WHAT?!?!? *gasp* . . . DRM is a _good_ thing?
I was under the impression that you should only have the right to manage rights to your data if I agree that you should, or if there is only a very small number of people interested in your data or creation. But as soon as you organize your data in some way that interests the masses (say, in the form of popular music/entertainment or a computer program), then you should instantly lose any right to control how your creation is used. Surely the act of creation doesn't naturally and morally give creators the right to dictate how their works should be used?! Wouldn't the world be better place if all copyrights and the like, and any licenses that depended on strong copyright (for example, the GPL), were altogether abolished? I fear, Soren, that you may be suffering a brain fever to suggest such a radical idea -- be carefull, or I shall shout names like "capitalist" at you. (And remember, there's nothing worse than being called a name.) Dave :) ASD Webmaster >>> "Soren Harward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 01/23/04 9:48 AM >>> This question is inspired by the thread on encrypted filesystems, but merits its own thread. Everyone knows about keeping unauthorized users out of data they shouldn't have access to. But what about granting authorized users access to data they should be able to access, but not permitting them to redistribute it? Say, for instance, I'm a nuclear weapons engineer at Los Alamos. Obviously, I need to be able to access my own and others' research data. But just as obvious is that you don't want me taking that data home or selling it to North Korea in exchange for a new Ferrari. Now I know this is the whole point of DRM, and I don't know if there's another way to do it. I don't think there is; hence, I think that DRM in and of itself is a very good and very timely idea. I just don't trust MS or any other closed-source system to do the M of my DR's. -- Soren Harward [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
