[DMCA-Activists] Re: [fsl-discuss] Re: IP: FCC INITIATES RULEMAKING TO EXPLORE DIGITALCOPYRIGHT

[Seth Johnson]

John Cowan wrote:
> 
> address@hidden scripsit:
> 
> > Do you happen to know why it wouldn't make sense to option something
> > that lets people decide whether they want the DTV or not?  Why wouldn't
> > it make sense to sell a "public TV" and a "private TV"? Those that want
> > access to Hollywood's sh#$ can buy the private TV, and those that just
> > want CSPAN and PBS can buy the other?
> 
> What makes you suppose that CSPAN and PBS are any less interested in
> hard content control than any other content provider?


Consider the impact that having flexible, higher-value
digital material coming out of "public sources" would have
on the dinosaur content industries' continual efforts to
impose technological restrictions on *their* output!

One interesting thing to remember is that in the most
important sense, content control isn't really publishing --
since it's specifically trying to prevent gaining access to
the very *elements* of expressive works, whereas the
principle governing the exclusive rights clause of the
Constitution is to promote science and the useful arts. 
That is, the whole point of it in the first place is to
encourage the spread of useful information and knowledge,
and exclusive rights don't cover the factual elements of
expressive works, because information in itself is
*intrinsically* free.

People who put out information products under content
control should be barred from exclusive rights coverage. 
They are not meeting and upholding the principles according
to which they have been granted exclusive rights in the
first place.

Until those remaining in denial finally come to terms with
reality and give up on continually trying to institute
content control by means of legislation, we just have to
keep confronting them with the implacable truth about what
they're trying to do.

Seth Johnson

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