On 02/02/07, Brian Butterworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Surely the whole point of DVD regions is that it was a non-legal way of implementing the ability to restrict international free trade.
That's right, and this is summarised in the memorable phrase, "code is law" :-)
And it's the same with DRM - there is no legal requirement to use them, they are simply being forced on the consumer by bodies such as the BBC that claim (presumably because Microsoft has advised them this) they are required.
Do you know any references for this Microsoft advice? Perhaps we could make some http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/ requests? :-)
Copyright is supposed to be a legal balance between the producer and the consumer
I'm not sure where you got that idea, but no, that's not what it is supposed to be :-) Instead of a "balance," its more accurate to think of a "trade-off" - this may seem like semantic nit-picking, but the words we think with define what we intuit, Sapir-Whorf and all that. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html explains in detail. -- Regards, Dave - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
