[this post was damaged during a server failure on 11 July 2004; it was recovered on 13 October 2018]
The Register brings a report about Harvard University Professor Terry Fisher’s plan to make piracy pay for itself. Not by making it yet more illegal, but by stopping it from being immoral. Go read the article. It’s great.
[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]
If you haven’t already read it, take a look at The Right To Read, a very short story written in 1997 and updated in 2002 – it’ll only take you a few minutes to read; it’s not ‘techie’ (anybody would understand it!), and it is relevant. The kind of things that are expressed in the story – while futuristic (and facist) sounding now, are being put into effect… slowly, quietly… by companies such as Sony, Phillips, Apple, and Microsoft: not to mention the manufactors of CDs and DVDs.
It’s been circulating the ‘net for years, but recent events such as InterTrust’s Universal Digital Rights Management System (report: The Register), which they claim will be ready within 6 months, and Microsoft’s ongoing work on the ‘Palladium’ project (report: BBC News) – topical events which mark the beginning of what could be the most important thing ever to happen in the history of copyright law, computing, and freedom of information.
So, go on – go read… [the remainder of this post, and three comments, have been lost]
