Most of this is direct notes.

Cory is talking about the European Broadcast Flag. A comnparison of CD with DVDs. CD have driven value creation, with the music being taken and being used in multiple ways; DVDs – all you can do is watch them, there is no new things that can be done with the content. It’s all locked in by the small number of industries that control the rights.

Next a comparison of EU and UK database companies. European databases are subject to copyright so the first person to put together a database owns it. This does not happen in the US. SO all work and innovation has taken place in the US, where the data and ideas are available.

The entertainment industry always want to get involved and control the technology that plays and copies their content. They do not want things that can share the content, they do not want to change. But everytime a change has happened, this has opened the market for more opportunities. But for a long time there has been opposition to the entertainment companies controlling the tech.

But this is changing. The phone companies are huge, far bigger than the entertainment industry. But the phone companies are getting into bed with the entertainers – they want to control what can be done, providing content that can only be used on single platforms, that can’t be shared.

The functionality of the devices and the software is being restricted. The tech companies want the content to drive sales, to provide services but once one step is taken, the risk is you’ll never be able to get step back.

The Braodcast flag movement tries to ensure that all technology is licensed by the entertainment inductry; it also puts things in place to stop users changing the content, altering and playing with it. It’s been killed in the US; but in EU, the project is still ongoing. Even though it’s dead in US, the studios are still pushing in EU (so they can go back to the US and say ‘they have it, we need it’???). The EU tag is planning to restrict content to one household only – but whats a household? How can technology restriction set social standards? It plans to lock down all tech, to prevent mods. And allow permissions to be revoked, to remove functionality that worked before.

So keep asking for products that cost less and do more, instead of cost more and do less.