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Where leaping to conclusions is my primary form of forward motion.
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Sacrificial Lambs
HP Time-limits Ink Cartridges
Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property In The Information Age
Friday, May 2, 2003
RIAA, Students Settle Piracy Suit
Interesting note in this Wired article regarding the RIAA suit against four college students. All four settled for relatively small amounts -- small, given the millions and millions of dollars RIAA claimed to be losing from their efforts.While the settlement amounts are not insignificant for a college student, it's less than the cost of a top-line Hyundai. Can such a settlement set a precedent for realistic values in future file trading suits?
This seems an interesting balance the RIAA is trying to strike between public hysteria to drive new laws but more restrained actions against actors in their prime target market.
How, exactly, do you treat the vast majority of your customers as criminals while still trying to market to them? Interesting dilemma...
School Blocks Out File-Trading. Amid growing pressure from the Recording Association of America to stamp out illegal file-trading on university campuses, a New Jersey school takes matters into its own hands. By Katie Dean.[...] On Thursday, all four students named in the complaints -- Aaron Sherman and Jesse Jordan of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Daniel Peng of Princeton and Joe Nievelt of Michigan Technological University -- settled with the music trade group for between $12,000 and $17,500 apiece. [...] [Wired News]
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Sacrificial Lambs
RIAA has first sacrificial lambs for its pursuit of individual file traders. This is where the focus should be, and should have always been (on individuals, not infrastructure providers.) Except the DMCA has removed any need for the RIAA to show just cause or submit to oversight for its actions. Essentially, the DMCA has turned the RIAA into an unregulated, unelected, unaccountable enforcement agency. Your government at work.If there were oversight restrictions in place we could be assured that the RIAA would be forced to concentrate on individuals acting with criminal intent. It would not be possible for them to flood entire networks or castigate entire classes of users. As it stands they can go after anyone they want, any time, without incurring significant cost.
RIAA Suits Against Students May Settle.. RIAA lawsuits brought last month against the four students making and operating network search engines apparently will settle soon. The Daily Princetonian reports that Daniel Peng, and the three others, have been working with attorneys to negotiate an end to this, and expect some kind of announcement today. "It would be really expensive to litigate," said Peng, who has avoided commenting publicly since the filing. "I would like to reach an amicable settlement." In a... [bIPlog]
Terry Frazier at 4:08 PM
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HP Time-limits Ink Cartridges
Tag this one with the Lexmark DMCA case, as a logical attempt to extend control, and hence profits, to the greatest reach legally possible. The problem is the DMCA extends this control well beyond previously legal ends by stopping any form of competition or modification that would bypass any of HP's digital intellectual property. It's only a matter of time before HP joins the DMCA legal chorus to enforce its rights under this new industrial monopoly grant.Whole industries -- aftermarket auto parts, aftermarket printer cartridges, memory chips, manufacturers of any performance mechanical parts, radio and computer hobbyists, and others -- could well be destroyed by a few oligopolies embedding sufficient DigIP into their products to make them immune to any form of competition.
I don't see why it would take anything more than simple RFID embedding to establish a DMCA-qualified barrier to modification. Within a few years companies could be embedding inexpensive RFID tags into every conceivable part, linking them to a DMCA-protected control system that stops operation unless all parts are identified as OEM equipment.
Whose law trumps in such a case -- restraint of trade or DMCA?
theinquirer.net - HP inkjet cartridges have built-in expiry dates.PRINTER GIANT HP has built in time limits for its inkjet printer cartridges which means machines may stop working even if the consumable has 75% ink let to go
[ ... ]
HP has told him that the date printed on the ink cartridge is not the expiry date, and that is determined either by a cartridge being in the printer for 30 months, or the cartridge is 4.5 years old, whichever comes first. [...]
[Privacy Digest]
Terry Frazier at 10:36 AM
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Saturday, August 17, 2002
Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property In The Information Age
Copy Fights is a collection of papers, esays, and presentations from the Nov. 2001 Cato/Forbes ASAP Technology and Society conference. It is a fascinating look at both sides of the copyright argument, and an interesting cross-section of ideas regarding what to do about it. [More...]
Terry Frazier at 2:32 PM
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