dangers of TCPA/palladium

[Dave Howe]

On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, AARG!Anonymous wrote:
> Why not give the market a chance?  Company A provides the data with
> Draconian DRM restrictions; company B gives you more flexibility in
what
> you do.  All else being equal, people will prefer company B.  So they
> can charge more.  In this way a balance will be reached depending on
how
> much people really value this kind of flexibility and how much they
are
> willing to pay for it.  You and I don't get to decide, the people who
> are making the decisions about what content to buy will decide.
That assumes there is a competitive market.
Supposing you need Microsoft Office. you probably don't actually care
that much if you use MS Office, Sun Staroffice, Ability write or
whatever - but you need to interoperate with companies that *do* use
Microsoft Office. If you don't like the Microsoft version of Microsoft
Office because of its draconian insistance on running *only* on a
Trusted machine with a Trusted Operating System, how do you proceed?
particularly as it would be trivial to make reverse-engineered
interoperable office suites illegal under the DMCA?
Music, video, text, computer programs - all are governed by
legally-enforced monopoly rights of patent and/or copyright, the latter
continually extended to prevent micky mouse ever becoming public
domain - and all meaning there is but a single source you can obtain
whatever it is you need or want from, so you either have to take
whatever restrictions are imposed (fair use being invalid in a DMCA
world) or do without.