Corporations as enforcers
There's a certain amount of kerfuddle/foofarah going on about Adobe's decision (in consultation with the Treasury) not to permit copying of currency. Is this agreement a good, working example of the accountable net (good private sector action not to “connect” with something that probably is illegal) or is it privatized government by parties who want continued government contract work and will easily knuckle under?
We could see this action as similar to Yahoo!'s not allowing people to sell lock-picks through Yahoo! stores. Lock-picks could be used for perfectly legal and even artistic purposes but the risk that they'll be used for illegal house-breaking purposes is great.
But, then again, I see the Yahoo! action as more a part of the accountable internet than the Adobe action. Yahoo! really does connect to or facilitate the stores it hosts. By contrast, Adobe has no real relationship to linking or filtering — it's more like copiers intentionally not being good enough to make convincing copies of money.
So, on reflection, I see the Adobe action as kowtowing. Not being accountable, just being limiting. A picture of a dollar is just bits, and there have been artists who have legitimately thought of and produced copies of currency as art. Adobe's step is much more like a broadcast flag sort of attempt — make it illegal to copy particular bits without authorization.
The problem is that the unintended consequences of Adobe's action may be great — this may be the trimtab for copyright interests. After all it's the PASSING of a bill to pay for something (or making available to huge numbers of people of a copyrighted work) that is illegal. The mere copying shouldn't be
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