Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Digital Posession

When we bought a digital media, do we really OWN it? In my opinion, "buying digital media" is an absurd phrase. Why? Because when we bought a gum, whether we chew it, tear it, spit it or even swallow it, we are free to do so.... as it is ours. The essential meaning of posession should be the freedom to do anything on/at/with the posessed object. And that's not the case with digital media.

"Buying" digital media means the we're bonded with some "EULA-ish" agreement, which prohibits us to do anything the author disapprove. We cannot really own such media because the original author only shared some portion of media posession to us. Hence, we are only granted some right of use.

However, could such agreement really be enforced? Could anyone prohibits any others to do anything with their digital media? Due to the nature of digital media, it will never possible to fully prevent any replication and modification, and any attempt to do so will fail miserably. On the other hand, it is now possible to digitize many kind of things. Perhaps, in the future, even ourself can be digitized as well.

Maybe we can start rethinking the idea of copyright.
Just maybe............

2 comments:

gambas said...

are women included ...?

Xlylith said...

As long as you can provide them in digital form. (Source code availability is preferred, tho...ROFLMAO)