[free-sklyarov] Seattle Protest

Dave Sherohman esper at sherohman.org
Fri Jul 20 09:18:57 PDT 2001


On Thu, Jul 19, 2001 at 03:28:04PM -0700, Jeme A Brelin wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2001, Dave Sherohman wrote:
> > I'd have to disagree.  If I produce a product, I have every right to
> > make it difficult for you to use.  You are then free to take your
> > business elsewhere, of course.
> >
> > You should, however, also be free to modify my product to make it
> > easier to use, and that is what DMCA prohibits.
> 
> Well, _I_ disagree.
> 
> If I, as a member of the public, am granting you limited monopoly through
> copyright, I demand that, in return, you provide me with published work in
> an accessible form.

I didn't mention earlier that I'm not a big fan of copyright in its
current form, either...

My main point it that I would prefer the government leave us free to
act on our own behalf rather than try to protect us in areas it doesn't
understand in the first place.

> Copyright is a pact between the public and an author wherein the author
> receives limited monopoly on copying and the public receives PUBLICATION
> of the work.

Nice theory, but it doesn't work that way these days.  When was the
last time you picked up a book and saw "(c) Author" instead of "(c)
Publisher, Inc."?

> I don't believe that a work that is difficult to access
> should be considered "published".

I don't believe that the legitimate owner of an item should be prevented
from controlling its use.  Before you add me to your killfile, let me
say that this applies to both the publisher and the purchaser:  The
publisher can do what he wants and so can the purchaser.  You encrypt, I
decrypt.  You restrict, I liberate.

> > Interesting angle on this which just occurred to me...  UCITA tried to
> > legally protect 'self help' by companies to 'protect' themselves from
> > consumers.  DMCA prohibits consumers from taking any action to protect
> > themselves from unfair action by companies.
> 
> Please stop refering to us as "consumers".  I am not a gaping mouth or a
> bursting wallet.  I am a citizen interacting in a community.

When you purchase or use (i.e., consume) a product, you are, at that
time, a consumer of that product.  I make no claim that it's the core
definition of your existence, but it is a role you take on at various
times.

> The DMCA prevents activities OUTSIDE the marketplace that are viewed as
> negatively impacting the market inside.  This is wrong.  Market
> protections should only apply to participants in the market.

And here, perhaps, we have our fundamental disagreement.  You want the
market to protect consumers (er... customers?  purchasers?  What term
do you prefer for the party to a market transaction who receives a
finished good in exchange for money from a producer or distributor?).
I say market protections should be abandoned or, at the very least,
redesigned from the ground up.

> > I'm not entirely convinced of that.  The publisher you were responding
> > to may have just been stating things as he did in order to (at least
> > appear to) support the intent of the DMCA and show it to be counter-
> > productive.  Whether that appearance is equivalent to reality simply
> > doesn't matter.
> 
> The ends do not justify the means.

I do not see how his means are harmful.

> Why lock ourselves into that cycle when we can short-circuit it
> completely?

Why depend on legal protection when we know that Adobe and their like
can hire a legal team with the ability to twist those laws to say
whatever they want and just start exploiting us again?

> A market economy exists because of scarcity.

> Information is not scarce.

> It is only the artificial scarcity of copyright that gives information its
> inordinate monetary value.

Absolutely.  This is why the current system has to be redesigned from
first principles.  Any law that attempts to make it workable in the
digital era will be a Band-Aid(TM, etc), at best.

> The true value is in the unwritten work.

Quite true.  So, the ultimate question is:  How do we get that work
written (and allow its author to devote himself as fully to writing
as he likes) without legally-enforced artificial scarcity?

-- 
It's as if we outlawed cars on the principle that they could be used
to help crooks escape from bank robberies. - Dan Gillmore on the DMCA





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