You'd like to share copies of the keynote talks with friends, but Red Hat won't let you -- at least not without considerable hassle. And the copies you'd share with your friends won't be sharable further.

Check out the license text on the end of Eben Moglen's talk:

"All materials on this program are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, or otherwise published without the prior written permission of Red Hat, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice. However, provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained therein, you may download the video (one machine readable copy) for your personal, non-commercial use only."

and ask yourself why are these recordings so restrictively licensed?

I'm grateful that the talks are in a format one can play with any OS including free software systems: copies of the talks so far are in Ogg Vorbis+Theora. However, it's ironic that although the talks concern "ideas like freedom, culture, innovation, and the well-being of children on the other side of the planet" the licensing of the recordings of these talks exemplify the opposite consideration.

--J.B. Nicholson-Owens (jbn@forestfield.org)