In today’s New York Times, Matt Richtel adds to Fritz’s Hit List: the Barbie Travel Train. He also interrogates a five-year-old who is about to buy this piracy tool, along with employees of a store that is openly selling it.
Fair Use: A Rhetorical Black Hole?
December 6, 2002 by
Yesterday’s exchange with Ernest Miller got me to thinking about why I didn’t mention fair use in my initial posting. I realized there is another reason that I hadn’t stated before: that I was trying to avoid the rhetorical black hole that fair use has become.
A rhetorical black hole is like an astronomical black hole: events inside it have no effect on the outside, and yet it attracts everything in its vicinity.
Abortion is the classic rhetorical black hole in American politics. Nearly everybody has a strongly held opinion. Debate is fruitless because regardless of the merits of the issue, no amount of discussion is going to change anyone’s mind. Debates on the issue follow a predictable course, as though performed by predefined characters reading from a script.
The abortion debate has the two characteristics of a black hole. Since no minds get changed, events inside the debate have no effect on anything outside of the debate itself. And yet the abortion debate has a strong attractive power: any conversation that strays too close to the abortion issue will get sucked in, never to escape.
The same is true of the fair use debate. We see the same scripted arguments from the same characters. Some of these arguments are valid and some are not, but they keep coming back regardless. No minds are being changed anymore. And the fair use debate is sucking the energy out of other related debates.
I am not saying that these issues are unimportant. I am not saying that it doesn’t matter who is right. I am not saying that we should surrender and concede the field to the other side.
What I am saying is this: if you can make your argument without dragging in fair use, try to do so. Don’t let your argument get sucked into the black hole.
More on Unbreakable DRM
December 5, 2002 by
Ernest Miller at LawMeme likes my explanation of why unbreakable codes don’t mean unbreakable DRM. But he takes me to task for writing a posting that ignores fair use and assumes that the customer is the enemy.
I guess I should have been more explicit about my assumptions. I agree that fair use is important and that treating your customers like thieves is a dubious approach. The point I was trying to make is that even if you’re willing to ignore fair use and even if you’re willing to treat your customers as enemies, you still can’t build unbreakable DRM.
Just Ask
December 4, 2002 by
Sasha Volokh tells an amusing story about asking record companies for permission to tape recorded music. Once they realized he was serious, the companies almost all gave him permission and thanked him for asking.
We should do more of this. When companies make silly overreaching claims about the extent of their copyrights, don’t just ignore them. Call them and ask for exceptions. Call WalMart and ask permission to tell your friends about their prices. (WalMart told FatWallet’s ISP that that’s infringement.) Call Turner Broadcasting and ask permission to fast-forward through the commercials in their shows. (Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner told Cableworld that commercial skipping is illegal.) Call Adobe and ask permission to read their e-book of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to your kid. (One of Adobe’s licenses prohibited this.)
Don’t call these companies just to harrass them. But if you do want an exception to their stated rules, go ahead and call.
(If any of you do try calling, please let me know what happens.)
You Are Where You Live
December 4, 2002 by
Ever wondered why you get so much junkmail that obviously isn’t designed for people like you? The website You Are Where You Live is an enlightening view into the world of marketing overgeneralization. Enter your ZIP code, and it will tell you which of about fifty demographic “clusters” you belong to, and what characterizes your cluster. It’ll even tell you about where you like to eat and what you read! I tried it out on myself and it was predictably wrong.
I am not where I live. Are you?
[link credit: Man Without Qualities]
