Cox Crow

Intellectual Property Protectors

Dave writes, "Today's mail page has a quote from Rob Enderle. I guess I'm becoming a BigPub?  " [Scripting News]

So I jump to the link to read it, and a phrase Enderle uses to describe the horribly acronymed CBDTPA strikes a chord: "the push to make PCs intellectual property protectors."

Yes! Protect my intellectual property by giving it the widest possible distribution!

This meaning is the opposite of that intended, I'm sure. :-D

5:36:49 PM # Google It!
categories: Language, Law, Media

Precise, but Inaccurate Search Results

To the person who just hit this site by means of this Google search, I will find the answer to the question, but I haven't yet. If you find it first, I'd love to know what it is.

5:17:13 PM # Google It!
categories: System Administration

The journal Nature is running a series on access to original research.

5:10:06 PM #
categories: Language, Law, Media

I need persons with more contrary opinions in my AIM Buddy List.

3:10:08 PM #

One of many signs that we are living in the End Times.

;-)

2:18:07 PM #
categories: Identity

The Sins of the Fathers

Mark Pilgrim's "What the Past Will Look Like Someday", via The Shifted Librarian, coincides nicely with Dan Bricklin's observations on copy protection.

It would behoove the legislators and others considering these issues to re-read a certain widely copied document. If they remember their grammar, then this clause makes sense in only one way.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
— U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8

The key elements are "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" and "for limited Times." Laws made under this clause must "promote the progress of science and useful arts;" this trumps the rest of the clause. If this condition is met, the law must be "for limited times."

Now, S.2048, the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), would place stringent requirements on equipment used to produce and distribute copyrighted works. These requirements fail to satisfy Congress's mandate "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" for one very simple reason:

Work cannot be copied.

If the work cannot be copied, it cannot be preserved.

If the work cannot be preserved, it cannot last.

If the work cannot last, future generations cannot learn from it.

As Sir Isaac Newton put it,

What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking ye colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.
—Newton to Hooke, 5 Feb. 1676

2:14:57 PM # Google It!
categories: Language, Law, Media

It's even worse that that.

I tend to spend Monday catching up with everything that's been published over the weekend. I don't watch television news, or read the dead-tree editions of newspapers. I usually listen to Morning Edition on my drive to work, but the things I want to stay current with are on the Internet. Some of the reason for this is my job, but in truth I've just found that the offline media are insufficient.

10:57:09 AM #