drm again -- and a book, to start

The "internet of things" is coming -- what kind of a place do we want it to be?

rootkits for books? drm and print media?

From comments following on a recent post at reBang:

1. Woody E Says:
   September 28th, 2006 at 3:53 pm

   Books don’t run root-kits on people.
   DRM movies do run root-kits on people’s computers.
   Thassa crucial difference, sho!

2. csven Says:
   September 28th, 2006 at 4:19 pm

   C’mon, Woody. You know better. DRM is no more about rootkits than any other piece of software, because ANY software can have malicious code in it.

   Are cars weapons? Some people use them as transportation. Some people use them as bombs. All depends on what the person does with the technology.

   This is really about people and their behavior. Nothing more. Nothing less. It would be possible to have a fair DRM system, but there are a few problems in getting there:

   1) most of the people behind DRM systems don’t create the content they’re trying to protect; they’re protecting profits.
   2) most of the people accessing content using DRM hacks probably don’t have a clue about Intellectual Property laws and if they do probably don’t really care; they only care about getting something for free.
   3) deciding what’s “fair” depends on whether one is a consumer or a content provider, and there are way more consumers.
   4) the two sides are, for the most part, polarizing the issue.

   We’ll see if Sony’s new e-book makes inroads. If it does, it’ll be interesting to see if some people change their tune (of course I’m referring to those who don’t have other sources of income).

Librarians, where do you stand on this? Should the current impossibility of using books to run rootkits on readers necessarily exclude print media from the DRM debate? Are the old-fashioned copyright laws good enough -- or should readers get the kind of rights Cory Doctorow argues for in re: digital content? And is it hypocritical not to provide such usage rights to readers if you take a similar stance against DRM? Where are you on this?

5 cell phones in the library

...busted. Roger has put down a challenge after reading my post with the QR haiku... And I lack the ketai to rise to the occassion*. Can somebody help him out?

--

*We had a volcanic dispute with Sprint, over at my house. We don't like them too much anymore. They probably don't like us, either. Regardless, investigation has revealed that we live in a dip into/outof which no cell towers will give/get good signal. So we wait.

Listening: Andrew Bird
Shushing: used cars, new cars, cars, trucks, cars. where's my solar-powered jetpack?

QR code in action

Could it work for libraries too? Imagine programs using QR for scavenger hunts... Using them to solve puzzles, find clues that send them off to read certain books... How about a "real life" choose-your-own-adventure tale? Let your patrons forward the notices to each other through phones... Play "guess the poet"... Link to public-domain novels online... Link to Project Vote Smart pages... Not to mention some of the previous ideas -- useful grafitti, this could be.
(Vid via Smoothplanet.)

from Anousheh Ansari's space blog:

"I always knew in my heart that I would go to space, but did not know exactly how. But I kept telling everyone how much I love space and I want to go to space, and finally found the way... My destination tomorrow will be Earth… But the Earth is not the same Earth that I left. It is a little bit better now because there is more love in it. I can see it from your written words that are sent to me in the emails… I only hope that I can help grow this wave of positive energy that we have started and to make sure it touches more and more people."



















--

Reading: The Kite Runner, Ken Wilber's stuff, and Watership Down
Listening: Chinesepod.com (...newbie lessons...)