Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Everything That’s Not Required is Forbidden?

Re: Everything That’s Not Required is Forbidden?

Tim — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 14:15:54 -0000

Don: The extent of EULA's is a complex question on which I don't have a good answer. But generally speaking, I think that EULAs should be enforcable, but that the mere fact that a piece of third-party software is designed to violate the EULA doesn't mean that the software should be illegal.

So software tools to convert iTunes music to another format (say, to Microsoft's DRM format) shouldn't be illegal, but if Apple wants to track down and sue users who use such software, they have every right to do so. Of course, they'd never do that in practice because it would be a PR nightmare.

I should also mention that I'm not entirely sure how the Sony/Grokster line of cases ought to apply to circumvention tools. It might be that certain kinds of circumvention tools (such as a utility to decrypt your iTunes library and uploaded it to a peer-to-peer network) would fail the Sony and Grokster tests. But I think this is an area of law that ought to be allowed to evolve in the courts without Congressional interference, because I'm pretty sure that whatever rule Congress might come up with will be worse than what would emerge from a common law process.

Re: Everything That’s Not Required is Forbidden?

dmarti — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:50:41 -0000

How far should the EULAs of DRM-infected works be allowed to go? Should the law be "if it looks like a sale it's a sale" (Softman v. Adobe) or should the law enforce "by breaking this seal you agree..." clauses against reverse engineering?

One place a DRM "mandate" is definitely called for, though, is in the public sector. When bureaucrats mandate a DRM system, they're imposing unaccountable, privatized regulations on people who have to communicate with the government. (But forbidding the _government_ to do something shouldn't offend libertarians.)

Re: Everything That’s Not Required is Forbidden?

fishbane — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:19:06 -0000

The best solution is the libertarian solution: the state should remain neutral and allow competition to work its magic.

And unfortunately, that's also why it won't happen. The vast majority of people, no matter what their political leanings, seem to simply not understand state inaction as an option. Trying to explain the positive impact of inaction to people reminds me of college debates about atheism: many people simply cannot understand that the stance isn't a positive belief system.

Re: Everything That’s Not Required is Forbidden?

MikeT — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:16:55 -0000

It's ironic that IPCentral, defenders of "self-help," cannot understand that point. Either the government goes fascist by protecting big business or socialist by going jacobin on big business. In reality, the state can choose to remain a non-party until actual copyright infringement has happened and then send people to prison for it or provide civil arbitration. Unplanned interoperability can be very dangerous to DRM, that's true, but it is not an inherent problem if done right.

Re: Everything That’s Not Required is Forbidden?

Tim — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:29:48 -0000

Fixed, thanks!

Re: Everything That’s Not Required is Forbidden?

Commons Music — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:21:24 -0000

"...conservatives want to teach evolution in schools, while liberals want to prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools."

Read that sentence, think about it, edit. ;-)

Other than that, another fine rebuttal post.