Dan Gillmor writes about the semi-hopeful sign that Apple hasn’t jumped into bed with the content dominatrixes who rule Hollywood and Congress. In fact, he points to coverage of legislation that actually looks out for the interests of the the rest of us: the Digital Choice and Freedom Act would explicitly permit us to copy digital works for personal use, just as we can currently make a tape for a friend. (As Dan said at the OS X conference yesterday, he hopes the fact that a friend is taping The West Wing for him when Dan’s traveling doesn’t make his friend a pirate.)

If I were Apple, I would seize the opportunity to kick Microsoft in the nuts by coming out squarely on the side of the listener/viewer. Team up with Amazon to provide an alternate model for distributing music over the Net with terms that make sense in the networked age. Because if and when Microsoft becomes the only Authorized Operating System for playing content from Hollywood, we will all have been given a compelling reason to Mac users overnight.

Here’s my crack at an Apple ad I’d like to see.

Categories: Uncategorized dw