Ross's TCPA paper

[Sunder]

On Wed, 26 Jun 2002, Barney Wolff wrote:

> Do you really mean that if I'm a business, you can force me to deal with
> you even though you refuse to supply your real name?  

When was the last time you had to give your name when you bought a
newspaper, CD or a DVD in a non-online/non-mail order store?

> Not acceptable.
> I won't give up the right NOT to do business with anonymous customers,
> or anyone else with whom I choose not to do business.

That is your choice of course, as it is mine to refuse to disclose my
identity for a simple purchase such as a newspaper, CD, or DVD.

> The point about DRM, if I understand it, is that you could disclose
> your information to me for certain purposes without my being able
> to make use of it in ways you have not agreed to.  At least in
> theory.  

Then, you don't understand it at all.  The point of DRM is to prevent you,
the customer from making copies of CD's and DVD's available to others,
skipping over commercials, to limit you from purchasing the same titles
from outside your "region" for much less, or slightly different edits, or
before they're released in your region, or lend the same to your friends,
or transferring the data to other mediums (mp3 players, etc.)
  
Never mind that copyright laws allow such fair use such as making backups
and loaning to your friends, transfering CD tracks to your mp3 player, and
even selling used DVD's/CD's so long as you destroy all other copies of
the same title.

In order to enforce these ends, the only way to "protect" the rights of
the owner of the copyrighted work, the current proposals deem to remove
administrative rights to your own computer. i.e. MSFT Palladin et al.

At this point, the owner of the copyright has root on your computer.  (Be
that computer a DVD player, X-Box, or whatever.)  Should you have anything
else on that machine, it is accessible surreptitiously by them without
your knowledge so long as the device is online, and it would have to be in
order to be "registered" and "updated."  Hence the complaints of privacy
violations.

> But this debate appears largely to ignore differences in
> the number of bits involved.  To violate your privacy I can always
> take a picture of my screen with an old camera, or just read it
> into a tape-recorder.  I can't do that effectively with your new DVD
> without significant loss of quality.

The number and quality of bits is irrelevant from the point of view of the
MPAA and RIA.  Street vendors of illegal VHS tapes and DVD's made of
movies from a camcorder while in a movie theater have had their asses
rightly hauled in.  I imagine the quality of their wares is also quite
low when compared to legal versions of the same.
 
> I don't see any technical solution that would enable Alice to reveal
> something to Bob that Bob could not then reveal to Eve.  If that's
> true, then DRM must stand on its own dubious merits.

Indeed.