Broadband and Me

MGM gets Supreme endorsement

Still, Grokster has turned out to be the kind of friend that assures the worst enemies. Among those enemies is a Supremely false distinciton between creativity and technology. I don't know how we're going to unf**k this one, but I'm sure it will take a very long time. And that tech can't do it alone.

The most worrying point I have seen is one made by Cory Doctorow:

...what today’s decision will kill is American innovation. Chinese and European firms can get funding and ship products based on plans that don’t have to comply with this decision’s fuzzy test, while their American counterparts will need to convince everyone from their bankers to the courts that they’ve taken all measures to avoid inducing infringement. This is good news if you’re an American corporate lawyer but not if you’re an inventor creating a new way to enjoy content.

Its not that I don't support European firms (or Chinese ones for that matter) however innovation breeds innovation. Anything that could slow this down is bad news. Marc Canter isn't too happy either:

This totally effects the fuure of DLAs (digital lifestyle aggregators.) I want to store my music, video and photos - the content I BOUGHT and access it from anywhere I go. We want to provide the tools to do that. We'll ask all our users to agree to terms which say "I understand that the copyrights laws forbid me from illegally distributing content I haven't paid for." But we sure as hell will protect our fair use rights! So to what limits can our customers 'share' the music they've legally purchased? That's the question.

Legal and political arguments are all interwoven in this decision, not to mention aspects of the right to intellectual property versus the commons. I wonder if this decision will ultimately affect blogging and user created content? Posted by Paul Goodison at June 28, 2005 09:33 AM | TrackBack

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