Status of Cryptography Research in implementation of the EUCD

[Owen Lewis]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]On Behalf Of Brian
> Morrison
> Sent: 15 August 2002 12:04
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: RE: Status of Cryptography Research in implementation of the
> EUCD
>
>
> On Thu, 15 Aug 2002 11:43:45 +0100, Owen Lewis wrote:
>
> >If I lease you an idea implemented in some fashion that makes it
> capable of
> >practical use, I need protection for my idea so that I may also
> sell it to
> >others but you may not do likewise. After all, I only charged
> you for use of
> >my idea by one person and not 100,000. Since my idea will have cost me a
> >6/7/8/9 figure sum to conceive and bring to the point of
> reliable practical
> >application, I can only do such work if I make a large number of
> sales and,
> >like everyone else, I look to the law to help me in preventing thieves
> >diminishing the worth of my investment by stealing profits from it for
> >themselves.
>
> It's not so much the prevention of thievery and stealing of profits
> that annoys me, it is the stifling of uses that I or others can think
> of for a device or product that its inventors did not conceive. This is
> the DeCSS argument, the studios see it as a piracy tool because they
> think it will lead to pirate copies of their media and content. The
> intent of the DeCSS developers was to allow DVD playback on a free OS
> that could not countenance the oppressive control the content 'owners'
> demanded. It was a fair use argument, the content owners increasingly
> don't want there to be fair use they want payment ever more frequently
> if they can engineer techniques to extract it.
>
> Naturally every loss of control can be used to exploit, or it can be
> used to enable. Getting a fair balance for everyone should not be at
> the whim of the powerful.

Brian, It may not surprise you to know that I don't have the answer to life,
the universe and everything :-)

There is always more than one side in every argument (else there would be no
argument). It is also possible for both sides to be truthful in their
presentation of fact (if selective of the facts they present).

In general, it must be for the owners of IP to set the terms of their
licences. Those terms need not be reasonable or fair. However, if they are
not so then market forces will prevail. I.e.:

		-	There should be little or no uptake of IP licensed on unfair or
predatory terms.

		-	There will be great impetus to others to bring to market an alternative
technology on fair(er) terms and scoop the pool.

I do not know the DVD argument in detail but offer the following. Neither
you or I need DVD (I do not have it). It is in the 'nice to have, look wot I
got) sector. You don't like the terms? Don't have you it either. The reason
I do not have it is not that I find the control of the technology unfair
(though I well might do that)because it is of no concern to me. What is of
concern is that the whole of DVD technology has not yet stabilised. I will
buy when it has.

Users bring the greatest pressure to bear by withholding their money from
producers. The notes in your wallet, multiplied tens of thousands of times
over, count for far more than any 'orterbealorrabahtit' pleading.

Owen