Ones And Zeroes

The geek and the attorney in me can’t refrain from yesterday’s arguments at the Supreme Court regarding the Grokster case, even though other people have much more insightful commentary to offer. The Grokster case is the Court’s first real opportunity to define copyright law in a digital age. I was pleased to read that the Justices were asking the right questions of both sides. They seem to understand the consequences of holding software and technology companies liable for the potentially infringing uses of their innovations. If the Court sides with the movie studios and record labels, we might see devices like TiVos and iPods that come factory installed with all kinds of restrictions to prevent consumers from truly owning any of the content on these devices. Gone will be the days where you could tape a TV program and store it in your personal library or loan it to a friend. You might not even be allowed to rip your old albums onto your hard drive. The transformation of content into digital pieces of information is an ongoing and rapidly accelerating process. It’s critical, therefore, to define how much freedom we have to develop and market technologies that access and manage digital content. I suppose the more basic question, regardless of how the Court rules, is whether the genie can be put back in the bottle. Digital piracy isn’t going anywhere; that’s a given. But do we start treating every new technology, and by implication its users, as new perpetrators of piracy?
An inquiry to my Australian and New Zealand readers. Anyone know where I can get hooked up with the first ENZSO album? I heard the ENZSO version of “Message To My Girl” on a podcast and I loved the richness that the orchestra brought to that song. Hell, I didn’t even know Neil Finn was in another band besides Crowded House. It’s at times like this I bemoan my lack of any hip friends when I was growing up in Green Bay. Instead, I have to find out this kind of stuff on my own.