Re: Electronic Publication

Bill Swears <wswears@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Damien Neil wrote:
> > David Friedman <ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >>Do you lock your front door? If so, does that mean you are assuming that
> >>all the passersby are criminals?
> >
> > I lock my front door.
> >
> > DRM is locking everyone else in their houses, only letting them out
> > while wearing a tracking bracelet, and passing laws that assume that
> > anyone who picks a lock or climbs out a window to avoid the locked doors
> > is a thief.
>
> I think you overstate the case. DRM is simply an attempt to control who
> gets access to your product, for which you deserve pay. How well or
> clumsily it is conducted is important, in that poorly conducted security
> arrangements become bad product packaging, and reduce sales. Sounds to
> me as though some DRM efforts are harmful, rather than helpful to sales.
> but pretending that any seller control of reproducible ideas is bad,
> simply ignores the obvious parallels with every other form of media case
> law. Laws which form the only protection you and I have from somebody
> stealing our ideas and selling them as their own.

How do I overstate the case? I think the analogy is perfectly apt.

David compared DRM to locking a door. DRM is used to prevent copyright
infringement, door locks are used to prevent physical theft. The
"locks" that DRM implements are not, however, located on the computers
of the copyright holder. They are instead located on *my* computer, on
the grounds that I may be a criminal. The analogous usage of door
locks, therefore, would place them upon the homes of potential criminals.

Your comment about media case law is shifting the ground: DRM is not
case law, any more than door locks are case law. The laws against theft
of property do not require that I place locks on my door, or on the door
of my neighbor. In addition, the laws against theft do not permit my
neighbor to steal from me if I fail to lock my door. The laws against
copyright infringement are much the same.

Furthermore, DRM has nothing whatsoever to do with people "stealing our
ideas and selling them as their own". First off, DRM is about copyright
infringement; ideas fall under patent law, which has nothing at all to
do with copyrights. Secondly, DRM does virtually nothing to prevent
people from selling works they do not hold the rights for; those seeking
to illegally make a profit off of copyrighted works can easily
circumvent any DRM measures existing today. DRM is used to prevent
casual infringement, not commercial infringement. (And, of course, DRM
is used to prevent casual non-infringing usage as well.)

- Damien
.

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