"If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!"

[Major Variola (ret)]

[Chronic readers can skip this..]

At 12:08 AM 10/25/03 -0400, BillyGOTO wrote:
>On Fri, Oct 24, 2003 at 03:11:27PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>> On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 02:04  PM, BillyGOTO wrote:
>> >Not really.  Libraries have to pay more than we do for their
>> >subscriptions.
>
>> Be careful using the phrase "have to" in any discussion of legal
issues.
>> Does government force libraries to pay more for some subscriptions?
Not
>> to my knowledge.
>>
>> Do some publishers have different rates for individuals versus
>> libraries and other institutions? Yes.
>
>Okay, I'll try to be more careful.  They are given a choice by the
copyright
>holders to either pay more than we do OR to not get a subscription.
>Is this not the case?

Yes it is the case.  But many of us regard State force as a *very*
different thing
than a property owner's whims.  So the State can censor, but an
individual
merely doesn't want your bumper sticker on his car.  Individuals *can't*

censor in the 1st amend sense.  (Similarly with compelled speech.)
The State *must* treat everyone the same, but private entities are not
similarly bound.

The State must permit citizens to bear arms, but in
my saloon you leave them at the door, or don't enter.  Simple.
Entering my saloon is a private transaction.

>Books and magazines aren't guarded by cryptogremlins the way digital
>media could be.  The cryptogremlins are embedded, "tamperproof", and
are
>given absolute authority over their assigned treasure by the DMCA.

1. Tech point: Any passive media for human consumption can NOT be
guarded
by gremlins.  ADCs handle that.  The "analog hole".
Active content (eg programs) can be though.

2. Many of us do worry about eroding conventional rights by these same
gremlins, *when they are supported by wrong law*.
E.g., I have a right in the US to lend a book.  A digital book
could make doing so a pain, but not impossible.  And again, I (as
reader)
have *no* right to compel the publisher to use a large font (if I've got

bad eyes) or make it easy to xerox.  Or backup or lend or sell.

Now, if it is simply some publisher's whim to release content protected
by gremlins, that's their decision.  *What gets our goat* is when the
State
uses its force eg  to make tinkering with our property illegal.

You'll need to understand that difference around here.  Many of us
(unlike many working for the State) still respect private property,
and *mutually consensual* transactions.

If you want to publish a book on paper that
prevents its xeroxing, that's fine.  Might be annoying, but its
within your rights.  But when the State says that say
scanners or image processing or figuring out how the book
is bound is illegal (DMCA), well...

A gremlin is a nuisance, a gremlin backed by the state.. indicates
that someone "needs killing", and its not the gremlin.

>I'm saying that there is an even wider difference between the lending
>restrictions on the gremlin-guarded digital media versus those on
>printed media.  You usually don't have to talk your way past a robotic
>Pat Schroeder avatar to read a printed book, as you do with an
encrypted
>scientific journal on DVD.

Again, you can publish in fonts that don't photocopy.
Its your right.  And its my right to try to get around that, to exercise

my right eg to fair use.  But it is immoral and unconstitutional for the

State to interfere with *either* of us -publisher or reader.

Because we're both choosing to enter a mutually consensual transaction,
the State has no grounds to interfere.  That's basically what freedom
is about.  It doesn't even matter if the transaction is harmful to one
or both of us; masochism (pharmaceuticals, N-ary sex between
arbitrary conspecifics, etc) should be legal.  Life liberty and the
pursuit of whatever.

Some of these journals have announced that
>they will be discontinuing their print editions altogether because they

>are fed up with libraries letting the public look at them.

So?  And other journals are free to everyone.  (Is that unfair
competition?  No)  Its up to the journal, their contributors,
their readers.

Some of the
>digital publications you might ask for at a university library are
>boobytrapped and crisscrossed with razor-sharp bardwire (not a typo).
>Librarians can't let you see it unless they have a way to bill you.

Nice pun.  But librarians are merely acting in accordance with contracts

they chose to sign.  No one put a gun to their heads; only the State
does that.

>| Unlike paper materials, digital information generally is not
purchased
>| by the library; rather it is licensed by the library from information

>| providers. A license usually takes the form of a written contract or
>| agreement between the library and the owner of the rights to
distribute
>| digital information.

I've bought some helically grooved vinyl disks.  This also gives me a
license
to play their content, or make a Wimshurst generator from them, or go
skeet shooting with them.
Should the vinyl object warp, I retain that license.  Should I
download an MP3 of the same content (which may have been derived
from diffraction-grating polycarbonate disks), this is no different than
making
a tape for my car.  It is not copyright infringement.

If I lend, or sell, my disks, I also transfer that license for the
duration of the
transfer.  Now forget that the content happens to be embedded in a slab
of plastic.

>If we're looking for a model on which to base this homebrew
>personal-computer/digital-lending-library, think of how "REAL" lending
>libraries are handling digital content.  Suddenly considering yourself
a
>one-man library doesn't give you any new liberties than you had as an
>individual, when it comes to DRM.

Bingo!  Librarians have the same rights as the rest of us mortals.
Similarly, it doesn't matter if 1 or 1e6 read my blog, we are
all reporters, and better recognized salaried reporters have no
special rights.

>The way I see it, we're taking two leaps here.. One leap is thinking of

>ourselves as individuals with the same rights as libraries under law.

Not a leap.  Equal under the law.

>This first leap has landed firmly.  The second leap is thinking of our
>personal MP3s and digital media licenses (let's say online journal
>subscriptions, IEEE spec PDFs, or eBooks) on the same terms as we would

>consider our IKEA bookshelf of printed material.  This second leap
isn't
>looking so good from where we stand in 2003.

Its looking particularly grim because the Congressvermin are 0wn3d.
That doesn't change the principles.  Just makes us yearn for regime
change.

----
We are all  reporters, we are all book sellers. We are all first class
objects.
--Tim May