Technologists are still trying to claim that Palladium and TCPA aren't about DRM.  They reason that there is no difference between privacy and DRM.  To a technical person's way of thinking, DRM is just a content-producer's privacy.  It's a nice symmetry.

There's a huge flaw with this thinking, of course, and it's a legal flaw.  When you copyright an artistic work, you take the good with the bad.  Copyright law gives you a bunch of protection (you get to say who may sell or perform your work, for example), but it also provides certain protection to the people to whom you market your work.  Those people get to make backup copies and time-shift your work, for example.  You don't have any say in them exercising those rights provided them by copyright law.

A voicemail or other private communication may be protected by crypto, and you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.  As the recipient of a private communication, I don't have any special rights.  But selling a copyrighted artistic work is legally different.  Selling me a copyrighted work assigns rights to me.  It must not be encumbered by crypto which prevents me from exercising those rights.  (I can negotiate with you to sell you those rights in exchange for compensation -- that's what contracts are for -- but you can't just take them from me.)

The two are, therefore, not comparable.

5:35:54 PM   

Consumer Reports is going to start rating equipment on how much or little freedom each device takes away.  [Hack the Planet]

Is this true, or just wishful thinking?  CR should do this.  They are trustworthy (in the true sense of the word) since they carry no advertising and are independently owned.  American citizens making consumer-electronics purchase decisions need to start thinking about freedom.  It's pretty clear the US government isn't going to help us get the information we need to make good decisions (since they're wholly-owned by industry).

5:10:49 PM