September 2002 Archives

From Salon:

"The software industry learned its lesson in the 1980s," says Kraus. "They copy-protected a ton of software only to find that the only people inconvenienced were the legitimate customers who wanted to make backup copies. The real pirates always found a way around the copy protection. [Software publishers] learned the hard way that law enforcement and groups like the Business Software Alliance were better ways to handle the piracy issue."

From The Economist print edition: Tinkerers' champion

Excerpt:

It is not just libertarians who are concerned about the restrictions caused by America's latest copyright law. Edward Felten, a professor at Princeton University, argues that the “freedom to tinker”—the right to understand, repair and modify one's own equipment— is crucial to innovation, and as valuable to society as the freedom of speech