There are few things that better represent the ongoing madness of institutions that represent the major music and movie industries than a lawsuit insisting that copyright protection technologies should not be circumvented, even if that Digital Rights Management might threaten critical infrastructure and potentially endanger lives.
No – well, of course. Your right to stop me playing my music on my friend’s computer is way more important than that.
The sad thing is, the world is full of these sorts of stories.
Here’s a video in which a panellist at the SXSW Interactive conference addresses the issue of DVD Region encoding – that clever piece of technology that breaks your DVDs if you move to another country, but does nothing to prevent copying.
Clear Channel claims to own a patent on recording live concerts and selling digital recordings after the gig. That’s not just the right to record and sell the gigs they promote. They claim the patent ensures that the process of making and selling post-concert live recordings AT ALL is their right alone, and no other present or future technology that will enable that to happen is legal.
Hollywood Studios, in an effort to keep up with modern technology, are going to offer digital movies for sale, legally over the internet. You’ll only be able to play them on the computer you downloaded them onto, the quality will be roughly a quarter that of a DVD and the price will be pretty much exactly double.
But the good stuff abounds too.
Here’s a video of The Sex Pistols (Glen Matlock Version) doing “Anarchy in The UK” on September 4th 1976 on the Granada TV show “So It Goes”. I suggest a 30 year anniversary screening at your house.
And David Byrne and Brian Eno’s classic ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts‘ (one of my favourite albums of all time) is being re-released, with a couple of tracks being issued under a Creative Commons sampling licence so you can go and make your own music with those amazing rhythm tracks.
You can also get yourself a free copy of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead completely legally (try renting THAT at Blockbusters).
