Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
In a sense. The legitimate interest would be if there is ever a push to allow more interoperability, and more consumer rights over digital content, and we do seek political support for those of changes, say, to change copyright law, or to control what can be put into a licensing agreement, then this kind of study helps defuse any claim a vendor might make that they NEED a closed, locked proprietary system for any of the reasons mentioned in the study.
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Or take a different approach: permit the proprietary formats but ensure that it is legal to reverse engineer those formats (including the DRM).
There are many reasons why companies prefer proprietary formats. If they are first to market, it may be that no standard exists. Companies may wish to expand upon existing standards. Standards may be encumbered by licensing restrictions and fees. Some standards are complex to implement, or are implemented inconsistently, which makes it difficult to produce bug-free software.
If we were to deny the right to create proprietary formats, we would be denying businesses the right to operate independent of their competition. Imagine the consequences of that. At best, progress would become insanely slow as people try to agree on the standard. At worse, the standards process would be hijacked to reflect the interests of the most powerful interests. (Yes, it is possible to abuse standards just as it is possible to abuse proprietary formats.)