Re: [dvd-discuss] Slashdot interview with Lessig

["D. C. Sessions" <dvd(at)lumbercartel.com>]

On Friday 04 January 2002 22:03, you wrote:
# Actually there is another group out there...public indifference to 
# copyright. Macauley wrote of it in 1861. When the public becomes 
# totally indifferent to copyright-copyright will be over. A wonderful 
# system killed by the greed of copyright holders. As with Hamlet the 
# question is "to be or not to be..."

The whole reason for statutes like the DMCA is precisely *because*
the copyright industry is looking ahead to the day when this is true.
They realize that a "war on piracy," like the "war on drugs" will be
totally ineffective (and even counterproductive) if it concentrates on
the end-user.  Any crackdown on Joe Sixpack for making car copies
and party-programs will not only fail but force Congress to switch
sides.

With that in mind, they're going after the means instead.  The DMCA
is really either a stopgap or the second line, depending on how you
look at it.  The main plan has always been to deal with the people who
have millions to spend on building the silicon in the first place.  If those
chips refuse to play with "naughty bits," all the /software/ /libre/ in the
world won't matter, and if some geek somewhere finds a hole in the
battlements it's all the better to "make an example of him."  The geek
vote isn't going to swing any elections.

-- 
| I'm old enough that I don't have to pretend to be grown up.|
+----------- D. C. Sessions <dcs@lumbercartel.com> ----------+