Friday, August 30, 2002

PERMALINK

More on Apple's iDVD crackdown Eric Albert says I got the Apple/Other World Computing DVD story wrong (thanks to Dave Winer for the link). Eric says Apple was right to invoke the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because Other World Computing was distributing a "patch" to Apple's iDVD software, and therefore Apple was protecting the copyright on its software. Well, based on the original CNET story I think I need to stand by my interpretation. (I can find no other coverage -- anyone else see more details elsewhere?) If Other World's product was actually a modified version of iDVD, if Other World was itself redistributing Apple's software, then Apple has a case that Other World was violating its copyright (though not that Other World was violating the DMCA -- see below). But that's not what a "patch" typically is; usually it's a piece of code that a user installs that modifies how a program functions. If Other World was distributing a separate piece of software that users can install that interacts with iDVD then I don't see how this violates Apple's copyright. If that's a violation of the DMCA then every single software "add-on", every single software program that interacts with another software program, is in violation of the DMCA. And that's patently absurd. But this is the kind of craziness the DMCA is moving us towards. In any case, the DMCA doesn't prohibit companies from distributing software that modifies how another company's software works. The language used outlaws anything that "is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection afforded by a technological measure that effectively protects a right of a copyright owner." In other words, DMCA wants to stop you from creating a tool that's primarily for the purpose of circumventing copyright protection technology. There is no way under the sun that Other World's iDVD patch falls under that prohibition. comment [] 9:54:15 AM | permalink

Syndication perturbation Salon blogger J.H. Farr was upset to find that the entire current contents of his blog were mirrored on another site that picked up the RSS syndication feed from Radio and reposted the contents. I understand where he's coming from: He's a writer trying to build a career, trying to get people to pay for his stuff some of the time, and I think he feels like he's being ripped off. (We contacted that other site -- I'm not linking to them because I don't particularly like their approach either -- and they've removed Farr's stuff.) RSS syndication of blog postings is mostly used by Radio and other blogging software tools as an alternate distribution of your material -- Radio collects these in its "news aggregator," and that's what lets you grab a post from another blogger and, with one click, repost it with your own comments. It's one of the backbones of this new Web publishing model and in general, I think, it's a great thing. (Here's Dave Winer's explanation of how it works and why it's a good thing.) I also think that, legally and morally, it falls in the category of "fair use" -- which means that it becomes increasingly more problematic when others take and reuse more and more material. In the case of Farr and other blogs that are reposted on this other site, the postings are resupplied by a third party without any value added -- there are no new comments from the site's proprietor -- and in fact with value subtracted, since many of the features of the original blogger's site (layout, comments, whatever else the blogger has done to personalize the page) are gone. Radio lets you turn this syndication on and off, so it's ultimately up to each blogger how to deal with this issue. (I'm also pretty sure that you can reduce the amount of content in your syndication feed under "Prefs: RSS Configuration.) I tend to feel that the Net is pretty good at self-correcting these kinds of problems. The site in question is, in truth, not a particularly great one. I doubt it gets a lot of traffic and I don't think it will have much impact on anyone's life. PS If you want to keep your RSS feed going with Radio but want to truncate the posts (providing only the first sentence) there's some instructions here. comment [] 9:39:19 AM | permalink