Works, Rights And Exploitation

In primitive societies every able individual was capable of making for himself all that was needed for a living: bows, arrows, shoes, tents, pottery, etc. From early on the social organisation, with a complexity originally so far from today’s, gradually evolved towards a specialisation of functions: the stronger ones became…

Advancement in society – and ingenuity in developing appropriate technologies – created written works. If one takes the remaining samples of old written works, it is easy to imagine that they just record the textual parts of very complex events where different “media” were involved: recitations, musics, songs, dances, choruses,…

Being able to own “rights” to something is a fundamental concept of living beings: ants own the “right” to suck aphids, but they are “obliged” to feed them, if they want to continue sucking them. A dog pisses at all trees and poles in the area he happens to be…

The MPEG-1 standard was an offspring of its age. Just as CD Audio had no content protection provision  – something the music industry had come to regret – the MPEG-1 standard has no content protection provision. MPEG-2 is a different story. Even without considering subscription-based CATV, pay TV, both on…