The Cornell Daily Sun covered Prof. Tarleton Gillespie's recent lecture, "Why You're in the Trenches of the Copyright Wars." Gillespie says, among other things, that when a consumer buys a DVD, "the film is held for ransom and locked until the person says, I'll play it under your rules." Ransom....
Snippets:
The original copyright law operated on a "Lockian notion of property," Gillespie said.
Just as philosopher John Locke said that people can own land by virtue of tilling it, plowing it and investing work into it, copyright regulations gave authors exclusive rights to a particular work if they invest the resources to create it in the first place.
Increasingly, copyright owners are turning to technology rather than legislation as a means of regulation. At the forefront of this new regulation is Digital Rights Management (DRM), a set of laws built into the technology of music, movies, software and their players that allow certain behaviors by consumers while prohibiting other kinds.
Gillespie cited several examples of software using DRM, including Itunes, e-books, and the Napster 2 application many on campus use.
For example, students using Napster 2 can listen to music, but they cannot copy files, burn them to a CD or distribute them to friends.
The movie industry also uses DRM to prevent user copying by encrypting data stored on DVDs.
When consumers buy DVD's, "the film is held for ransom and locked until the person says, 'I'll play it under your rules,"' Gillespie said.
