Which also gets us to a lot of questions about ebooks and other digital content. Given the DRM, the fragility of computer hardware and digital data formats, questions about the longevity of the companies and business models, lousy interfaces for buying things (not to mention reading or playing them) and so forth, the value of ebooks is rather significantly less. DRM makes things worse than no DRM, but even without it I get a sense that I’m ultimately renting the work rather than purchasing it permanently. And I don’t get to go down to one of several local bookstores, chat with the staff and customers, and generally have a good time.

As a result, for the time being I’ve limited myself to Gutenberg and a few other zero-dollar-cost purveyors, because that’s worth the hassle of navigating the interface, and if something goes south I can just download the same work again.

I’m now undecided about the first sale vs. cheaper service question – although I think the general bias should be against taking away a user’s rights to the data used – but the Kindle terms as written seem to hold the door open for all kinds of abuse.

But it seems as though in your case the people doing the checking are the government who are dispensing benefits based on residence, not the landlords, which is a disanalogy to the DRM case. I think that unauthorized subletters absenting themselves when the landlord comes over happens here too, but there at least the landlord is actually doing repairs—it seems as though DRM here involves the company doing surveillance without actually doing much to upgrade your service.

What happened to the preview that used to be below?

As a student I have seen quite some moves that do resemble the mp3 vs DRM struggle. The Dutch government gives higher allowances to people living on their own tahn to people living with their parents, so some people stay with their parents but register themselves elsewhere, usually with family. The organization giving the allowances knows this happens, so they do check al records they can get their hands on to see wher you are really living. Of course not to videocamera level, but they do check your health insurance etc.

The other way round also exists: people on benefits wwho were letting rooms would allow the student to register at that address, since the extra income from letting would make them entitled to lower benefits. Resulting, of course, in students doing the ‘register with family member’ trick.

A last one: I was subrenting a room in England for some time, but the others hadn’t told their landlord (landlady?). So when she came to repair something and generally check out the house, I would go the city for a few hours and return when she was gone. It reminded me of the trouble people would go through to get Service Pack 2 on their illegal Windows versions.

Again, I don’t find it mysterious that Apple would recommend that you deauthorize your old machine. I just find it peculiar that they would encourage you to think that someone listening to your files was a ‘bad’ above and beyond the loss of your authorization.

Well, it is, if you want to use that authorization on another computer.

If the point was just to keep other people from listening to your music, they’d probably advise you to delete the music. As it stands, they don’t seem to have a position on ripping all your CDs into iTunes and then giving away the computer they’re on.

(Also, a computer has to be authorized in order to listen to iTunes store music that is only streamed from another computer. So the old computer might not even have any DRM media files on it, even though it’s authorized.)

There’s a way to deauthorize all machines in one fell swoop, actually, so it’s not like losing an authorized machine will be a permanent loss. But it is a bit of a hassle. Getting that ‘You’ve used up your 5 authorizations’ message when you try to do something on a computer is a bit of a buzzkill, especially when you can’t easily access other the computers to deauthorize a particular machine that isn’t needed anymore.

Worst-case scenario, of course, would be if you gave away an authorized machine and it also had your iTunes account login information stored, so the new owner could buy stuff on your credit card. Deauthorizing the machine ought to at least ensure that doesn’t happen.

Well yes. You can set up a massive legal and technological roadblocks to reproducing information to make it just as costly and difficult as reproducing physical goods. “I have to pay every time I want to see a band perform live, so why shouldn’t I pay every time I listen to a recording? It’s impossible to lend a friend a paper book while keeping a copy for myself, so why should I be able to do that with an electronic book?” Etc.

The point is, first, that’s deliberately eliminating much of the beneift of information technology in order to allow a few businesses to remain profitable under their old business model. And second, in practice, doing so requires a lot of intrusive surveillance. What if landlords insisted on installing cameras in every room of rental housing to make sure there were no illegal sublets?

I suspect that the analogy breaks down pretty badly over the excludability issue. No one else can live in my apartment while I’m here, and my landlords expect to get it back when I’m done with it and rent it to someone else. (This also has obvious bearing on why I feel queasy about others staying in my house.) But digital media in principle can be shared without making them unavailable to the person who has them, and even with physical books and CDs the original manufacturer isn’t expecting them back when I’m done with them. (Pace Holbo’s last link.) So they don’t have the continued interest in the actual thing I have that the landlord has in my apartment. I think that’s also why people don’t find the restrictions inherent in libraries/video stores/Netflix particularly creepy, because those folks are expecting their product back so they can reuse it.

None of which is to say that there might be good reason to deal with some DRM for a substantial discount, and I think that’s mostly what zamfir was saying. But I don’t think we can build a normative case that this is OK by an analogy to housing.

(Also on the subject of MP3s: isn’t part of the issue that they’re inferior sound quality?)

Which parts of that aren’t substantially true, in a significant number of jurisdictions? Or are you just being ironic?

Hmmm, I performed in an orchestra up to the upper levels of amateurism, years ago (up through U of Chicago Symphony). Everyone was always pretty laid back about photocopying. I never thought about IP in those days and never really noticed, maybe. Of course it was assumed that the organization actually bought the stuff. But if one violin lost his original and photocopied the next guy’s that was not an issue. I suspect that copyright care at the very highest levels of professional performance are probably like font licenses in design firms/ad agencies. When there is big money, you keep your nose very clean about the small stuff.

If a composer thought a major orchestra was performing his piece without having, in effect, licensed the performance, THAT would be a scandal.