we have watched tear itself
apart in civil strife, invasion, and unfathomably brutal slaughter for the
last ten years. Was Conrad's portrait that far from the mark, even today?
Achebe, who is really a so-so novelist and nowhere
near Conrad's class (What has he written besides his very early novel
"Things Fall Apart" that is worth bothering with?) is just
egging on the Western-culture-hating pseudos at American colleges and
universities.
Peter Wood
Professor Wood adds
Dear Jerry:
Feel free. Please do send me a link to your website.
(Incidentally, my comment on Conrad and Achebe in my book is a little
fuller and maybe better. Consider this the obligatory advertisement.)
Peter
The infatuation of the West with "the noble
savage" has caused no end of mischief...
TOP
CURRENT
VIEW
|
CLICK HERE for
a Special Request. 
