According to Ed Klaris, General Counsel and Project Director for The Complete New Yorker, the inclusion of the spyware paragraph was "inadvertent", they "had no intention of accessing that information" and that language will not be in future editions. Hooray! But how do you inadvertently write an entire paragraph? And inadvertantly include it in the end user license agreement? And if the project director is also general counsel, how does that just slip through?
Mr. Klaris sticks to his guns that 500 issues per DVD is adequate and shrugs off the desire to load to a hard drive. The article does not discuss the Macrovision copy protection that restricts making an archival copy even though it is allowed by the end user license agreement.
From the New York Times article:
"The people who are complaining are the exception to the rule," Mr. Klaris said, noting that the bloggers weighing in on the topic tend to be supporters of open-source technologies.He must be talking about Cory (of boingboing) as I don't think Hooptyrides has mentioned open-source in our blogging life. I suppose Klaris is right in that it is a minority of open-source types who are complaining about privacy, digital rights management, inability to use software legally due to protections, etc. That minority of crackpot geeks happens to be the individuals who understand the technology and the risks of implementing fiendish restrictions. Without the cranky open-source supporters, the media companies and their pocketed politicians would be running wild by building systems and laws that will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Hurray for open-source crackpot geeks! Donate to EFF! I did!
Link to New York Times, January 16, Business Section (requires registration)
