The Electronic Frontier Foundation has today published The Endangered Gizmos List, a collection of products and technologies — some facing litigation, some extinct as a result — all threatened by restrictive copyright laws and the aggressive litigation strategies of copyright-holders in the entertainment industry.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell calls TiVo “God’s machine,” and its devotees have been known to declare, “You can take my TiVo when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!” But suppose none of us had ever been given the opportunity to use or own a TiVo — or, for that matter, an iPod? Suppose instead that Hollywood and the record companies hunted down, hobbled, or killed these innovative gizmos in infancy or adolescence, to ensure that they wouldn’t grow up to threaten the status quo?
The list is an important reminder that fair use cannot be taken for granted: with the demise of DVD X-Copy, for example, a consumer’s ability to back up a copy-protected DVD is extremely limited. So too, if the FCC continues with its lockdown of broadcast rights to digital television, enhancements to future, computer-based TiVos may be impossible.
A legal climate conducive to innovation is one that maintains a healthy balance between protection for intellectual property, and creative and consumer freedoms. Every generation of consumer technology has attracted debate about whether the balance is being struck too far one way or the other. This list appears to indicate that the balance may be tipping too far in favour of right-holders, at the expense of potentially useful technologies. To restore the equilibrium will be the task of the legislature.
