Re: Apple Computer changes its name

["mdj" <mdj.mdj@gmail.com>]

Simon D. Williams wrote:

> I guess the basic problem is that the RIAA is essentially concerned with
> the production and marketing of goods, as opposed to intellectual
> property. Since the sale of audio (and video) recordings are no longer
> reliant on the existence of a permanent physical medium, the RIAA and it's
> ilk are essentially obsolete.

The big problem is that the DRM technologies are owned by the big IT
industry players, which potentially allows them to replace the RIAA's.

I refuse to purchase anything from iTunes Music store or equivalent,
not because the content is 'protected' but because of the platform
lockin. Fortunately, 99% of mainstream content is crap, so I lose
little by boycotting it.

This has been going on for years. It was just as bad with the
introduction of DVD, and probably worse, since those same
aforementioned content industry associations lobbied your government to
change copyright law, making it illegal to circumvent digital
protection mechanisms. Amusingly, while everyone jumped up and down
about consumer fair use rights, it was the inability for arbitrary
third parties to produce DVD players that really stunk.

This trend is continuing. Current generation flat panel displays
incorporate a HDMI connector in preference to DVI-D. The big
difference? "content" encryption, over the wire, between display and
host.

Now maybe I'm getting old and cynical, but I think this is less about
content producers protecting their rights, and more about technology
companies making a few bucks on the sale of every display - now that
they've effectively turned an open technology into a closed one.

Technology revolutions like VHS and the PC compatible proved the value
of open systems that can be implemented by anyone. I find the fact that
this is being slowly eroded in favour of technologies based off open
systems that are then locked down by an unethical perversion of
copyright law to be a far more pressing issue than the fact that my
0.99c iTunes track can't be transferred without quality loss onto a
competitors portable audio device. 

Matt