News You Can Bruise for 2002 August 26 (entry 1)

Mon Aug 26 2002 21:58: More science fiction/copyright law crossover, this time an explanation for why characters in science fiction set in the future make lots of references to 20th century and pre-20th century works, but almost no references to post-20th century works. Such works aren't part of the cultural canon because they are only available in archaic DRMed formats made by long-bankrupt companies. (This is just the "digital dark age" idea, but I recently realized that the digital dark age explains this nagging problem with Star Trek and other such science fiction.)