[free-sklyarov] AAP at it again - "DMCA essential to the future of E-Commerce"

[Xcott Craver]

On Sun, 23 Sep 2001, Ilya V. Vasilyev wrote:

> It is good to write an article to the authors, describing true situation
> with "digital rights" and freedoms.  I think, all good authors write for
> being read by readers, not design cruel tools for police prosecution.

	Another important point to raise to authors:  posterity.

	Authors would surely reject the idea of "privication," vs
	publication, if they knew the odds of these proprietary, strictly
	controlled eBooks being accessible 100 years from now.
	A wee bit of immortality is one of the few perks of being an
	author.

	In fact, even open electronic formats should worry authors,
	because we're not sure about their survivability over time vs
	paper.	 There are researchers trying to develop "eternity services,"
	highly distributed archival systems approximating the long-term
	survivability of printed archives.

	Unfortunately, this might require an electronic publication medium
	that is largely irreversible (with normal books, you are not
	allowed to "undo" your publication even if you really wanted to)
	and so the software and publishing industries would see such a
	service as the absolute worst case of all their piracy nightmares.
	Thus you will not see an eternity service implemented any time
	soon.
							-Scott

	[There's an interesting research topic:  designing a "spontaneous"
	eternity service, which can spring into existence by distributed
	grass-roots efforts even in the presence of a censor who controls
	all upstream providers and is friendly with law enforcement.]