[Leaplist] Cory Doctorow, to Microsoft, on "Why DRM is bad"

[Damien McKenna]

On Nov 2, 2007, at 12:27 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Thursday 01 November 2007 21:12, Damien McKenna wrote:
>> Why is paying tuppence any less moral
>> than twenty dollars?
>
> If the author wanted twenty dollars, the moral things to do are:
> 1) Give the author twenty dollars and get the Ebook or
> 2) Laugh in the author's face and say you don't need his ebook or
> 3) Bargain with the author til a price is agreed upon

In Cory's original quote there was never any mention of the seller  
wanting twenty and the buyer only giving tuppence, you've inferred  
more than was suggested.

> As long as no *unauthorized* copying went on, and as long as no  
> coersion was
> done (by the government most likely), it's not only legal but moral.

Ok.

>> The second statement is about the ability to record something off  
>> your
>> TV, a signal that you're paying for in one way or another (almost
>> always via cable or satellite service), a far cry from your examples.
>> There are IIRC laws in place that grant you the right to record the
>> video signal to tape for your own personal wishes.
>
> That's not what I objected to. If a purchaser wants to print my  
> Ebook and take
> it to the beach, that's fine with me. If the purchaser wants to put  
> it on two
> different computers for *his* use, that's fine with me.

Which again fall into the fair use example Cory quoted.

> I have no problem with time and location shifting -- it's unauthorized
> distribution I have a problem with.

Cory's examples had nothing to do with unauthorized distribution?

-- 
Damien McKenna - Husband, father, geek.
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