Noticed a couple of articles that are cause for at least some optimism. Representatives Rick Boucher and John Doolittle have introduced a bill to remove restrictions on fair use from the DMCA, and the US Copyright Office is seeking public comments on the same issue.
It’s just ridiculous for e-books to have restrictions that make it illegal to read them out loud or lend them to friends, or for music to be set up so that you can’t even move it to another room of the house. And if it’s illegal to write or use a program that lets you transfer your music from your old computer to your new one, what are you supposed to do?
There was an interesting article in the Chronicle up here a few days ago on how Hollywood was truly hampering the next line of technology with all of its greedy copyright laws. Apparenly local authorities are working with Hollywood to get it to ease up on sharing limited copies between acquaintances. The gist of the article was that everyone is hanging onto video tape and cassette tapes to a lesser extent because there are getting to be too many rules about burning cds and dvds.
I wish I’d saved the link. =(
Anyway it’s an interesting thought that 500 years from now people might say what held up the digital revolution was corporate greed.