Will DVD acquittal mean tougher copyright laws?

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As an intellectual-property attorney commented:
"By and large, content owners have prevailed in most of the litigation they've brought," Ballon said. "But the place where content owners have been losing is on the Net. Although new technology provides some new opportunities, it has made piracy easier than ever. Court opinions alone have not been able to withstand it. As a result, technology solutions will be required to address the problem of global infringement."

How many people are out there eagerly awaiting the next attempt at encryption, so that they can demolish it? I hope the next media protection scheme isn't overcome by scribbling with a pen or holding down the shift key. I'd like to see a real battle, not just a stupid flaw exposed.

And while the content owners (forget the artists, I mean the real owners) are wasting large amounts of money creating new challenges for adroit programmers, they're also obtaining laws that abridge peoples' rights to use what they paid for:

Quoting:
Jonathan Band, an attorney in the Washington, D.C., office of Morrison & Foerster, said the Johansen acquittal is important because it highlights some of the shortcomings of the DMCA, which offers few exemptions for legitimate copying of digital material.

Consumers didn't go looking for this law; corporatiosn did. Legislators don't take away rights unless they see an advantage, and what advantage could there be except the benefit of an industry?
Not to overstate, but this is the collaboration of industry and government against the legitimate use of a product by the people who paid for it.

With the resentment they're creating, how can the result be anything but a catastrophe? If the recording and movie industries are devastated, it won't be because of the misuse of the internet, it'll be because of their own rapacious actions.

And they could win easily at any time just by competing; if they encouraged high quality reproductton provided by reliable, reasonably cheap sources, people would pay them.
That, to me, is the industries' biggest stupidity of all.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 12/24/03 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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