Methinks we’ve witnessed the birth of a new ideology, DMCAism, the legal framework that helps foster the most obnoxious forms of Digital Rights Management. DMCAism differs from pure capitalism in that it cares just as much about control of consumers as it does about profit–in fact, very likely more. DMCAists needn’t overthrow governments. They just bribe them with massive campaign contributions as they go about fomenting international revolution against the masses. The Karl Marx of DMCAism is Bruce Lehman, the sometimes-vindictive copyright lobbyist, who, as intellectual property czar under the Clinton administation, oversaw the writing of the infamous “white paper” that set the tone for Washington’s Draconian copyright policy toward the Internet. The white paper is the DMCAist Manifesto.
The Microsoft Connection: None other than Marshall C. Phelps, Jr., corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for intellectual property at Microsoft, sits on the board of the Intellectual Property Institute of which Lehman is president and CEO. Presumably, after funding the Open eBook Forum, a group whose goals appear to be rather in synch with IPI’s, Microsoft still has enough left over to help out IPI as well.
