cruel to be kind

While I am in the mood for it, two more links for you:

• Nate Harrison gives us the story of a beat and sharing:
  

  Can I Get An Amen? is an audio installation that unfolds a critical perspective of perhaps the most sampled drums beat in the history of recorded music, the Amen Break. […]

  This as well as other issues are foregrounded through a history of the Amen Break and its peculiar relationship to current copyright law.

• “What’s Wrong With Copy Protection“, John Gilmore, 2001

Additionally on the “trusted computing” thing with the monitor signal being made low quality if not the other side is in protection mode too, it seems as if this should also apply on loudspeakers. Can you imagine buying new speakers, which will only play quality if they have a built in mechanism that you (just as an example) have to pay for each playing of your favorite song?

Or let’s say Headphones? Playing on a mobile player? The problem with the computer will be that the OS will ensure through the processor that it is only played if there is a ‘correct’ piece of hardware on the other side. If it does not get that signal back, it will only play low quality.

Great. (Link one via phone, second via sixtus)

Tags: cruel to be kind