Copyright and the garden of good and evil

It seems to me that Microsoft is planting its stake firmly in the ground and declaring Google, Apple and Linux as the evil copyright infringers and infringing wannabes. Naturally that makes them the self proclaimed good guys with lots of moral and DRM high ground between them and the swamp of infringement below.

While I'm general in favor of copyright and abide by it (except to overcome the lame restrictions of broadcast TV distribution) I do think that the fair use doctrine is a good thing and DRM is only good so long as it works and permits fair use.

Going forward, in this copyright battle of good vs evil I think something will have to give. We currently have two entrenched camps of extremists - the death or glory hacker s and crackers who will try, and continue to succeed, in cracking any DRM out there. Then there are the obsessive RIAA and MPA zealots who will protect, litigate and prosecute until there isn't a single unprotected illegal copy of anything out there, and all people are wired at birth with a DRM encrypted digital connection right into their eyes and ears.

In between them there is a vast majority of people who will mostly pay a fair price for content - and often significantly more, and will mostly not bother to copy music any more than they need to. And we will entertainment artists who are mostly not making a mint like the big buys and will mostly not lose a mint due to lack of DRM. In fact if the anti-RIAA anti-DRM propoganda is to be believed they might even stand to gain by getting more liberal distribution and representation on more equable terms leading to more bang per buck for them. That should be good times all round no?

Of course its going to be a long and bloody war getting there but at least its good to know where Microsoft stands, in case we didn't already know.