[FoRK] Re: Kindle first impressions

[Luis Villa]

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
>
>  On May 5, 2008, at 1:21 PM, Tom Higgins wrote:
>
> > On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 10:53 AM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Sure, sure.  I suppose my point is the lack of all that isn't so big a
> > > negative as to outweigh the benefits (to me.)
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Loss of fair use of what you purchase is not a big negative to you? While
> I
> > find that hard to believe i can parse it into an understanding of where
> you
> > are coming from.
> >
>
>  Well, it's not at all clear that they can take fair use away in any case,

Though it has never gone to court, there seems to be wide consensus
(among both fans and opponents of the DMCA) that the DMCA does take
away fair use in any situation where DRM is in place.

> regardless what they attempt to do in their license agreements (freakin'
> lawyers, I refuse to acknowledge any terms in any license agreement I
> "sign," period.

The thing with the DMCA is that it doesn't rely on anything you sign
or don't sign. You just get those restrictions on anything with DRM,
period; it's the law, and you 'agree' to it as part of the social
contract[1], not as something specific to your relationship with
Amazon. (You're right to blame the lawyers, of course, just not in the
way you think ;)

(Now, I happen to agree with you that the vast majority of people,
including yourself, can reasonably agree that they'll never need/want
fair use, but this is part of why we usually enshrine fair use in
statute instead of leaving it up to individual contract.)

Luis

[1] discussion for another day ;)