Why didn't they get into Microsoft's crap. If you bought a DVD to install Windows 7 on your computer and then a month later your computer takes a dump. You cannot use the copy of Windows 7 you bought to install on a new computer. Microsoft won't allow that. Been there and tried to do that. Microsoft's reason --- Oh its a new computer and the license cannot be transferred from the old to the new computer. Me - but I bought the license. MS - and you used it on the original computer. Conclusion - once installed the computer owns the license and not the bloke that bought the license. Weird.

This is actually a divisive area for the Gulch population.

At stake are two contradictory principles of property rights: the physical property rights of the purchaser, versus the intellectual property rights of the publishers and devices.

The first principle rests on the axiom that when you buy a product, you automatically have the right to do whatever you want with it, as long as you're not pirating intellectual property out to anyone else.

The second principle is based on the argument that intellectual property rights take precedence, and that the "sale" of a device or medium such as a DVD is in fact just a granting of very limited rights of possession, and does not constitute "ownership".

Under this latter argument, when you buy a cellphone, you have the right to smash it to pieces with a sledgehammer, you have the right to use it to make calls and run a limited set of apps, but you do not have the right to use it beyond the intentions of the manufacturer, because as part of your purchase, you have agreed to uphold the intellectual property rights of the manufacturer.

There are those in the Gulch here who would argue vehemently for the latter principle, and complain that the EFF are in fact a bunch of looters.

Very pleased about this!

If this had gone the other way, software developers would have surely prohibited add-ons and required managed IT.

I have tweaked a couple of cars ECUs. Also detest having to watch advertisements when I buy a DVD/BlueRay, Rip/Edit. Go Makers!

Very cool. Despite the obvious problems and setback, I see the long-term arc of the world as moving toward increased liberty. This is a nice little example.

This is an interesting discussion with many good points back and forth. I gave thumbs up on many pro and con. But everyone is just stating opinions, nothing is really rigorous or principled. Intellectual property law does not have a solid, objective basis. We inherit too many ideas from experience with land, which must be rival and exclusive. But my making a copy of a program does not prevent you having your own copy. So, we have "copy rights" i.e., the right to copy. However, they, too, derived originally from royal grants, like the right to colonize Delaware (without actually consulting the people already living there....), so it was a mixed-premise attempt at an important step forward.

It needs to be cleared up and put on a rational-empirical basis.

What happens when pharmaceutical companies copyright your genes?

Being a total Mr. Fixit cripple, I am unaffected, but my son, who was able to fix anything from the age of 7 on, will appreciate this. I think that there is a fixit gene and you're either born with it or not. I put down the age of 7 for my son because it was the first time I noticed his ability after he fixed a broken cassette recorder. Who knows what he could do at age 2? I always envied you fixit types, but I consoled myself by saying, well, I'll bet they can't do some things I can do. I haven't quite figured what that could be as yet.

We can thank the new interim librarian of Congress for this.

Thanks, that is great news!

this seems to be in english, but its import just zings over me
in the stratosphere ... is there a translation available, Jan? -- j
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