Monday, December 22, 2003

Bombing Birds Benefits Birdwatchers Unbelievable story at bushgreenwatch.com about how one of Bush's judicial appointees argued for the continued bombing of a small island in the Pacific: [He] argued in a legal brief that conservationists actually benefit from the military's killing of birds because it helps make some species more rare -- and "bird watchers get more enjoyment spotting a rare bird than they do spotting a common one." They argued the bombing was good for birds too, as it kept the island free of other "human intrusion." [birdhouse.org] 7:36:36 PM

WalMart's way to the future WalMart's launched a music downloading service. For just 88 cents, you can download a song in a Windows Media Player format. I tried the service. For 88 cents I bought a Beatles song (they've got a total of 12 available. Wuhoo!). When I went to play it, however, it wouldn't. LiquidAudio's server was not found. But the real devil here is not that the service doesn't (yet) work. It is the details of the TOS. These are among the most restrictive in the business, authorizing 10 burns from 3 machines, but requiring you promise: "You may not reproduce (except as noted above), publish, transmit, distribute, display, broadcast, re-broadcast, modify, create derivative works from, sell or participate in any sale of or exploit in any way, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, any of the Products, the Service or any related software. You may not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or disable any copy protection or use limitation systems associated with the Products. You may not play and then re-digitize any Products, or upload those Products to the Internet. You may not use the Products in conjunction with any other third-party content (e.g, to provide sound for a film). You may not sell or offer to sell the Products, including but not limited to, posting any Product for auction, on any Internet auction site. All Products are sublicensed to you and not sold, notwithstanding the use of the terms "sell," "purchase," "order," or "buy" on the Service or in this Agreement." So, the "Rip,Mix,Burn" culture has now been cancelled. Want to sync a song with the home movie of your kid? You can't. You've promised you won't. Want to display a slide show of pictures taken at Christmas? you can't. You've promised you won't. Any derivative use if banned by this agreement (and by the code built into WM9) -- and remember, if you use a tool to crack those protections, you've violated the DMCA. Worse still, if you go to this page, you'll be informed that "What's more, you'll enjoy the same usage rights for ALL the music you purchase" as if you had purchased the CD. Here is where all the action is. What's happening with this download world is that the "rights" people have with music are now to be defined by licenses. Long before we have any useful litigation about the fair use rights associated with music, the licenses will define that you have only the right to play the music, and only the right to burn it 10 times. Anything more -- for any reuse, mixing, transforming, even for noncommercial use -- is not your "right." This is the real aim of the "war" against "piracy." Focus the attention of the world on "pirates" and then "solve" that problem in a way that effectively removes all other creative rights for consumers. This is a total perversion of copyright law, as the late Professor Lyman Ray Patterson showed. The law, intended to regulate competitors, is now a tool for controlling consumers. [Lessig Blog] 9:58:06 AM

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