Begin forwarded message:
From: Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@guppylake.com>
Date: February 28, 2009 8:52:15 AM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Wait, Wait... The Kindle Swindle?
Couldn't resist one comment...
On Feb 27, 2009, at 7:36 PM, David Farber wrote:
Date: February 27, 2009 4:31:10 PM ESTSubject: RE: [IP] Wait, Wait... The Kindle Swindle?Remember that the record industry had to fight to establish the principle that playing a record was not the same as performing sheet music. Fortunately we didn’t confuse the issue by having an automatic sheet music player as we can today (like the book reader). Would such a machine owe a royalty each time it preformed?
Actually, we did have such a machine -- I think you've just described the player piano, which has had its own copyright battles:
Incidentally, in tracking down those links I was totally astonished to learn that the last piano roll factory was shut down just last month:
This gives me hope that my great, great, great, great, great grandchildren might live to see the retirement of the last COBOL programmer. -- Nathaniel