I Believe I Can Save Morpheus…

…and maybe some of the other "endangered gizmos" on this list compiled by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Comments

[sage]

The fat cats can't stifle innovation or change. It has the effect of squeezing a balloon. We will end up sending our brightest minds out of the country, prevent the ones that stay from fulfilling their potential, and allow more new jobs to be created in other countries.

[Semolina]

The fat cats can't stifle innovation or change.

You're absolutely correct, of course.

What they can do, however, is protect their own intellectual property rights. It is noble of them to do so.

If others want to create hardware, software and content that don't feature the limitations or protections of the devices listed at the linked page, they're free to do so.

Nobody is forcing you to buy Sony equipment; nobody is forcing you to listen or watch Sony media. The free market will provide protection-free devices and content if that's what enough people want. It will also kill the Sonys of the world if people like the protection-free stuff more than the protected stuff.

It's a voluntary choice: Do I buy the Beatles CD even though I'm limited to what I can do with it? Or do I buy the new Band Z recording, released on that newly developed media compatible with that newly developed player, which allows me to make as many infinite copies with no penalty?

There's really not much to bitch about here because, as you pointed out, innovation and change can't be stifled.

[mudfoot]

The free market will provide protection-free devices and content if that's what enough people want.

Not if protection-free devices are outlawed. Then it would be the grey or black market.

There's really not much to bitch about here because, as you pointed out, innovation and change can't be stifled.

Uh, yeah there is. They use government to stifle innovation. There's a list of 5 products on that web site which have been banned. If that's not stifled innovation, then what is?

[Dynamist]

The power of the state can only delay the future to benefit those who have invested in the past. I would prefer to buy my Beatles advanced-content disc next week rather than next decade. Perhaps I should look into the grey-market discs on eBay?

[David Moynihan]

Err, anybody remember the way Sony and other record companies sued Diamond Rio over the first MP3 player?

They lost, but Diamond went bust...

and then came iPod.

[Mr. X]

I know it sounds ridiculous to worry that the Replay TV 4000 will be banned, but then again years ago it might have seemed ridiculous for someone to be sued for writing *The Wind Done Gone* (a parody of *Gone With the Wind* written through a slave's point of view), and it might have seemed farfetched to think libraries would count the number of times articles are photocopied for interlibrary loans to make sure it's down below 5 per month per periodical. Intellectual property gets carried to such extremes that in terms of promoting innovation, it's beyond the point of negative returns.

[kevrob]

X:

It is perfectly plausible that a copyright holder might have sued a parodist years ago. Mad magazine has been sued by everybody. It is important to note that, in the case about TWDG, the Mitchell heirs lost.

Kevin