Re: TCPA

[Raul Miller <moth@debian.org>]

On Sun, Nov 03, 2002 at 12:19:44PM -0500, Noah L. Meyerhans wrote:
> The only negative thing I see comming out of TCPA is that content
> producers (Hollywood, etc) will release copies of their
> movies/music/whatever for download in a format that can only be accessed
> on TCPA systems.  This is the major threat.  Personally, I would not be
> bothered by this.

I am, because it goes a bit further than that.

In the U.S., RIAA is a subsidized group.  There are specific taxes on
recording media which are paid to high profile members of this business.
Congress has routinely been rewriting copyright law to make the terms of
this law more favorable to members of this business.  Congress has also
passed some broadly scoped laws favoring those who dominate this industry
(http://www.riaa.org/Copyright-Laws-4.cfm).

Basically, there's a lot of complexity here, and uless we can express the
underlying concepts clearly and meaningfully to an otherwise uncaring
public I think we can anticipate an ever increasing flood of random
restrictions on the legality of software development.

I don't think that TCPA will kill open software.  But I do think that
it's part of an ongoing effort to erode the freedoms which are behind
open software.

FYI,

-- 
Raul