John Gilmore wrote on 5/25/2000: # These guys never learn that limiting the rights of the consumer who # purchases a DVD, beyond the copyright, will *always* invite an # antagonistic response from the customers. It's because PUBLISHERS are # stealing rights from CONSUMERS, not the other way around. As in the high prices of CDs? As in, say, Sony music club discounts which stores can't match? Particularly galling in regards to DVD movies is being locked in to watching the FBI warning and _commercials_ which can't be skipped. I heard that for/on 'The Lion King' was about 7 minutes of commercials for another Disney release that can't be skipped. How did copyright protection schemes end up with this? ---- Gilmore continues... # I recommend limiting large-scale piracy, whether or not you have the # capability, until after we win the court cases, though. Irresponsible # actions by a few people make the judges think we are defending theft, # when we're really defending consumer rights, competition, and the # public domain. Regarding DeCSS...any objections to trying out a distribution mechanism good for only a few problem files, as opposed to the longer-term file distribution mechanisms in progress? No piracy is involved. [ Note to fuckwad Jim Choate: no need to post a useless "go ahead" response. ] ---- # "Report Proposes Update of Copyright Act" # ----------------------- # "Panel Seeks Liability for Violations by Internet Access Services" # By Jeri Clausing, The New York Times, 5/22/2000 [snipped] # # The law meant to protect intellectual property on the Internet # needs to be updated, a Democratic research center recommends # in a report to be released on Monday. # # The report proposes outlawing technologies like the controversial # Napster software that enables Internet users to trade music files # with little regard to copyrights. DOH! # [ See http://www.dlcppi.org ] # # The Progressive Policy Institute, which is affiliated with the # Democratic Leadership Council, is releasing its policy brief, # "Napster and Online Piracy: The Need to Revisit the Digital # Millennium Copyright Act,"... # # The report recommends [Napster explicitly illegal, and to be # legal] services like Napster be required to collect indentifiable # and verifiable information from its users, such as addresses and # credit card information. # # [rebuttal] "To say you are going to take a whole new category of # software and strangle it in its infancy because one of its first # uses resulted in piracy -- that's a bad idea," said John Gilmore, # president of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. File distribution...the Internet's final frontier. ---- This mechanism would also involved remailers for getting the files into the distribution mechanism (Usenet). Good luck shutting down Usenet. Why not test the cypherpunk infrastructure of remailers to withstand attacks for this "relatively unimportant" (life and liberty not at stake) matter? ---- In a couple weeks I'm going to release Tcl/Tk code that can a) download all articles from a newsgroup, b) download selected (by any header line) files from a newsgroup. The software itself is "generic". (It's not the first, but might be the first platform-independent, free, mit source.) It [Unix-based] works now, I have to add a GUI and test on my iMac. Eventually, I'll need someone to try it on PeeCees. I also need to add a file splitter and builtin remailer capabilities. Please post any constructive comments regarding the matter. ---- How does one find the active remailers? I have found some pages...interestingly, one can apparently remail the same material several times to help ensure it gets through, because the remailers have a let-through-once capability for some window, like a week. How does one find all the mail-to-news gateways? Can MixMaster quality remailers be made more available? By that, I mean can a generic WWW-based distribution be created? This would allow anyone with a WWW to put it up with a minimum of effort. The WWW user page should allow specifying which, or maybe just how many, remailers to chain through. The MixMaster-WWW code would have a switch to allow only delivery to other MixMaster-WWWs, or, if a sysop is available to handle abuse, then delivery to any address. (This is not a completely formulated idea ;-) A standard WWW interface means Tcl code can directly interface to a mailer without a browser. This message is sent via such a mechanism, albeit transmitting via sendmail once it gets to the WWW site. Is there a standard way for one remailer to get another's encryption key? ---- I see the full DeCSS source is still available via www.2600.com links to other sites. 8*) I thought they were court-ordered not to do that?
