DRM will completely rule the day, I believe. And here's why: DRM will be like your stock proxy statement: it need only be so confusing that you relent, and give up on asserting your rights.
My wife just switched her iPod from PC to Mac. She lost half her purchased content. Now, you can spend hours and hours, tracking down for each purchased recording who controls the DRM, and figure out if they have records that you bought it, and then see if they'll let you transfer. Or you can relent because you have a life, and take another step towards pay-per-use. We're moving inexorably towards a model in which the corporations that distribute culture will demand from us pay-per-use and pay-per-media (e.g., that new right they invented in which they get to control not only the content but how you utilize it -- so you can't let an algorithm read it). I'm disgusted that many of the writer organizations are on the wrong side of this battle. We're as bad as Disney, making use of our history and then not only demanding no one make use of us, but supporting the choking of the channels as a result. We complain about the publishing business and then our organizations line up behind the very interests that destroy it. On Jul 18, 12:21 pm, Eric Scoles <[email protected]> wrote: > These are all weaknesses of the Kindle model, which has the seller in more > or less total control of your ebooks: They're either stored on a device that > Amazon always has access to, or their stored on Amazon's server. [Aside: > Suddenly I wonder if the Kindle ToS amount to you leasing the device. But I > digress.] > > Ebooks that aren't stored in that way are much more amenable to lending or > transfer. But there's just not a real mapping; the metaphors don't really > apply. (Weakness of metaphorical reasoning.) The nature of ebooks is such > that without some kind of technological infrastructure (which is never going > to be anything as basic or essential as paper & ink) you just can't truly > transfer ebooks -- rather, you duplicate it. > > This is the basic problem that nobody on the commercial side of things is > dealing with: The nature of new media is that they are duplicable in ways > that old media weren't. DRM is a bandaid. > > We're certainly not going to roll back the new media (that's just not going > to happen). So the choice is that we change the way we think about creative > product, or we change the way we think about the control of creative > product. The nature of the new media is such that to effectively control it, > we'll have to fundamentally alter our basic freedoms. Think about it: Really > effective DRM will require such a fine degree of control over our digital > actions that it will permeate all our activities. Somebody or something is > going to have visibility into everything we do. (Let's put aside for the > moment the observation that that's inevitable anyway.) Basically, everything > will become product. Micropayments (though larger than originall envisioned) > will become viable, and will end up pervading our lives. We'd end up like > characters in a P K Dick novel, arguing with the door to our apartment about > whether it should let us in even though we can't pay the door-opening fee. > > I suspect things will continue down that path for a while; it may take a > while, but it seems clear to me that path is non-viable in terms of > international competitiveness, though I suspect it will take a generation or > so to play out. This kind of regime requires infrastructure, and it also > really requires a certain disconnect from the natural world before you can > swallow it without resistence. So I imagine that some emerging nations will > be less likely to adopt. China might find it easy to enforce; India less > easy; Nigeria (who I'd bet will be making internationally-marketed films in > ten years) much less so. > > On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Alicia Henn <[email protected]>wrote: > > > > > > > Amazon remotely deleted purchased copies of Orwell's works from > > Kindles after the copyright owner complained. Ah, the irony! > > > “It illustrates how few rights you have when you buy an e-book from > > Amazon,” said Bruce Schneier, chief security technology officer for > > British Telecom and an expert on computer security and commerce. “As a > > Kindle owner, I’m frustrated. I can’t lend people books and I can’t > > sell books that I’ve already read, and now it turns out that I can’t > > even count on still having my books tomorrow.” > > >http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?... > > > Alicia > > -- > eric scoles ([email protected]) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
