Joho the Blog
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June 20, 2006
The Wall Street Journal has published a conversation on the effect of DRM on innovation. On the one side is Fritz Attaway with the MPAA. On the other is Wendy Seltzer, law prof and Berkman fellow. Wendy was formerly with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (did you remember to renew your membership?). It's a terrific exchange and Wendy's responses, one after another, are so crisp and insightful that she had me chuckling with delight. This is a must read, IMO. The WSJ wisely — and somewhat ironically — is allowing unsubscribed access to this exchange. [Tags: drm copyleft copyleft digital_rights wendy_seltzer mpaa fritz_attaway berkman] Posted
by D. Weinberger at June 20, 2006 08:53 AM
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Comments
I agree it was interesting to read Wendy's ripostes but it strikes me that it is, once more, "bows and arrows against the lightning." Wendy's final assertion that the public en-masse will rise up and burn all those industry lobbyists at the stake, while attractive, seems far-fetched.
What's your secret for not finding this whole area of discussion so unutterably depressing as to make you want to throw the whole notion of "media" out of your life?
Posted by: Matt Mower | June 20, 2006 09:21 AM
Wendy won this one. The MPAA guy blundered by stating that Wendy just wanted to copy stuff without paying for it. That's a terrible debating move knowing that Wendy would immediately get the chance to respond.
These guys are still stuck with framing the debate as "us vs. the pirates" -- but that frame isn't flexible enough to guide people's thinking about the legality of things like YouTube.
It's funny that the movie studios are using iTunes as an example of DRM that works when in fact they hate Apple for it (because they don't own it).
Posted by: BC | June 20, 2006 11:23 AM
I'm not sure if the public will rise up against the lobbyists, but there is DefectiveByDesign.org, which is an anti-DRM civic action group that has been organizing protests around the country.
Here's a video of a protest that I shot last week at San Francisco's Apple store.
Posted by: Kent Bye | June 20, 2006 02:42 PM
Sheesh!
That interview was like listening to two lobotomised Stepford Wives arguing for and against female circumcision, i.e. they sounded like they were in polite disagreement as to who should go through the door first.
Who the hell was their audience?
Posted by: Crosbie Fitch | June 20, 2006 07:04 PM