Cyber Liberty

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I wanted to get to something that has had me thinking for a while now…hence the title.

I am becoming more and more convinced that intellectual property is on a collision course with personal liberty. -posted on slashdot

Is that a true statement? If you have been involved at all with ripping music or setting up a pvr (personal video recorder…like tivo), then you will know what i mean. There are a lot of folks out there that want control. They want to make sure that you are not going to use technology in inappropriate ways. Here is a case in point. I like making backups of my cds. I rip them into digital formats that are highly portable. Having a digital format allows me utilize what computers are extremely good at: slicing through and organizing large amounts of data. I can sort my music, take it with me, and back it up effectively. I have time and money bound up in that music and want to protect it. Now, there are folks who are trying to impose digital rights management into everything you do. This will limit your options on how you convert and transport your digital media. And i mean all of your digital media.

And now for the flip side. I understand the need to manage intellectual property. I understand that entertainment companies are trying to protect their livelihood and that of their artists. But is the above quote true? And if so, do we need to change entertainment business models to exploit these sharing trends instead of hedging against them? Loads of fodder for comments here…

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