Team 2 - Doctorow

Although Cory Doctorow mentioned many different aspects of copyright and DRM music, the most interesting part about his speech on video would have to be him mentioning how he publishes eBooks and using it as an example to back up his free sharing idea. Doctorow mentioned that the companies trying to prevent piracy and prevent free sharing of music are going to fail, because the simple fact that suppressing downloading, at this point in time where there is no turning back, is ludicrous. Doctorow publishes many of his science fiction novels online available to the public for free. He said he has had financial success with his novels and they are being printed in many different languages through Amazon. His success should be seen as an example of the possibility for most publishers, musicians, and artists to put their products on the internet for free use, knowing that people will purchase their products if they really enjoy it.

Cory Doctorow also talked about license agreements. EULAs, or end-user license agreements are something everyone is familiar with, even if one doesn't know the name. EULAs usually pop up before software is installed and are followed by an "I agree" box. Since most EULAs are long and uninteresting, most people do not read them before agreeing. However, by using the software, the user automatically agrees to the terms set in the license agreement. This can present problems, as people usually do not read these agreements before installing applications like iTunes.

Doctorow also speaks about how many companies are trying to prohibit the use of open source software. I thought this was interesting because I use alot of open source software. He talks about the world intellectual property organization working on a broadcasting treaty which would prohibit the use of open source software internationally. Now every computer comes with a trusting computing module on its mother board which chooses which applications are allowed to be compatible with it. Doctorow uses the example of Open Office only being able to work if Microsoft says it can. The idea of this, a computer being able to choose which programs can run on it came from the IT companies, the companies that we support. Computers shouldn't have the power to choose what programs are compatible for it. Any program that we have, whether we created it, paid for it, or got it for free should be able to run on our computer that we own.