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Story: British Library calls for digital copyright action

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DRM? Domestic Rights Manipulation.

When will politicians learn that if commercially sponsored lobbiests can't have it one way then they'll try it another way?

Their goal is quite simple. Controlling the access to your own data. In effect taking hostage of your own data. What good is data is someone else controls the access to it? Of course as long as you do their bidding by their rules for whatever they charge you you'll have no problem accessing your own data but when you "don't play along" each and every time the tune of their song changes you're likely to run into an increasing number of problems and risks here and there. Now who would make that (indirectly) protected by law? Oh, that's right. Your government.

I guess it's time for an everything else overruling Fair Use Law with full, irrevocable and immediate liability for the vendor that gets in the way of that.

In technical short that means that all formats and protocols should be public, royalty free and with no strings attached. Also don't allow software patenting anything and if something else needs protection then go no further then copyrighting it.

Per example, one can't patent or copyright a language and one can't patent a book but one can copyright a book. Also, one can't patent the method of book printing (or writing) but one can patent a physical system of printing. Thus leaving enough room for someone else to patent an improved physical system of printing (= innovation) and allowing everyone to copyright their own book (= creativity) and print it using whatever physical system available (= choice).

In short an open market in which specific physical systems can be patented and specific non-physical structures can be copyrighted but nothing used to describe those. In other words, patenting or copyrighting anything that (partly) describes a method or process should be unlawfull. In essence, not the how but only the what.

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