[free-sklyarov] Wretched article at inside.com

Xcott Craver sacraver at EE.Princeton.EDU
Thu Aug 2 10:43:47 PDT 2001


On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Doug Lay wrote:

> (1)  This man is scared, and on the defensive.

	I don't know about that.  Why would Roger Parloff have any reason
	to be scared of eBook/DVD/MP3 piracy?

	I think a lot of Parloff's viewpoint just comes from being an
	attorney with a pragmatic, perhaps cynical view of how things
	actually play out in court.  Take all his articles on Napster, for
	instance:  to first order, they just seem like standard anti-
	napster posturing, but if you look more closely you will see that
	he is an attorney criticizing Napster's legal defense strategy.

	I was alarmed by his claim that most people appreciate DMCA-like
	protections; companies that actually have to pay to implement DRM
	in their hardware and software are painfully aware that consumers
	don't appreciate it.

	I also noted that the article trots out the old argument that,
	once you use that program, you have a "free and clear" copy that
	can then be pirated---and it only takes one copy.  Well hey,
	the same thing happens every time you successfully remove that
	@#$% shrinkwrap from a CD.  The mere fact that the music is
	suddenly unprotected, vulnerable to piracy, is waved about as
	if it is a shocking situation as bad as piracy itself.

> -Doug
							=S






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