Thursday, 5 September 2002

Don't do it Steve..... Steve Jobs, the digital hub and the freedom to innovate. Yes I might sound like an advertisement for Apple, I am not. What I am hoping though is that Apple and others will be a decidely different alternative to the ridiculous developments confronting us with copy restriction technologies and all the associated frenzy of major corporate interests actually trying to convince consumers that loosing the right to decide on what device their personal data can and cannot be stored/accessed/played is in our best interests??? Absolute rubbish. Dan Gilmour makes a great point as always, commenting on Microsoft's decision to copy protect TV programs recorded to the PC's hard drive. Once again, the stakeholder confusing their needs [or quick profits] with their customers or the community's bests interests. I also note from [news.com] that Duke University's [USA] law school has received an anonymous $1 million gift to fund advocacy and research aimed at curtailing the recent expansion of copyright law. The school, which plans to announce the gift at a conference in Washington on Thursday, is using the money to fund a center focused on finding "the correct balance" between intellectual property rights and material that should be in the public domain. James Boyle, a Duke law professor and co-director of the school's Center for the Study of the Public Domain , says that the center is likely to look skeptically at recent laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and a measure that extended copyright's duration by another 20 years. Building who's community with this technology? Don't do it Steve.... 10:14:09 PM