
An online Magna Carta: Berners-Lee calls for bill of rights for web - callum85
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/12/online-magna-carta-berners-lee-web
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higherpurpose
I upvoted this because I want that to happen, but I'm still very disappointed
with Tim Berners-Lee for supporting DRM on the web, and worse still (in the
long run), bringing MPAA on the W3C board. I don't know how someone who's
usually fighted for Internet freedom and such can do those things.

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gkoberger
I personally dislike DRM (and think it causes piracy), however I'm not
fundamentally opposed to it.

An open internet doesn't mean we should be open to share people's hard work
free of charge. DRM does little to stop piracy (we both know that), however to
say it jeopardizes the freedom of the Internet is disingenuous.

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wlesieutre
> to say it jeopardizes the freedom of the Internet is disingenuous.

My biggest beef with DRM is that it makes no allotment for fair use. I'm sure
most of us have encountered an irritating website that tried to block right
click and ctrl-c, but it's trivial to get around it. What if it weren't?

For some reason, we've accepted the idea that video is a special thing that
you can't easily grab snippets of and share. I think it's mostly because DRM
showed up before there were consumer friendly tools to do it (like ctrl-c for
text), rather than some special attribute of video as a copyrightable work.

If we accept DRM protected video, what do we say when a photographer comes
around and says "Hey, why can't I protect my photos like that?" A lot of
websites already try, but we have screenshots and noscript to work around it.

Or further down the line, what happens when writers start to ask "Video is
protected against copying, why doesn't the browser disable copying from my
article?" And all of a sudden I can't copy a quote out to email to my mom
without either retyping it or taking a photo and running OCR. Easier than
exercising fair use on an encrypted video stream, but still an annoying extra
step for something that I ought to have the right to do.

In short, I don't think video should get to be special, and if you wouldn't
accept DRM on every single piece of content then you shouldn't accept it on
videos either.

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userbinator
_And all of a sudden I can 't copy a quote out to email to my mom without
either retyping it or taking a photo and running OCR._

That is assuming that all your _other_ software hasn't evolved to the point
where it recognises "copyrighted content" and stops you from doing that...
this is worth reading if you haven't already:
[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html)

"if you outlaw freedom, only outlaws will have freedom."

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johnvschmitt
Calling it a "Magna Carta" is very appropriate from a historical perspective.

That said, because of the perverse corruption in each country, I'm afraid it'd
look like this:

USA Version: People (=companies) have the right to protect their interests by
suing/banning anyone who makes copies of any data. People (=companies) have
the right to innovate by throttling, or inspecting packets, to extort or ban
competitors.

Other countries might have better versions, but the USA, through TPP, World
Bank, Aid packages & other secret trade pacts will assert their version to be
dominant.

We really need election finance reform before we can take actions. Until then,
I'm kind of fine with gridlock, to slow the corruption down a bit.

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happyscrappy
>Other countries might have better versions, but the USA, through TPP, World
Bank, Aid packages & other secret trade pacts will assert their version to be
dominant.

Europe's principles mean nothing if they don't stand up for them. Hell, Russia
will take Crimea and Germany will barely bat an eyelash.

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billspreston
How's the Bill of Rights working out for you? Far as I can tell, the first,
fourth and seventh have all been forgotten about.

What makes you think governments are going to respect a Bill of Rights for the
virtual world when they don't even respect the one for the physical world!

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sdrothrock
A Bill of Anything won't do much without some enforcement... and enforcement
in America suffers from a lot of problems including basic interpretation.

Since Berners-Lee's suggestion isn't backed by any political body at all
(powerful or not), it seems like a completely useless suggestion.

Even if it were backed by a powerful political body, like, say... the US or
the EU, I'm not sure how comforted I would be.

Edit: It's been a while since I've taken Latin, but "Magna Carta" essentially
means "Big/Great Paper," so the tongue-in-cheek modern equivalent might be
something like "Yotta Byte."

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TDL
Creating a moral high ground isn't necessarily a "useless suggestion." Nation-
states require the moral acquiescence of it's citizens. Something that is
given tacitly can be taken away rather violently.

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josteink
Until he admits that opting for DRM in html, in an open standard (!), was a
historically bad idea, that guy has no credibility and nobody should need to
bother about what he thinks.

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Tyrannosaurs
Seriously, the guy who _invented_ the web (and let's stop for one second to
think about what that has given us) makes one bad call and you say as a result
he has no credibility?

I sure as hell hope you hold yourself to the same standard in your own life.

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nfoz
> (and let's stop for one second to think about what that has given us)

It's entirely unclear to me that Tim's web is better than whatever similar
system(s) would have gained popularity in its place.

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pyalot2
That guy has lost all credibility calling for anything on the web by
rubberstamping DRM into it.

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czottmann
He's right, of course. But even if the "communal decision" is made by the
majority of the people online it wouldn't be worth much without all
governments officially signing it, too, and/or having a body enforcing it.

Sad as that makes me, I do not see that happening anytime soon if at all.

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EGreg
How was the original Magna Carta signed by the king?

Similarly, how would this bill of rights come to be acknolwedged and enforced
by governments?

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thaumasiotes
Seems safe to say you know the answer, but let's get it out in the open.

The Magna Carta was signed when King John's lesser nobles forced him to sign
it.

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yarrel
But make sure they can be circumvented by DRM.

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thrillgore
To opt for a bill of rights while advocating for the crippling technology that
is EME is the true sign of a hypocrite.

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pekk
How do you plan to enforce it?

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pyalot2
Timbl is planning on using DRM to enforce it, of course.

