Doc Searls quotes a discouraging email by a confrère who states that the Eldred decision is in the interest of IP rights owners.

The author also stresses the need to own everything IP related. I don’t agree.

You definitely need to assess everything own-able in your business. You need to know where you stand, you need to evaluate the value of your intellectual assets.

Does this mean milking it for all it’s worth? It’s a possibility. Some may argue that it is duty to the shareholders.

Does this mean realizing that not all IP should be locked down as much as legally possible? I think so.The view that owning IP is the same as holding rights in a piece of real estate is flawed.

Does this mean rejoicing over a decision that will create a very unhealthy intellectual property environment? I can’t help to notice how much people build upon other people’s ideas. You can lock IP down, licence IP, free IP, toss IP in a drawer and forget about it, but in any case there should be a time limit to one’s custody of our global intellectual assets. Why can’t we realize that what we do now is not the be-all end-all of creation?

People came before us, people will come after us. Let’s create a rich legacy instead of a dead end of obfuscated content and perpetual ownership of a walking and talking mouse. Let’s work with policies aimed at moving forward instead of digging trenches and burrowing in our current position.

So really, if it might be in one’s immediate commercial interest to applause the conclusions of Eldred (haven’t read the decision yet), let’s at least realize that this decision is not all positive for anyone.

Greplaw has a post asking if the DVD CSS can really be considered copy protection, since making an exact copy of a DVD is totally possible without knowing the encryption method. The copy will then have to be read in a normal DVD player like the original.

The original question is here and there is an answer by Edward Felten who does address the strategic advantages to rely on a trade secret protected method to control distribution of players.

I must assume that some people must have thought of the ambiguous nature of CSS before since the DMCA uses the words « technological measure that effectively controls access to a work » rather that make any reference to the copying process.

The WIPO copyright treaty originally used  » circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law« 

Through this wording, laws worded like the DMCA grant protection and status to any trade secret, which in traditional IP laws are not subject to any particular protection. It’s that broad delegation, that blank check to a method yet to be determined, that bothers me a lot in with the DVD issue.

Eldred. 7-2. Sad day.

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