Kurt Kleiner wrote:
On 30-Jan-2003 John Chambers wrote:

This sort of site is a real threat to the recording industry, and  is
really what the "music piracy" fuss is all about.  Their main goal is
to take control of the Internet and put distribution  back  into  the
hands  of  the oligopoly.  The Internet can't be killed, but there is
still a chance that it can be made illegal for you and me to put  our
own stuff online. If they can do this, they can then force us to sign
over our rights to our own stuff to get it  online,  and  they'll  be
back in the saddle.

I followed you this far. But are there any laws or technical proposals being
made right now that would make it impossible to put your own stuff online? Or
are you worried that that's their next target? The only things I've heard about
so far, while draconian, do seem to be aimed at piracy. But maybe I'm missing
something.
In order for various DIgital Rights Managment schemes to work to prevent piracy, the digital players can only play works you have rights to play. This requires that the rights be encoded in the digital media, and signed in such a way to prevent forgery or undetected modification. If it isn't signed, or isn't signed by a trusted (in the eyes of the DRM software) party, the DRM software won't play the media.

If this DRM scheme is to suceed, it has to be mandatory and non-DRM channels have to be prohibited. Otherwise, consumers who don't want to deal with the DRM BS will simply use existing or new non-DRM tools.

Guess who will control the "trusted" signing keys? Guess how successful any DRM policy will be?

There is an old saying that "The Internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it." I think it can be updated to say "The Internet treats abusive copyrights as damage, and routes around it."

Kurt

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