You’ve heard of endangered species. Now how about endangered gizmos?
The Electronic Frontier Found-ation has taken a page from the environmentalists’ book in an effort to draw attention to technological innovations threatened by new and increasingly draconian approach-es to intellectual property
law in the United States.
In January the EFF announced — and posted on the Web at www.eff.com/endangered — a list of gadgets and services that have been exterminated by copyright lawyers, are in danger of extinction or have been saved through the efforts of EFF and others.
The extinct list includes Napster 1.0, the original version of the file-sharing service driven out of business by music-industry lawsuits and later resurrected as a legal pay-for-music service. It also includes the Replay TV 4000, a personal video recorder that could skip commercials and transfer recordings to other Replay TV devices. Its manufacturer was sued out of existence.
The endangered list includes Morpheus, file-sharing software somewhat like the original Napster, whose maker is facing a lawsuit by 28 large entertainment companies.
The list also includes digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters, because of their potential to circumvent watermarking schemes that could control what we do with the electronic content we purchase.
Also on the endangered list are Apple’s iPod, Sony’s CD Read/Write drives and other devices that can record, transmit and share digital content.
EFF argues they are threatened by efforts to pass new legislation that would make creators of new technologies liable for “”inducing”” copyright infringement.
The so-called Induce Act didn’t make it through the U.S. Congress in George II’s first term, but, the EFF says, “”Hollywood is making the inevitable sequel — so we’ll need your help to kill bill again.””
Asked if hugely popular products backed by big companies like Apple and Sony could really be in danger of being driven from the market, EFF staff attorney Jason Schultz admits those particular devices will likely survive.
Apple would probably be able to work out a deal with the entertainment industry, he says.
But a startup trying to do something similar would be in a different position.
“”We don’t want Apple to have a monopoly on MP3 players,”” Schultz says.
“”We don’t want them and Sony to be the only companies you can buy an MP3 player from.””
Schultz says the endangered gizmos list is aimed at raising awareness of the cost of overzealous copyright protection. The entertainment industry has made much of the alleged cost of copyright infringement, he maintains, but we need to look at the other side. Too-strict copyright laws could stifle innovation, robbing consumers of new gadgets and the economy of new business opportunities and jobs.
“”We want to make our case that there are serious, real costs to a policy that’s hostile to innovation,”” he says.
Schultz says technology innovations shouldn’t be blocked because of alleged potential to harm established businesses, but only if real harm can be shown to exist over a significant period.
He points to one of the devices on the ‘Saved’ portion of EFF’s list, the VCR. When the Betamax appeared the movie industry fought to keep it off the market, claiming it would destroy the movie business.
The attempt failed. Today VCRs are everywhere — and the movie industry is alive and well and raking in substantial portions of its revenue from video rentals.
