[free-sklyarov] Feature "rights"

[Karsten M. Self]

on Sun, Sep 16, 2001 at 06:07:38AM -0400, John Dempsey (john.dempsey7 at verizon.net) wrote:
> >	That is:  if you take away the fair use infringements, what's
> >	in there that plain old ordinary copyright law wouldn't handle
> >	just fine?
> 
> If you crack the nut of encryption, and publish your cracker, especially for
> profit, you'd go to jail.  

This is unacceptable.  It is a prior restraint on speech.

> Perhaps this is necessary for the same reasoning that we have it now:
> One broken copy is enough to smash all protection.

This shibboleth has been trotted out again and again, with no proof
whatsoever.  In fact, the evidence is contrary:  free electronic copies
of material spur commercial sales of same:

    http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/japan/index.html

    Markets for Information Goods
    Hal R. Varian
    University of California, Berkeley
    April 1998 (revised: October 16, 1998)

    <...>

    Previewing and browsing

    Information producers typically offer opportunities for browsing
    their products: Hollywood offers previews, the music industry offers
    radio broadcasts, and the publishing industry offers bookstores,
    nowadays complete with easy chairs and cappucinos. One of the great
    difficulties faced by sellers of information on the Internet is
    figuring out ways to browse the products. Video and previews work
    well, but it appears that previewing textual information would be
    quite difficult.

    However, things are not quite as bad as they seem. The National
    Academy of Sciences Press found that when they posted the full text
    of book on the Web, the sales of those books went up by a factor of
    three. Posting the material on the Web allowed potential customers
    to preview the material, but anyone who really wanted to read the
    book would download it. MIT Press had a similar experience with
    monographs and online journals.

    <...>

Simply:  there is a friction to producing and distributing even free
copies of works over the Internet (or via other electronic or physical
distribution networks).  Frictions equal costs.  And, barring a business
model, there are low incentives.



An equivalent statement to "One broken copy is enough to smash all
protection" is:  "the marginal cost of distributing works is nil".

If this is in fact the case, then there is a serious market iniquity in
information goods:  works whose market cost should approach a far lower
value are being sold at multiples of actual cost.  This is already the
subject of conspiracy and antitrust probes in the area of music CD sales
-- the US$16 price of a new CD is far in excess of the US$0.20 of
materials.  It's also far in excess of the $7-$8 price of vinyl records
that CDs replaced.

There's something rotten in Denmark.

> While I'm at it I'd say distributing the actual cracker would be
> unlawful, but documenting the technology should not be a crime.  That
> would reduce the chill to intellectual discourse.

Very marginally.

> "But I wonder about the legislative approach.  The fact is that the
> entertainment industry gives lots of money to congresspeople. I am
> pessimistic about any fair compromise making it past them."
> 
> As true as this could be, it remains our only hope.  I have wondered
> for some time whether anyone has drafted a "reasonable DMCA".
> I suggest it's necessary.

It's not the only approach.  We have courts.  We have mass civil
disobediance.

The Boucher proposals merit study, and may be a "reasonable DMCA".
I've made my own suggestions.  Yours don't meet the mark.

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?              Home of the brave
  http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/                    Land of the free
   Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA!  http://www.freesklyarov.org
Geek for Hire                      http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html
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