DISQUS

That's really cool. When I was in mechanical engineering student in college I designed turbocharger that was coupled to an electric motor through a centrifugal clutch for faster spin up. Of course, that was in Texas in the 80's and gas was about 65 cents / gallon so I wasn't really motivated by economy. I was going for negligible turbo lag. The clutch mechanism was a real pain (and probably not really feasible because of the rpm involved). It never occurred to me to just use a second compressor in serial...

JeongMee Yoon's photographs explore this theme: http://daddytypes.com/2007/12/26/jeongmee_yoons...

I have to follow up...

So, out of desperation I polled my friends to find out who had a DVR stuffed chock full of this season's office episodes. Then I offered to buy them a couple bottles of wine and whatever else they might want if I could come over during the weekend and just sit down in their den and watch them back to back. I promised I'd be as quiet as a mouse and they wouldn't even know I was there.

It was great. Highlight of my weekend.

I just wish they had stored "House" on their DVR too...

I'm sad to report that after struggling through the first two episodes on NBC.com I simply gave up. I can't believe I'm waiting for the DVD to be available (in about a year!) on netflix, but that's what I'm doing. I just got tired of cussing at that damned nbc video player. Meanwhile I keep surfing the iTunes store trying to find something that will assuage the loss.

That WOULD be funny. A deal between GM and Exxon that required you to commit to a contract to exclusively buy gas from Exxon if you wanted to buy the car. Or maybe it would be with Mobil, with the little speedpass RFID built right into the car...

Enigma, regarding your #3 above, it often lives at an interesting intersection between real property and expressive work. Here in Philadelphia for many years the Barnes Foundation refused gallery admission to almost anyone and everyone. One of the greatest collections of early 20th century modernist paintings, yet they often couldn't even be viewed by the artists who created them. To this day access is severely restricted and few of the paintings not on display in the gallery, or any of the purchase records, are made available to art scholars. This case was particularly troublesome given the non-profit status of the foundation.

Doug,

You really think I'm boring? Strikes me as a bit of a sweeping generalization considering you don't really even know me. A little hurtful even maybe? Well, onward and upward...

IP and RP are similar in that when you fixate on one problem (the big media company that "doesn't get the Internet") you open up the likelihood of unintended consequences for all sorts of other people that rely on copyright. Which is why I have an interest in this topic in the first place (and seems like a good reason why the law often changes slowly).

With that as context my comment about IP vs. real property isn't red baiting, it is analogy (quite sensitive on this point are we?). I'm not saying that real property and intellectual property are the same, I'm saying that there once was a time when people became angry with big industriaIists and as a consequence took the extreme step of eliminating real property; but not just for those industrialists. Plus they made them wear funny hats when they took their stuff.

I am concerned that in your quest to force the media companies to change their model of doing business you are going to impact all sorts of other people who rely on copyright in unintended ways too. And since I produce copyrighted materials (and don't much care for hats funny or otherwise) it matters to me personally.

You claim that artists have been duped; I claim that a statement like that is born of un-earned arrogance and not from the least concept of what an artist thinks about his or her work.

The fact is that many technologists leverage copyright to enforce their intent over the open source code they write; they rarely release it into the public domain. I don't know what all technologists think about these issues, but the people that write for this blog (and claim to be technologists in the about the authors page) are generally pretty consistent in their contention that artists should no longer be able to rely on copyright to the degree that they do today. At least some of those authors have contributed to open source projects, presumably under licenses based on copyright. I think that is an irony.

If you choose to engage in a discussion of that irony, I have an open mind; with a good argument (snippy peevishness doesn't count) you very well might change it. If you choose not to discuss it that's fine too, I should probably be working anyway. But if you are going to take your ball and go home everytime someone breaks one of your secret debate club rules, you should probably post them somewhere. You'll never change anyone's mind if your two modes of discussion are standing on dogma or walking off in a huff.

Doug, You (choose to) miss the point. Your flippant response willfully ignores that the people mis-appropriating GPL copyright are not likely to be the same people mis-appropriating copyrighted art. The irony remains, in that technologists tend to believe in copyright when it suits their purposes but not when it doesn't. Sort of part time libertarians.

Open source communities use copyright to enforce their intent with their creation. So do artists. The same group of people that think it's ok for developers think it isn't ok for artists. That is intellectually dishonest. Meanwhile the FSF isn't just sitting around idle when GPL copyright is abused (calling it copyleft doesn't change the law it uses as its foundation).

By the way, this has all happened before. Now it's IP, in the cultural revolution (as one example) it was real property. It is useful to keep in mind unintended consequences.

Doug (almost) said:

"Developers may have non-economic reasons for wanting greater control over their work, but does it make sense to give them this control? Seems to me that if you put something out there in the culture, you take the chance that the culture will use it in ways you couldn't forsee. Especially now that technology has made copying and repurposing very easy and protecting works very very hard..."

Ironic that if an artist uses copyright to maintain control over work to preserve either intent or profit it is bad for society and should be verboten; but if Stallman et al use it to preserve intent in equally copyable and morphable software code it is good.

Seems to me we should just chuck GPL v2 (and especially v3) because software is 1) easy to copy 2) easy to transmit 3) easy to change with available technology and once it is out there the creator gives up any notion of controlling the intent of the work. If art should be public domain once it is released, why not source code? Sounds like "what is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine."

"Given the low marginal costs of reproducing and distributing expressive works, those larger audiences will tend to reward authors with larger profits."

I guess I see this as an assumption that isn't proven yet. Or, it may work in some cases but not in others.

In any case, I think there are other issues besides simply the profitability associated with a creative work. Many artists are also very interested in controlling how a work is presented and copyright gives that control. Anais Nin didn't want her journals published until everyone named had passed for example. Or a visual artist may be very interested in the quality of reproduction etc. If I put a thumbnail of one of my photographic works on the web only to find that someone has re-purposed it I would be concerned about that from a control standpoint even if (and this is doubtful) I was somehow being compensated financially for it.

Focusing only on the economic models ignores the other motivations that an artist may have for exercising copyright.

Kind of reminds me of cheap lasers. My uncle is an airline pilot and has been lazed twice now that every nimrod with a $1000 can buy one. Now I guess he'll get to dodge Lego UAV's too. Remind me; why is regulating the use of air space a blanket statement bad thing? Or more to the point, why is it a good thing if technology makes it impossible to regulate?

I think by "Labour market disciplines" he's referring to the now quaint practice of getting paid for the fruits of your labors. Just a guess.

More seriously, contributing to open source involves the excercise of free will, and sometimes (maybe even often) generates down stream economic benefits for the contributor in the form of better jobs or whatever. But if it weren't for the free will part we'd all be railing about how corporate America is using open source as a mechanism for getting lots of free labor (or maybe just labor subsidized by other companies). I think there may be more than one perspective on this.

In a way it's not unlike the stories my grandfather used to tell about how his company made a fortune on his and his colleague's patented inventions and just kept paying them a salary since they had had assigned away their rights. Maybe in some cases open source will come to be viewed as just another way that same basic transaction can occur.

My grandfather was a chemist with Dow many years ago and had a number of patents for real no kidding inventions. It was really cool when I was 15 or so and he showed me his patent disclosures and told me about his inventions.

I can't imagine the same scene playing out in fifteen years from now with this current deluge of BS patents. "Son, come over here, I want to show you this patent I was awarded for the use of the Internet to do stuff that people were already doing but forgot to patent."

Ned,

Not to belabor the point, but I'm really curious. Do you think it would be ok (both legally and morally) for me to publish your social security number, bank account number, home address, mother's maiden name, phone number, current prescriptions, medical history, past employment record, and any prior record of incarceration here and elsewhere? All truthful facts? Is that consistent with your interpretation of the first amendment? (I'm not baiting here, I'm just trying to understand your statement above regarding congress' powers).

engima_foundary... good point. It rather obliterates my automobile analogy. I am following my intuition here but when I think of things (especially in the world we live in today) that require me to go get zip tied, I just don't think of DCMA. It seems like a rather tenuous connection to the first amendment.

Doug, I agree. I was just kind of laughing that at this point this has become an excercise in futility. Good luck and watch out for those little wrist lock zip tie things when you do your DMCA sit in. Wrap your wrists in a few layers of inside out duct tape so the ties don't pinch.

Doug,

My mistake. I thought it was you offering that as a compromise position. Weren't you suggesting that futile-to-enforce speed limits were ok now that they have been moderately improved and there are no cases remaining in the courts? I should have read your post more carefully.

Personally I still think I should be allowed to go 150 mph on I-95 since I have a vehicle with the means to do it. I simply don't buy the argument that I'm hurting anyone by doing it, they just need to speed up too. I'm beginning to come around to your way of thinking and you are giving me the moral courage to say to hell with Carter's speed limits. I suggest if you still drive slowly, use the right lane.

Doug,

True, but it has basically nothing to do with the point I was making. This is starting to feel like squeezing a water balloon.

But if you're saying that a change in the DMCA laws that was qualitatively equivilent to a moderate 10mph increase in speed limits, and some passage of time to "age" the DMCA laws like Carter's speed limits, would be sufficient to make you happy with the law and ready to follow it, I think we are all done. Just have to figure out what that little tweak to DMCA would be and then wait.

Doug,

You are misunderstanding my point, I may not have been clear. I didn't say that the Digg episode is a mess (although it will probably turn out to be one for Digg). I was attempting to say that if the bar for civil disobediance is this low in this domain and becomes a norm of public behavior and is applied to other domains, we will find ourselves in the position where everyone with a passionate position on anything decides which laws apply to them. I think that would be a mess. And just to be clear, I'm not arguing a cauality from DRM to other stuff; I'm simply saying that widespread use of civil disobedience for every quitodian cause would be at best a pain in the ass (like strike days in France) and at worse a real mess.

Personally I think speed limits suck and have only reluctantly adhered to them. They hardly strike me as a kind of natural law like "don't kill." I'm sure somewhere in the courts is a case arguing that they are set too low. Until that is settled I think I'll just go as fast as I want, and after it is settled I will still go as fast as I want because it is my inalienable right. You may think that speed limits are a rational limit on my behavior but I say that is just your opinion and need have no bearing on my behavior. Furthermore, if you think my going fast is somehow endangering you I'll just say stop being a dinasaur, find a business model that works, and go fast too.

Ok... well, I was a little bit hesitant to use the auto analogy because it is a bit remote (and I am not surprised that it didn't sway your pov; it is clear that your pov is pretty firmly established). However, I do still think there is a connection. At the heart of regulations like the ones on how I can use my car is the idea that government regulates use for the good of all participants. You might not remember how pissed off people were about catalytic converters and mandatory seatblet use?

What we seem to be arguing about is whether the subverting of a DRM mechanism harms anyone or not (like if I remove the catalytic converter from my car) and whether you have some fundamental inalienable right to use a device that you own in any way you see fit. I don't believe that their is any such inalienable right, though I think it is a desirable state when it comes to the impact of DRM on personal computing and similar devices.

If by "really important stuff" you mean important enough for civil disobedience, then I really disagree. That's a pretty low bar for civil disobedience and if everyone with a similar level of passion about something has a similarly low threshhold for invoking civil disobedience it's gonna get messy out there (although the people still protesting mandatory seat belt use would probably prune their own ranks pretty quickly).

Doug,

Yep, I absolutely agree with you exept for one thing; you paid for the device fair and square knowing full well what restrictions there were (others might not understand those restrictions, but you certainly did) when you bought it.

To the degree that this argument is similar to the arguments of the FSF on free software I agree as far as it goes to say that free software is good, I just don't go so far to say that it is some kind of first principal fundamental right. How can there be a fundamental human right to something that has only existed for half a century at most? Maybe I'll feel differently about it someday but I think fundamental rights are a pretty elite group.

I bought a car fair and square with a "license" that says if I modify it the warranty is null and void. Not only that, but even if I choose to ignore that and let my warranty lapse, the government has all kinds of things to say about what modifications I can or cannot make to the car I paid my money for (don't remove that catalytic converter!) to drive it on the streets that I paid for with my taxes. And even if I don't modify it all I am still restricted in how and where I operate it. In fact, it has a governer on it that will not permit me to go above a particular (illegal) speed that it would otherwise be very capable of achieving, and it is unlawful for me to remove it or make it inoperable.

The point is that we buy things all the time that have restrictions on use. If the restrictions are too severe (like that damned "feature" that requires my foot to be on the clutch to start my car) either don't buy it or work to get the regulation that requires it changed. But I humbly suggest that we save the civil disobedience for the really important stuff.

It seems to me like something is getting lost here. Posting a number, even a number that happens to mean something else in another context, is one thing, but posting it with its meaning when it's meaning is protected is another.

If I post "345 54 8902" with no supporting text it's no big deal. But if I post it as so-and-so's social security number alongside their address (just another number) it does matter. If it were your SSN I was posting with your address I suspect you would not be so quick to see it as my right of free speech being excercised (or maybe you are a true believer and would be ok with it).

So it isn't really honest to say "it's just a number" if it is posted as a mechanism for assisting someone with either breaking copyright or related law.

By the way, I submit that you do have complete control over your computer Doug. You are not being coerced by anyone into placing a CD or DVD in it; you are making a choice that is informed by the license printed right on the thing. If enough people were to make the choice not to purchase content that had DRM on it, it would go away.

I find DRM to be not only irritating but downright insidious in the way it is implemented and I don't buy Sony products because of that damned root kit; I just don't see the presence or absence of DRM on my content purchases as a fundamental "rights" question of the kind dealt with by our constitution.

Interesting conversation though; it is definitely making me think and I appreciate that.

Nice sentiment Doug. I'm sure you'll bring a lot of people around to your point of view. Why so angry though? I mean when the farmers rallied to Mao (is that him on the banner of this site by the way?), or the world's laborers and intellectuals to the International Brigades in Spain, it was for deeply held beliefs that held life or death consequences for people. You're this pissed off because you can't play a DVD on a Linux machine or, God forbid, because you can't play an iTunes download from a Zune? Seriously, we're talking about the right to Beyonce and Predator vs. Alien here. Play the Horst Wessel song on that Zune and get to marching! Left right left, left right left...

I can't stop laughing as I type this. I hope you manage to see the humor in it.

Cuz my Dad always said "If you aren't part of the solution you're just whining." :)

Doug, I basically agree with your statement but I am not "intentionally obfuscating" in drawing a linkage between DRM and stealing content. They are linked because one follows from the other. If content owners weren't worried about people stealing their content they wouldn't bother with the DRM stuff in the first place. And lots and lots of people are stealing their content and wrapping it some kind of Boston Tea Party rhetoric so they can rationalize it. The DRM is over reaching and bad for business but it is linked to the theft, to argue otherwise is specious.

Tim, we are in agreement on your last post. Stealing content is wrong but not being able to play my iTunes songs on a different device is irritating. However, I knew that to be the case when I bought it - which is exactly why I still buy and rip CD's. I buy fewer songs from iTunes because the value isn't there considering the limitations. Don't you think that ultimately the market will correct the situation by punishing the players that treat their customers as the least important players in the equation? I guess I can summarize my pov on this by saying it just stupid and inflexible to make your product's user experience suck, but it isn't immoral or illegal to do it, and the market is the best mechanism to correct it.

This problem isn't going to go away until someone can provide a reasonable alternative to intrusive DRM that allows the people who create or invest in content to be reasonably confident that they can build a business model around it. That is the one thing that is conspicuously missing in this discussion.

Doug,

Empathy is not the word I would have gone for. But understanding why a cornered animal bares its teeth is useful.

The point is that they aren't breaking the law; neither did the last person trying to sell washboards after the electric washer was invented and its not ok to steal their content just because their business model is becoming obsolete, any more than it would have been ok to steal those washboards "because they are made by dinasaurs." It's not illegal to be stupid and inflexible, it is illegal (and should be) to steal other people's content even if they are stupid and inflexible.

They will go out of business if they fail to adapt, that should go without saying. But why does that make it ok for all of us to steal their stuff? And why the moral outrage about their failure to adapt. Were we morally outraged at those dummies who kept trying to sell buggy whips after buggies became obsolete?

I'm not really sure why I've gotten involved in this conversation. I may just be proving my ignorance by engaging in this disucssion but I just think the way the discussion has been framed is missing some basic realities.

A friend of mine has a small business producing educational videos. The production costs are staggering for a small company and as soon as a video is produced it ends up on youtube thus making it very difficult to recoup the upfront investment. If there was a reasonable alternative for distribution to DVD that supported a reasonable asset monitization method I guess you could say shame on them for not getting with the times, but there isn't.

In my mind it is just stealing what people are doing with that content and they rationalize it by saying "those big mean companies are too rich and too dumb to change." Forums like this just give it a nice "think tanky" sheen of justification. And frankly, I think you are being used. While you are pushing the liberatarian solution onto big content, big search and big apple are just using the dinasaur's weakness to make themselves into the next generation oligarchy.