RE: [dvd-discuss] The Consumer Technology Bill of Rights

["Dean Sanchez" <DSanchez(at)fcci-group.com>]

I think that we have already lost the war (life + 70?!).  Now we just trying to limit the tribute and occupation :-)

Seriously, I think that we on this list may have become a little myopic regarding this subject.  We look into the future and see a bleak one with many rights we take for granted no longer existing. We look at the issue and see the precedents being set and potential areas of innovation being squelched.  However, it does not really affect the general public. Why should they miss what has not been or will not be invented or written because of the constraints?  As an example: how many people even knew that Mickey was about to become part of the public domain?   We now have two or three generations that have never experienced a public domain that actually has current material in it.  How can they miss what they have never had?

Even my friends and colleagues think that I'm being a "Chicken Little" when I worry about the potential for censorship or loss of free speech or loss of fair use rights. Or when I worry about inventions that don't occur or cures that are not found because someone 'owns' the right to the gene that researchers need to examine. The erosion has been a gradual one over the last fifty years and the industry has done an excellent job of equating 'ownership' of intangible property with real property.  The public has swallowed the industry's propaganda that the content creator 'owns' the creation. They have equated it to owning a house or car, both items citizens in the US hold dear. The notion that the rights of 'ownership' to an intangible 'idea' are temporary rights granted by society instead of being a inherent property as they are with tangible goods is hard to get across. The public feels that if the creator wants to place restrictions on the creation, it's their property, so why shouldn't they?  When this attitude is added to the 'normal' apathy that the public has for things that don't immediately affect them, I don't think we have a chance of reversing the trend toward more restrictive IP. My hope is that we can at least slow it down and, just maybe, stop it.  And a rallying point around DRM may be our best hope. It directly affects 'Joe Public' setting at home on the couch with the remote in his hand trying to record his favorite TV show and not being able to do so.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ernest Miller [mailto:ernest.miller@aya.yale.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 9:50 AM
To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] The Consumer Technology Bill of Rights


Perhaps, but that would only be treating the symptom ... not the disease.
If we cede their premise, we will ultimately lose the war.  Why not use DRM
as a rallying point to cure the disease?