Plaque buy cialis sale psoriasis explainedPlaque psoriasis is a condition that causes thick, scaly buy cheap nasonex patches called plaques to develop on your skin. You should free clozapine always consult your doctor or another healthcare professional before taking remeron for order any medication. A cardiac arrest happens suddenly, usually without warning, generic zithromax sale information when the heart stops pumping blood around the body. A order flagyl person who cannot afford Medicare costs may be eligible for buy amikacin canada the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB) Program. Examples of risk factors order celexa include a high body mass index or blood tests that buy prozac online indicate impaired blood sugar control. According to the National Cancer buy aldactone without prescription Institute, laboratory and animal studies suggest that antioxidants prevent the accutane without prescription free radical damage associated with cancer development. The treatment of buy cheap bentyl online severe pulmonary hypertension requires a combination of different types of cheap cialis no rx treatments. Early signs of schizophrenia in teens typically include changes quinine online stores in thinking, emotions, and behavior. To diagnose osteoporosis in males, ampicillin discount the doctor may begin by performing a physical examination, asking questions.

On page 216 of the book, we joke that DMCA might stand for “Digital Millennium Competition Avoidance” rather than “‚Ķ Copyright Act.” The idea is that if a company puts a digital lock on any interface to its equipment, then the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA makes it illegal for an maker of accessories to reverse-engineer the lock to figure out how to make a compatible accessory. Apple Computer has given us a classic example of this technique.

If you walk into any electronics store or any WalMarts, you’ll find lots of earphones that you can use with your iPod, in case you lose the ones it came with, or they don’t fit your ears, or whatever. The earphones are on the racks with slipcovers and lots of other non-Apple stuff that accessorizes iPods. Of course you can buy Apple earphones, but maybe you’d rather buy the ones that fit better.

Well, Apple wants you to buy Apple earphones. The way the capitalist world is supposed to work, Apple is supposed to achieve that by making better earphones, or by cutting its prices. Everyone else has the same incentives, and the consumer wins from the competition.

Oh, not in the America of the DMCA. Apple has engineered the new iPod Shuffle so that the replacement headphones won’t work unless they have built into them an “authentication chip” the headphone maker can get only from Apple. Now the headphone maker is prohibited by law from trying to figure out what the “authentication chip” does so it can make headphones you can just plug into the Shuffle without, in essence, asking Apple’s permission and paying Apple money. So Apple winds up controlling the headphone market.

A classic case of copyright law being put to a use that has nothing at all to do with the protection of books or music or images — just to kill competition, to the advantage of one company and to the plain disadvantage of the public.

Thanks to Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation for raising a stink.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 14th, 2009 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Owning bits—copyright. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.