Near the end of a pretty good analysis of the way that DRM and user licenses are being writing and used.
Via GROKLAW:
Musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a “public performance”.
It’s a good article following up on a posting to Boing Boing that really compares documents, and follows all the layers of trap that have been constructed around the content.
As insane as it is, the irresponsible suggestion that the technically inexperienced user should turn off any firewalls and enable activex on their box is not even close to being the most obnoxious and reprehensible part of this whole story.
The media companies are the conduit. They control the price at which the producers can sell their goods, because they are the actual purchaser. They also control the price at which the goods are sold to the consumer, because they are the publisher. They are a cartel of companies that believe they are in such a complete position of power that they can force the producers and consumers to both swallow any conditioning of the goods.
This is a symptom of a disease.