Cory Doctorow - "Set Top Cop: Hollywood's Secret War on Your Living Room" February 15, 2006

Cory Doctorow - Guest Lecture
Set Top Cop: Hollywood's Secret War on Your Living Room

When: Wednesday, February 15, at six o'clock in the evening

Where: Emerson Hall, Rm 105

Who: Cory Doctorow, blogger, author, activist and caster of pods, will be delivering a guest lecture for the Harvard Computer Society and the interested public on the following topic:

Since the introduction of the DVD player ten years ago, electronics companies and entertainment companies have collaborated to fleece the public, charging us more for less. Digital Rights Management (DRM) keeps us from recording, backing up, manipulating, criticizing and remixing the media around us. Worse, it threatens innovation, competition and even social institutions like the family. At UN bodies like the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization, the US is cramming Hollywood's business- model down the developing worlds' throats, at the expense of their national sovereignty and public interest. Lawmakers prop up Hollywood's dinosaur business-models with ever-more Draconian laws that criminalize everyday, private acts like sharing a song with a friend.