"Any time someone puts a lock on something that belongs to you, and won't give you a key, they're not doing it for your benefit."
Advice one would think would be common sense.
I agree that one should be willing to take a stance they are not willing to back down from. Most people buy into DRM and EULAs mainly because they don't care or notice. Creators it seems may buy into them because they think it's the only avenue or feel they have no power to bargain. Either way, creators and consumers do have all of the power and should recognize digital resellers for what they are: middle-persons. Their job is to facilitate transactions between two interested parties, not determine the terms of said transactions themselves. You can bargain with them and you don't have to back down: if they're worthy of your business they will consider your proposals.
Maybe that's a good law in theory. But as soon as such a measure was on the agenda, it would be complicated by the addition of various provisos, exceptions, and limits, each inserted at the behest of a well-heeled interest group with access to majority-party legislators on the relevant committees.
If there's one area I want Congress to stay away from, it's copyright law. Under the system of campaign finance and interest group lobbying that we have now, there is no chance---none---of an improvement if they get involved.
I think it would be very difficult. Arguably, by controlling access to their network, Google is putting access control and restriction on all of the works in their web cache. Similarly, requiring a login on a server restricts access to the Oracle instance running on it.
These sorts of issues already exist in copyright law, and have been covered pretty well. It seems to me that this would essentially be an extension of the first sale doctrine.
But how would that help? A publisher having millions of locked-in customers could easily force authors to give this permission. The individual option to say no to a deal is a very weak weapon in such situations.
Now Cory just needs to write something I'd actually want to read. Hope his fiction isn't as preachy as his articles. Though this one wasn't as bad as he usually does.
Advice one would think would be common sense.
I agree that one should be willing to take a stance they are not willing to back down from. Most people buy into DRM and EULAs mainly because they don't care or notice. Creators it seems may buy into them because they think it's the only avenue or feel they have no power to bargain. Either way, creators and consumers do have all of the power and should recognize digital resellers for what they are: middle-persons. Their job is to facilitate transactions between two interested parties, not determine the terms of said transactions themselves. You can bargain with them and you don't have to back down: if they're worthy of your business they will consider your proposals.