Everybody has heard about the recent scandal around Sony's copy protection. This one was much more serious than "Kino-welt", because Sony hid the components it had installed and left the computer vulnerable to attack. Less known is the fact that it GPLed components, again without honoring the license.
But why should this amaze us all? Microsoft has done this for years and years. After conducting what was termed "original marketing research," Microsoft dubbed its new product the Palm PC.
Palm Computing Inc., a division of the 3Com Corporation, quickly filed a trademark infringement suit in Europe, complaining that Microsoft was deliberately attempting to confuse consumers by borrowing the first five letters of their product's name. And the list goes on an on, Stac Electronics, Eolas Technologies, Forgent Networks and InterTrust, that has a massive 143 patent violation claims registered against the software giant.
"Cultures that value ingenuity, creativity and progress, have good reason to value intellectual property". Obviously, Microsoft doesn't, because it isn't. The Business Software Alliance is ostensibly a trade association that tracks down pirated software on behalf of its members in the software industry.
It has absolutely nothing to do with intellectual property, but corporate profit. The BSA files suits against offending organizations, but quickly drops them when they agree to sign deals to purchase Microsoft software exclusively. The RIAA tries to make us believe that "Each sale by a pirate represents a lost legitimate sale, thereby depriving not only the record company of profits, but also the artist, producer, songwriter, publisher, retailer, … and the list goes on".
In reality, Courtney Love says that "recording artists have essentially been giving their music away for free [to the record companies] under the old system" and Don Henley, thinks that "the recording industry is a dirty business. Always has been, probably always will be. I don't think you could find a recording artist who has made more than two albums that would say anything good about his or her record company.
[..] Most artists don't see a penny of profit until their third or fourth album because of the way the business is structured.
The record company gets all of its investment back before the artist gets a penny, you know. It is not a shared risk at all". Downloaders of the world, think of it like this: when you're copying a $20 disk, you're ripping off the artist for a measly $2 (and sometimes even less) and the record companies for $18.
And that is alright since they already owned me for all the IP I've paid double and triple. Although they claim I got a license and not a good, why can't I sent in a broken CD and get a new one? Or an old vinyl record and get a CD?
Or download all the iTunes I already got for free? It is even worse in the Netherlands: most of the DVD's I buy are not only copy-protected, it is also to copy them. Still, I have to pay an extra tax on empty DVD-R's "to compensate the artists", which leads to the inevitable conclusion that the government considers most of their citizens to be criminals.
Can it get any worse? Yes, it can. German media report that the film industry's German lobby group "Gesellschaft zur Verfolgung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen" is actively involved in illegally distributing copyrighted material online.
The privately-run GVU has been paying for illegal FTP servers frequented by film piracy groups. When authorities struck out at European copyright pirates with an orchestrated multi-national crackdown on January 24th, police also conducted a surprise search of the GVU's Hamburg offices. The targets included two popular FTP servers allegedly paid for by the GVU.
Evidence found strongly suggests that over the course of their hunt for online piracy, the GVU has overstepped boundaries of legality. It seems that the lawlessness we find outselves in has no limits. The large corporations rule our lives, instead of the governments we've elected.
"Imagine if anything you thought, made, or distributed could be legally reproduced and freely given away by others. What incentive would there be to continue your hard work?" I know it now.
And it motivates me even more to do it. Everybody has heard about the recent scandal around Sony's copy protection.
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