Interoperability. In the early days of the telephone, several competing companies sprang up. Each had their own telephone lines, and the customers of one company could only make calls to other subscribers to the same company. Businesses would often have several different telephones, one for each company, so that anyone could phone them.
In the early decades of the twentieth century--between 1910 and 1920, if I recall correctly--things began to change. Telephone systems were hooked together so that anyone with a telephone could call anyone else. History was repeated in the early days of online computing services. >>

One way of defending against copyright violations on recorded works is to prevent machines that make copies from interoperating with the machines that play the content. Copyright owners are demanding that computer manufacturers take steps to prevent it. In one of the first salvos of the DRM war, Sen. Fritz Hollings introduced a bill to require that all computers include mechanisms to prevent unauthorized copying of content. This is opposed by organizations such as the Association for Computing Machinery. Introduction of the bill prompted a joint statement of principles by Intel and AOL Time Warner highlighting their commitments to protection of intellectual property. But the entertainment and high-tech industries remain at odds. Read the Electronic Frontier Foundation's complaint against this legislation, and answer these questions.

1. Do you agree with the argument made by the EFF? Do developers of a new technology have an ethical duty to allow it to interoperate with other technologies? If so, why?
2. Or, perhaps interoperability itself is not ethically required, but there are other principles at issue here. A utilitarian might argue that when technologies are employed to prevent consumers from enjoying work they have purchased, then overall utility is diminished. Is that argument relevant in this case?
3. The other side of the coin, obviously, is to argue that the creators of copyrighted works have the right to profit from their creativity. Play "devil's advocate" and rebut some of the arguments made by Gilmore. >>