Brian J. Murrell writes: > On Sun, Apr 14, 2002 at 11:47:30PM -0700, Seth David Schoen wrote: > > > > CSS licensing comes from the DVD CCA, which is associated with the > > MPAA, not the RIAA. > > But the MPAA is just the motion picture version of the RIAA no? Same > opressive type of organization, no? Or is the MPAA more reasonable > than the RIAA? They're closely analogous, but they're different organizations. RIAA is based in Washington, and MPAA in Encino (near Hollywood). > > The news about Macrovision and specs is interesting. > > Interesting in a "that's not exactly on the legal side of things" > kinda way? Someone could try to develop an antitrust claim about it, but the hardware manufacturers don't have any general obligation to give you specs for their cards. In the old days, the Linux community was trying to start a perception that responsible manufacturers provide documentation to their customers. Now copyright industries are trying to start a perception that responsible manufacturers keep secrets from their customers. I know a bit about the Macrovision and DVD situation, and what I've just heard about ATI makes more pieces fall into place. I will again urge everyone not to underestimate the copyright industries. They do lack some technical sophistication, but they have tremendous legal and political sophistication. Where the free software community is trying to create free software which works with various things, the copyright industries are trying, with much greater secrecy, to prevent you. They also use language strangely. For example, proprietary software may be "trusted", but free software is never "trusted". Proprietary software may be "robust", but free software is never "robust". -- Seth Schoen Staff Technologist schoen@xxxxxxx Electronic Frontier Foundation http://www.eff.org/ 454 Shotwell Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 1 415 436 9333 x107
