Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 16:25:26 -0700 From: AARG!Anonymous <remailer@aarg.net>
The only way that TCPA will become as popular as you fear is if it really solves problems for people. Otherwise nobody will pay the extra $25 to put it in their machine.
Although I support the vote-with-your-wallet paradigm, this analysis seems overly simplistic to me. Macrovision doesn't solve problems for most VCR purchasers, but they pay for it anyway. They have no choice. In some cases people are required to buy and use something that they might not otherwise be inclined to pay for, e.g., catalytic converters in automobiles (which also use palladium). It doesn't seem reasonable to similarly require TCPA in computers, but legislators might think (or be lobbied) otherwise. If the fears that some people have expressed prove justified and TCPA becomes primarily a means to enforce draconian copyright restrictions, then people may well choose to pay for it just to regain pre-TCPA functionality. In that case, the problems it solves for them are the same ones it causes! --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com