What right do you have?

Like the majority of parents, we have a number of DVDs that the kids thoroughly love, but threaten to send us into spasms of twitching and drooling, followed by diabetic comas. My particular kryptonite is the Kidsongs series. The setup is that a plucky, pan-ethnic group of “adorable” kids descend on a television studio, asking to be allowed to put on their own show. Sort of a modern version of “We’ll put the play on right here in the barn!” Not happy with the amount of sap per serving, the producers added in two magical furry critters that interact with the kids and provide marketing tie-in opportunities.

I keep one of these discs with me at all times in case I accidentally ingest something poisonous.

As with every other video production, each dreadful DVD in this series is preceded by an overly-stern Copyright Protection notice. It admonishes that the disc is licensed for home use only, then advises us that the definition of home excludes clubs, churches, schools, oil rigs and prisons.

I understand why you’d maybe want to keep these discs out of prisons, but I kind of doubt the crew of Baltic rig No. 72B is shattered that they can’t watch badly-choreographed music videos of popular songs as performed by pre-teens.

At what point does the right of the consumer to control the products they’ve purchased outweigh the right of the producers to receive fair market value? That’s the question underlying the fight against the RIAA’s efforts to squeeze every last blood-soaked penny out of the people that would occasionally like to buy a piece of music that can be played on every medium they own without compatibility issues or anti-piracy safeguards locking them out.

If I want to buy a song, the RIAA would prefer that I pay for each version separately – a cda version for disc, an mp3 version for my portable, and a version that would play on my computer. Each of these versions would be engineered so I couldn’t copy them, and each would have its own license tied in to my players so they couldn’t run on someone else’s systems.

However, I don’t want to pay for each song three times. Once I’ve purchased it, I want to be able to put that song wherever I may want to listen to it. Technically, according to the RIAA, playing a disc I’ve purchased in the car when I have passengers breaches their copyright unless my passengers have also purchased their own copies of the disc. At that point, technically, the RIAA can kiss my ass.

As much as I geek on Hardware/Human interfaces, I fear that the first neural shunt will allow the RIAA to inventory the songs I carry in my head and charge me accordingly.

At a different spot on the rights spectrum is the Disclaimer. Unfortunately, our society has gotten so litigious, manufacturers and distributors have been reduced to putting obvious-to the-point-of-absurdity disclaimers on their products. That’s why we end up with warnings like “Not for internal use” on curling irons, and “Caution: Product is flammable” on matchboxes.

Then there are the folks that go so overboard, you can’t help but admire their total unwillingness to accept any responsibility whatsoever, as with the folks at Nelson Rocks Preserve (who I am sure have had to deal with many tourists complaining about these very things):

WARNING

Nature is unpredictable and unsafe. Mountains are dangerous. Many books have been written about these dangers, and there's no way we can list them all here. Read the books…

[lots of other funny stuff here]

By entering the Preserve, you are agreeing that we owe you no duty of care or any other duty. We promise you nothing. We do not and will not even try to keep the premises safe for any purpose. The premises are not safe for any purpose. This is no joke. We won't even try to warn you about any dangerous or hazardous condition, whether we know about it or not. If we do decide to warn you about something, that doesn't mean we will try to warn you about anything else. If we do make an effort to fix an unsafe condition, we may not try to correct any others, and we may make matters worse! We and our employees or agents may do things that are unwise and dangerous. Sorry, we're not responsible. We may give you bad advice. Don't listen to us. In short, ENTER AND USE THE PRESERVE AT YOUR OWN RISK. And have fun!

It is well worth going to http://www.nelsonrocks.org/disclaimer.html and reading the whole thing.

And one of my favorite e-mail disclaimers:

IMPORTANT: This email is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email is not authorised (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this email, although the yorkshire terrier next door is living on borrowed time, let me tell you. Those of you with an over whelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards, so just ignore that Alert Notice from Microsoft: However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this email in error, please add some nutmeg and eggwhites and place it in a warm oven for 40 minutes. Whisk briefly and let it stand for 2 hours before icing.