Good Example : Fraunhoffer

Posted Oct 4, 2002 17:16 UTC (Fri) by torsten (guest, #4137)
In reply to: O geeks, what has become of us? (Register) by beejaybee
Parent article: O geeks, what has become of us? (Register)

Remember the media blitz surrounding the Fraunhoffer change in licensing terms? They now charge a unit fee (or one time fee) per encoder AND decoder.

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html

The sky has crashed - they have every right under the current political climate to charge for these things. While people can continue trading mp3's and divx files, it is the sad truth that this fight is over. From the point of view of Fraunhoffer (and politicians), DRM is inevitable. The only question now, is how to implement it.

Since the mp3 encoder/decoder profits outweigh the cost of lobbying, Fraunhoffer will undoubtedly purchase some powerful mp3-tarriff collection legislation. Similar to annual losses due to piracy, the amount of money Fraunhoffer believes to be losing is a complete farce.

It is a farce for one simple reason. Where there is money, there is greed. If Fraunhoffer were actually realizing their entire mp3 profits, if music companies were realizing every penny they could charge for traded music, if movie studios realized every dime for every copy fo their films made, then this cash flow would attract hundreds of viable competitors, all looking for a piece of the pie.

I only have one real concern about DRM, in collusion with "Intellectual Property." Scientists and researchers can not be made afraid to take information and material, and use it to increase the public body of knowledge. It is the control of thoughts and ideas that really concerns me.

For example, if one company knew how the AIDS virus worked, and bundled this information in an ebook with very specific prohibitions about how that information can be used, I think this is wrong. Anyone reading such material should be free to develop the research further, without limitation on the ideas involved. Copyright should restrict how the document itself is replicated (with notable academic exceptions) - not how the information is used (a la the EULA).

Torsten