Noel J. Bergman <noel at devtech.com> said:
>Personally, I'm not convinced that it is entirely possible to give both
>sides what they want, and I would err on the side of the consumer. 

Personally, I would err so far as to do away with "intellectual property"
alltogether. Let's find other ways to make money, only the big media companies
will have trouble surviving in such an environment - I've seen enough
alternative business models for the rest (authors, composers, and the rest of
the professions that don't benefit anyway under the current model).

As far as the SSSCA is concerned, at least in Europe it seems that
provisions for public-domain/free stuff are often made in similar draconic
things (the Wassenaar agreement comes to mind as a specific example). I
don't think a sane judge will really be able to convict anyone for giving
away something incomplete (hmm, you would just print on the Squeak box
"this is a part that may be used in building a computer system conformant
to .... by paying your Disney/Microsoft taxes" and go on with doing
useful things, like hunting corporate lawyers in the LA wilderness ;-)).

>The
>media industry is completely schizoid on the subject: at the same time that
>Disney is the primary backer of SSSCA, Phillips is pushing the consumer's
>ability to produce their own music mix. 

AFAIK, since Philips sold Polygram, they're not in the media business
anymore so they are going to build anything the consumer wants, as long
as it's legal.

-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
GnuPG 1024D/E0989E8B 0016 F679 F38D 5946 4ECD  1986 F303 937F E098 9E8B
http://www.anti-dmca.org/