On Thu, Jun 13, 2002 at 06:19:25PM -0700, Walter Landry wrote: > Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote: > > I don't want to see the DFCL used as a weapon against people who haven't > > done anything ethically illegitimate. > > I'm trying to think of a case where this might happen, but I can't. > Especially since the license makes small scale copying an exception to > a general rule. Scenario: Big Publisher has been compelled by circumstances to license a book on molecular biology under the DFCL. They hold the copyright. Professor A teaches a class on this subject at the University of Middletown. Professor A's class is at its subscription limit (100) going into the term. On the first day of lecture she hands out 100 printed copies of the book to her students (wow, 100% attendance on the first day!). After about a week, a few students realize molecular biology is too much for them this semester and drop. Counselor notices that the class is no longer oversubscribed and contacts one of his enterprising students and asks if she'd like to add the course. The student happily says yes. Professor A is thrilled to see someone enthusiastic enough to join the course despite missing a week, prints out the 101st copy of the book, and gives it to the new student. Oops. Professor B, who teaches the class in the off-semester and hates how Professor A is using the book from Big Publisher, instead of the lousy, expensive, traditional text he wrote, and on which he gets royalties from the ridiculously overpriced book that is sold to starving students, gets wind of this. Next time he's at the University Bookstore (which is on University-owned property and is one of only two that is allowed to operate in the town), he bitches to the proprietor about how Professor A is depressing sales of his crappy textbook. The proprietor of College Bookstore is all-too-aware of how much the DFCL is cutting into his ability to sell a textbook for $95 new and $80 used (for several semesters in a row!). It's hurting his bottom line, and even the skyrocketing rents he's able to charge for his roach-infested apartments near the campus aren't enough to take up the slack. He *likes* his lifestyle, working one day a week and and driving his red Firebird to the local strip club, where some of the girls from the college have to work because they're broke after having to buy textbooks at about $100 a pop. So he hears about Professor A's technical violation of the DFCL from Professor B, calls up the AAP *and* Big Publisher, and insists that this violation not be overlooked. The AAP leans on the Big Publisher to do something about this, damnit, because textbook sales have gone in the shitter at the University of Middletown since those radicals in the Computer Science department started throwing books licensed under this DFCL thing. It's started to catch on in other departments, and we've got to put a stop to this. So Professor A gets legal intimidation, and maybe even a lawsuit, from a Big Publisher. She probably also gets reprimanded by the University for not showing proper respect to Intellectual Proprety, which is the Most Important Thing in Academic Life, Didn't You Know that? Without Intellectual Property, Where Would We Be? (Never mind that Oxford and Cambridge were getting along just fine without for hundreds of years before the Statute of Anne.) Anyway. That's how arbitary limits in the DFCL could be used to shithammer the innocent. (BTW, not a single thing in the above hypothetical bears the slightest resemblance to anything whatsoever in West Lafayette, Indiana[1]. Just so you know. It's all entirely fictitous and bears not the merest relationship to reality. I'm serious!) > I think that you're worrying too much here. In the case you're > talking about, the media giant wouldn't have to produce the > super-ultra-secret hardware that turns on the "no-copy" bit, but they > would have to provide the "preferred form for modifications". The > public still has free access to the movie. Maybe. I'll think more on this one. I'm more inclined to agree with you here than on the "100 copies in 30 days" thing. [1] http://www.purdue.edu/ -- G. Branden Robinson | Exercise your freedom of religion. Debian GNU/Linux | Set fire to a church of your branden@debian.org | choice. http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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