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Originally Posted by rogue_ronin
The fact that moderates don't recognize, or don't admit, that the play being made by DRM forces is one that is designed to vacuum up culture, in a political bid for dominance over the means of distribution of information and art makes their positions untenable in argument, and inadequate in discussion....
Talking about cultural appropriation by increasingly-hegemonic corporate structures, the use of artists as a figleaf for said theft, and the restriction of available cultural material for current artists....
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Oh, please.
Copyright has nothing to do with "control" of culture for anything other than commercial reasons. If you want to witness real cultural control for political reasons, keep your eye on places where it's actually happening -- e.g. China, Russia, Myanmar/Burma, Cuba, Iran etc
Not to mention that it is much easier now to openly and freely distribute digital information than it ever was to distribute analog information. 20 years ago, a self-published author would be lucky to have access to any sort of distributor, let alone be able to afford the costs involved for a small print run; now, anyone with $15 and a domain name can distribute their cultural content to an international audience.
And I am not aware of any sort of "DRM Forces" that are trying to make everyone use DRM whether they like it or not. EMusic, Amazon, iTunes, and numerous public domain ebook distributors are DRM-free or moving in that direction. So where's the "control" that you fear so virulently?
DRM is not a political conspiracy to lock down content. It's an imposition and an annoyance, but that's really about it.
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Originally Posted by rogue_ronin
When someone locks a PD text under DRM, we here might know that it is available for free somewhere else, but most people won't. Because of this, they will be limited to the licensing and permission of a large corporation for access to their culture.
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Free ebooks?
Let me Google that for you. 
B&N is under no obligation to educate people about public domain.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by rogue_ronin
We are the first generation of artists that do not have the right to access our predecessors work to create new work.
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Erk? Plenty of artists can access their predecessor's works. In some cases this can mean public domain works, e.g.
numerous artists who are inspired by Moby Dick. You have plenty of instances of movies and TV shows made 10 or 20 years ago that are re-made in the present. "Fan Fiction" flourishes, and is usually distributed via non-commercial methods. "Cover songs" are routine in pop music, not to mention that sampling existing recordings is a huge part (practically the backbone) of the musical component of hip-hop.
Some artists do exert a fair amount of control over their works; i.e. only one movie company has the rights to make "Harry Potter" movies. But that's due to copyright laws, and has nothing to do with DRM.