ImperialViolet

Lessig's new book is out in both dead-tree format and electronic, under a CC license.

That's the good news. On the other hand...

SciAm has published this, an interview with "the father of MP3" from which I'll pull a few quotes:

The culture of theft that turns around MP3 is detestable.

Misuse of the word theft in the usual RIAA-newspeak way.

I don't see [iTunes etc] as a solution in the long run, because they put too many limits on the users.

Ok, good

What we need is a system that guarantees the protection of copyrights but at the same time is completely transparent and universal. With the Digital Media Project [DMP] we are working to develop a format that meets these requirements.

For example, you could play a specific title until a certain date, or you could buy a subscription allowing you to play anything you want for a given period.

the algorithms used for copyright protection don't come as hardware but as software, so that you can update them with an Internet or wireless connection if they are cracked.

Hmm, I'm betting that this `father of MP3' is a manager. It would take years of training to come out with such wooly worded crap. "It's open" yet you can be time limited. "It's not-crack proof" yet people will (willingly?) download updates to `fix' their players.

And their website is, as expected, full of utter rose-tinted rubbish.

Seriously, how do people get away with not putting a single hours thought into these systems?.

It turns out that Apple have very neatly managed to use the RIAA's stupidity against them by having a DRM free service and just telling the RIAA that it's protected. Genius.