[free-sklyarov] Orrin Hatch & Robert Mueller confirmation

Dan Martinez dfm at area.com
Tue Jul 24 14:19:54 PDT 2001


Morgan wrote:

> Hatch might be worth writing some (snail mail) letters or telegrams
> to. He's lately been somewhat annoyed at how industry is messing up
> what could be a revolution in media accessibility for consumers.
> 
> http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/160336.html
> 
> Hatch is definitely pro-capitalism (and pro "IP can be owned"), but
> he seems to be interested in providing choices for consumers. His
> remarks at the software competition (Bill Gates doing his version of
> the tobacco execs "nicotine is not addictive") and digital
> television hearings show his sympathy for the consumer.
> 
> If an argument in favor of Dmitry's work is made in those terms, he
> might pay attention. It certainly worked on a Wells Fargo banker who
> was eating at a lunch place down the street from San Jose Adobe
> during the protest. I asked him what he'd do if his hard drive went
> south or he wanted to get a newer computer but his books and
> software were locked to the old machine or the keys were only on the
> dead drive (I know you can back up the keys, but it's harder to keep
> track of keys for e-delivered stuff than CD's with bright & shiny
> logos on them). He got it.

Hatch has been giving the recording industry a particularly tough time
of late: he was asking the RIAA some pretty pointed questions during
hearings on Napster a few months back.

Apparently this is at least in part due to the fact that he's a
recording artist himself: having dealt with the industry personally,
he's a little less swayed by its teary-eyed claims that it's only
acting in the best interest of artists. (If you're curious about his
works, you can pay http://www.hatchmusic.com/ a visit.)

Perhaps drawing an analogy to a CD that winds up being bound to a
single player would be an effective way to illustrate the current
state of eBooks, and why folks who do something about it aren't
necessarily bad guys. (Those who think a content-control scheme that
restrictive sounds patently absurd should remember the late,
unlamented DivX, which was pretty much exactly that for DVDs. Even
average consumers were sophisticated enough to get that, and they
acted accordingly: they stayed away in droves.)

Dan




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