Fortune: 'This Is War'. They fear the government could muck up the computer industry royally. Moreover, they question whether it's their responsibility to rescue an industry that has historically been more concerned with cranking out Frankenstein sequels than embracing change. [Tomalak's Realm]

This is a pretty good article on the issue of copy protection and PCs.  However, it makes so many of the common mistakes.  If sales of CD-RW drives is increasing, that means computer users are buying them to copy audio CDs, right?  No!  Users are buying them because it is the natural replacement for the aging floppy drive.  What other alternative is there for backups?

The content owners always claim that their actions are motivated by the desire to eliminate piracy.  But their idea of piracy is quite a bit different from what most consumers think of as piracy.  Consumers think of piracy as getting copyrighted digital content from the Internet illegally (that is, without having paid for it).  The content owners think of piracy as playing a movie in your bedroom when you should only be able to play it in your living room (unless you pay them to play it in your bedroom and living room).  The content owners think it is piracy when you buy a CD and make a backup up copy of it, or make an additional copy to keep in your car, or convert it to an MP3 file to play on your computer.  The content owners think it is piracy when you don't watch four minutes of previews before you watch a DVD movie you purchased.

So, there's a real disconnect, because there are two different meanings of the term "piracy."  We say "Piracy is illegal," and we all agree.  But then the content owners say, you made a copy of a CD for your car, and that's piracy, and therefore, that's illegal.  So, before we start any kind of debate about copy protection, let's first define our terms.  Better yet, let's expose how the content owners owners define "piracy," so that consumers (and legislators) won't be duped.

And let's be clear about another fact.  Content owners do not have, and have never had, a right to absolute control over their content.  Beginning with the constitution, which allows for "limited" ownership of content, and continuing with legislation and judicial doctrine, consumers have always had some rights with regard to content.  And content always passes into the public domain after some period of time.

10:39:16 PM