Carrying the Lantern

Bill R.: Click through to the Washington Post article. DHS official Stewart Baker, recently appointed by President Bush as the Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for policy, made some astute comments recently. He puts in a nutshell the key challenge faced by content providers and consumers (apologizes to the Cluetrain Manifesto gang for use of these Commerce 1.0 terms). In a remark clearly aimed directly at Sony (and others), Stewart said:

"It's very important to remember that it's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer."

This challenge is hard. I've come to believe that, unfortunately, possible solutions to this challenge are unfairly hampered by bad laws. Laws that tip the balance - neigh demand deference to - MSM (main stream media) companies. The arguments put forward by better minds than I (e.g., Larry Lessig and Cory Doctrow) are worth listening to.

IMHO the whole copyright / patent / IP situation is skewed in favor of making $money$, period. Maybe I'm just slow, but it's becoming more and more obvious that old school MSM dynasties (e.g., Sony and Disney) have no the regard for my interests: fair price, fair use, personal property, security of my data, and security of my communications. The problem is in the last decade or so, laws have been enacted that make many of my options for protecting my interests illegal. The balance is not there. Maybe the laws are ghost written by MSM lobbyists and enacted by politicians misguided by the same. If so, shame on all concerned, including my self for not being diligent enough while the world changes around me.

What has the recent Sony situation revealed to me? That the balance between my interests and MSM is lost. There's no balance. Not only does Sony want me to pay what the market will bear for 'their' content, but they want to covertly reach into MY house and covertly change MY property, with no regard for the effects this might have on other unrelated uses of MY property. And the law is apparently on their side!

As I've said before, the law may be but my wallet is not.

Background on Sony situation.

Now on with the linked post...

Brian Krebs/Security Fix: DHS Official Weighs In on Sony.

DHS Official Weighs In on Sony — A high-ranking Bush administration official weighed in Thursday on anti-piracy efforts domestically and abroad, indirectly chastising Sony BMG Music Entertainment for its digital rights management (DRM) software, which computer security analysis …

Source: Security Fix - Brian Krebs on Computer and Internet Security - (washingtonpost.com)
Author: Brian Krebs
Link: http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2005/11/the_bush_admini.html

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- Posted by William A. Riski - 8:59:52 AM - comment []