Archive | intellectual property

A Norwegian Court ruled that the teenager that created the DeCSS program that decrypts DVDs so that they can be played on computers running Linux was not committing piracy, contrary to the claims of the US movie industry. Read more in reports from the BCC and the AP (via Wired).

It’s nice to see some common sense rule the day in Norway, though I understand that the prosecution can appeal this verdict. I know nothing about Norwegian law, but if this were a similar criminal trial in the US, the prosecution couldn’t appeal.

The big question is: how far can the entertainment cartel push their proprietary and illogical version of reality before the public truly revolts? The US public may not be prone to large scale protest, but take away our TV and movies? Look out!

A News.com article reports:

“Digital conversion will put radio under the purview of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a controversial 1998 law that some believe has greatly expanded the powers of copyright holders. “

In short, this means that when broadcasting in digital a traditional brodcast station indeed may have to pay royalties to the recording industry, just like an Internet webcaster. If the whole radio dial goes digital, then the royalties paid to record companies could skyrocket, as each broadcaster becomes liable for thousands to millions of dollars in royalty payments.

Let’s go back eleven years, to 1991. Like now, the recording industry was in a pitched battle over piracy. Only then, the ship was called “home taping,” not mp3. Digital audio tape, which would allow for bit-perfect copies of CDs, was threatening to land stateside from Japan, and blank audiocassette sales were through the roof.

Beyond just fighting “pirates,” the recording industry was also trying to harvest new revenues from the same old product.

Where were they looking? Plain old radio, TV and cable….

It’s too easy to assume that these issues are born with new technologies, and the lazy, myopic and amnesic mainstream press does little to expose the falsity of this assumption. The RIAA has been trying to extract more royalties out of broadcasters since before 1976, for crying out loud. Should it be any surprise that they’ve finally gained some ground 26 years later?

The game is the same even if the playing field changes. Whether it’s broadcast radio, digital audio tape, mp3s, the Internet or digital radio, the issue is control. …