Shaun Ryan

Melanie, what do you propose that we should do about this? I see that segments of the web are abuzz with outrage about IIPA's filing, but I don't see a lot of thoughtful or constructive suggestions for what the open source community (either as individuals or in the form of its corporate supporters) can constructively do to respond to this.

Chris and David, I read that with interest and then zipped over to David's blog and read his Amazon/MacM story. Putting the current argument over IP issues (of which DRM and piracy are subsets) in an economic rather than legal context, it sounds like the major entertainment ("big content") providers are trying to shift market conditions by using enforcement to create or preserve artificial scarcity on the supply side of things. (This is maybe less of an "ah-hah" moment for someone more familiar with the industry, but it suddenly made some of the more draconian positions taken by some of the industry bodies seem less irrational.)

This is an interesting strategy, since it puts off the pain, fear and difficulty of whipping a legacy business model into shape. But still, and as much as DMCA and its counterpart statutes outside the U.S. have inconvenienced millions of consumers, I would have to think any regulatory/enforcement approach to retarding change is ultimately only good for the short-term in the face of a basic change in the business or technical environment.

Thanks for a really engaging article on a very topical subject.