Can You Survive a Benevolent Dictatorship? (Doctorow on the iPad)

publishersweekly.com

4 points·ktf··3 comments

Some very good points, like how Apple's i<whatever> ecosystem is more closed than TV (which allowed the advent of cable, VCRs and the Apple II), making that common dismissive comparison to the iPad a bit bogus.

On the other hand, this is one of the weakest arguments I've seen against the DMCA's protections of DRM:

"What's more, you can invent cool new things to do with your dishwasher. For example, you can cook salmon in it without needing permission from the manufacturer (check out the Surreal Gourmet for how). And you can even sell your dishwasher salmon recipe without violating some obscure law that lets dishwasher manufacturers dictate how you can use your machine."

Isn't that a fair reference to how for example you can't sell a device or software application that will rip your DVDs to watch on, e.g., your iPad?

There's various devices that'll import your CDs and then provide digital music throughout your home but on the Mac you need to download two different open source programs from Europe (both fighting for the title of the worst UI on Mac OS X) before you can get a digital copy of your DVDs.

A couple of manufacturers have gone to court over this and been slapped down due to the DMCA.

Oh, it's certainly fair and accurate, but ... cooking salmon in your dishwasher???

For it to be a strong argument it needs to be something the audience can identify with, and I doubt there's much overlap between the readers of Publisher's Weekly and Surreal Gourmet.

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