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The Future of Ideas
Ideas has been reviewed in Salon and in the Washington Monthly; the book has a promotional website as well.
Lessig starts off by looking at the idea of a "commons," a community resource of some sort. The traditional commons is a public park or piece of land, but Lessig is more interested in looking at less-traditional commons on the 'Net and other communications systems. He moves on to examining some of the innovations that have been spurred by the recent growth of the Net -- typically startup companies that have taken advantage of the commons represented by TCP/IP and HTTP to provide a new service or product. If you follow Slashdot religiously, you probably read about most of these companies at least twice -- once when they started offering their innovative new whizbang, and again when they were sued by Megacorp, Inc., and shut down. The final part of Ideas covers the lawsuits, or more precisely the efforts by entrenched players to keep anyone else from playing. The distinction is important, because lawsuits are not the only way to keep upstarts from being able to participate: control of the code is also an important tool. For every control through lawsuits story that Slashdot runs, there's an equivalent story about control through code.
Just as in Code, Lessig is not optimistic about the future. Why should he be? So far, despite every warning, every attempt to sound the alarm, the forces trying to shut down innovation are winning in an utterly convincing fashion. A blurb compares the book to Silent Spring, the famous book about the environmental effects of DDT. Silent Spring was more or less successful -- DDT is now banned for most uses in the U.S., and the book had great effect in raising environmental awareness, but overall, environmental quality has continued to suffer. Lessig's book is not likely to be as successful. Attacking DDT was relatively easy compared to attacking the unlimited expansion of intellectual property, which has many multi-billion dollar companies willing to fight to defend their continued erosion of the public commons.This should suffice to summarize Lessig's book. The ideas in it should not be unfamiliar -- Lessig is hardly the only one espousing this point of view today, though he is one of the most articulate. The final chapters have Lessig's suggestions for ways to reverse this trend of quashing innovation -- different ways of managing the electromagnetic spectrum to produce a better wireless commons (it's worth noting that the unlicensed 2.4 Ghz band has been the source of most recent wireless innovation), ways to create an Internet commons on the wired network (some municipalities are already doing this, laying municipal fiber to the home and following an open access policy), changing copyright law and patent law to put more code in the public domain, changing contract law so that end-users can't be forced to sign away their rights. All are good suggestions. Despite the hopeful notes in parentheses just above, most of these suggestions stand little chance of being adopted any time soon. But perhaps Rachel Carson was looking at much the same uphill battle against DDT.
Ideas is most comparable to The Control Revolution by Andrew Shapiro, an earlier effort to explore the changing dynamics of control on the net. Shapiro was much more optimistic, and writing without much of the recent evidence that Lessig uses to make his point that innovation is being squashed thoroughly. If you will, there is an optimism scale -- John Perry Barlow defines one end of the scale, Shapiro is in the middle, and Lessig occupies the pessimistic side. Smart money is on Lessig.
All in all, it's a fine book. I think I prefer Code though, for a variety of reasons -- I find the central premise of Code to be less obvious, more ground-breaking. Or perhaps I've just read so much about "innovation" during the Microsoft trials that I can never again read the word without wincing. As with Code, Lessig has extensive footnotes, making this a scholarly work (for the scholars) but a perfectly readable book even for non-scholars. In any case, it's strongly recommended.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Want to see your own review here? Read the book review guidelines, then submit using Slashdot's web-submission page :)
As copyright holder of this message, I wish to squelch freedom and innovation by
1) Suing anyone who replies and quotes my copyrighted message.
2) Suing anyone who moderates this message down for attacking my character.
3) Sue any banner ad companies whose ads appear above my comment unless they have text within the ad saying "The comments of the advertiser are not meant to be related to LordOfYourPants."
4) Sue thinkgeek for giving me a hernia with their "Codito, Ergo, Summ" shirts.
-- DDT is now banned for most uses in the U.S., and the book had great effect in raising environmental awareness, but overall, environmental quality has continued to suffer. Lessig's book is not likely to be as successful. Attacking DDT was relatively easy compared to attacking the unlimited expansion of intellectual property, which has many multi-billion dollar companies willing to fight to defend their continued erosion of the public commons.
Well, yeah, Silent Spring *did* raise the problem of DDT and it's gone now. But there had to be *something* to fill in those gaps. Now they are spraying for West Nile Virus mosquitoes up here in the Northeast US and doing far more damage with the pesticides than they are helping. After all, WNV has killed what.. three? five? people. Is it really worth destroying generations of birds and their offspring to save five lives? How many millions die of malpractice?
But back to the topic at hand.. until we get judges who know computers are better for something than product placement in televised courtrooms, or understand something about intellectual copyright itself, there wont be a change. If you dont think that large companies are stealing ideas left right and center, well, wake up. 3m bought the idea for post-it notes for like, 1.99 from the guy who came up with it, due to contractual obligations that almost all of us sign. If you develop code, and use your work computer for even one line of said code, it probably falls under your blanket contract that says your company now owns it, and owns j00 as well.
Until laws like that get challenged, and beaten, companies squelching free development, or the furthering of technology outside their-own pockets are going to continue to be the status quo.
What is the solution? I dont pretend to know.. but getting more technologically savvy people into the courts in judge, jury, and lawyer roles could be a start. Face it, M$ is going to send in the best 10 lawyers they can find, and what does a Mitnick get? Whatever the PD's office can spare.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
Its obvious that without air you cannot breath. It is also obvious that without a car you cannot drive 100mph on a highway. Writing a book to make these points would be ridiculous.
Yet intellectual monopoly marketing by companies has been so successful, it is not ridiculous to write a book that makes the point that the patent system as we have it today is the tool [used] by entrenched players to keep anyone else from playing.
I'm glad to see this book. Maybe it will wake a few more folks up. I hope so.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Arbitration of domain name disputes will be one of the major threads of Intellectual Property law in the 21st century. It's unfortunate that Lessig gave such short shrift to this important area.
With all these dim views of the future of cyberspace, and current trends do point in that direction, perhaps it is time to start implementing a FreeNet. Something outside of the mainstream Internet, away from corporate and government controls. Something entirely for geeks, by geeks.
In all honesty, I don't see any way around it. When non-Microsoft, non-FBI-bugged operating systems are outlawed, only outlaws will run Linux/BSD/etc.
The guy who invented post-it notes did it while he was on the job at 3M. All the work was done at work, using 3M's equipment and supplies. He's never complained.
You seem to be complaining that companies own the products that we are producing for them and for which we are paid.
Best Slashdot Co
If you would like to read more on the subject of the book you can go here and look at some conference papers about the "public domain," one of them is even by Lawrence Lessig. I just bought his new book off of bn.com and I'm looking forward to reading it. Unlike the reviewer, I for one am looking forward to this book more than Code. I am thinking it will be more accessable to non computer people like myself.
-Grant
|grant.henninger.name|
The distinction between supression through code and supression through lawsuit is important, though. For example, Michael is supressing the parent comment through the use of code, by abusing his power and moderating it so that no one can see it. I believe supression through code is the more dangerous of the two. With supression through lawsuit, the courts at least have to okay it. Sure, you can argue that the courts are corrupt, but that's not the point. We can always clean up the courts. With supression through code, corporations and individuals like Michael can play Judge, Jury, and Executioner to maintain their positions and technologically shout down people who bring up inconvenient facts or provide competition.
Slashdot: Open Source, Closed Minds.
Always bear in mind the other possibility: that they might actually know the facts but honestly disagree with your conclusions. Whatever you and I may think of the DeCSS decisions recently, there is no denying that Kaplan and the appeal court knew and understood the technology and the law that was relevant to the case.
The idea that artists and inventors should be granted limited monopolies on their works is a very old and respectable idea (e.g. the US constitution). It takes a bit more than arm-waving to cast it all aside.
Also, bear in mind that the judges in the DeCSS case have very properly had to defer to Congress except where Congress exceeds its constitutional powers. The system was designed that way for good reason. Believe me, you really don't want judges making up the law as they go along.
I have a lower opinion of Congress as a venue for getting these things right though. For a variety of reasons they get a clearer view of the arguments to increase IPR than to limit them. Most of these come down to a combination of money and the tendency of focussed interests (e.g. 5 movie studios) to over-ride diffuse interests (e.g. 500e6 movie fans). But thats about par for the course. Congress has made some stunningly bad decisions over the past couple of centuries, and will no doubt make more. If you want to improve it, you know what to do.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Personally, I think that part of the problem is that in our capitalist based society, any change to support a commons must be based on a viable business model. Open source is struggling with this, but seems to be making its way alright. That's code. Knowledge, on the other hand, is still suffering. There is a long history of knowledge being locked up and accessible to only those few with enough power or money. Part of this (recent) history includes copyright and patents. Another more interesting part is the educational system! Particularly universities, but also other levels of education all have barriers to prevent just anyone accessing knowledge. There are tuition fees, entrance exams, location, funding methods etc. All of these act so as to make information unavailable. For example, if I get low grades in high school, I may find it impossible to get into university - even if my reasons for having low grades have nothing to do with my inherent capacity to understand and add value to university-level knowledge. The only reason these barriers to entry exist is because of the guarding of academic credit. So. Many people here are familiar with the slogan information wants to be free. And some can even argue its validity based on economics. But the fact is that barriers to accessing information create wealth. So in order for those barriers to come down, alternative means to create wealth must be created.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
We can see parallels in history by other institutions that embraced false property rights. How many of you have herd that freeing slaves was stealing, or that there was no incentive to grow cotton without them, or that the great wealth of America's plantations was proof of slavery's justification. Some people think it's unfair to make this compairison to slavery, but I think it is - for example look at what almost happened in Africa, there millions and millions of people risked death because American pharmacuticals wanted to sue over intellectual property rights.
However, we should consider ourselvs fortunate - because unlike our predacessors I think we can win this war without one bit of violence. It will first be done with copyrights where enforceing copy controlls will become nearly impossible without stirring up massive unpopularity, and imposing massive intrusions into millions of corporations and peoples private lives. Eventually something will half to give because we do live in a democracy. It will later come with patents where the ability to create and manufacture will come to the home. In non democratic countries, both of these will pose a serious problem because the government will likely not be as restrained before things really get out of hand.
Other approaches like the GPL, and public encyclopedias will also seriously relieve the pressure. (thank you RMS)
"Commons" is an interesting term to use, since it is a relatively archaic word.
The "commons" is the standard word to use in economics (and in law) when referring to public goods. It comes from a 1968 article called "Tragedy of the Commons", by Garrett Hardin, which described a common grazing green that everyone can and has a right to use. Because everyone wants to maximize their gain, the commons quickly gets overused such that everyone loses out; that's the tragedy. It's used as a reason why we have property rules in general, and especially public goods-type property, like intellectual property.
gets about as bad as it can get, but these are the realities of dealing with publishers. Check out the ebook -- publisher would not allow the book to be "read aloud." The absurdity is astounding.
Your comparison to "Silent Spring" is a pretty good one. We should note, however, that the chemical companies and the US government rallied *hard* against DDT studies that showed it was unsafe. It took something like 10 years for it to be declared unsafe for human exposure. The same goes for CFCs. Studies in the late 70s showed conclusively that they contributed to the ozone holes, but it wasn't until the late 80s that any real action was taken to require companies to lessen their use of them. Again, you had big companies fighting this tooth-and-nail.
The point is, these battles are always hard. The only thing this particular fight has going for it as that creators of content (coders, musicians, filmmakers) also have a vested interest in keeping their products from obscurity.
His whole line of reasoning in the decision rests on the assumption that DeCSS is a tool for piracy, and because it is a tool for piracy, fair use rights therefore don't apply. With a bit of hand waving and circular logic, he dismissed the defense's strongest argument. Regardless of his "understanding" of the technology in question, he deserves our contempt.
lessig loves the balance between protection and freedom struck by the framers of the constitution and the first congress. only valenti-types can't distinguish between that and "hating IP." The beauty of the binary world notwithstanding, there is a position between perfect control of IP (Valenti-ism) and zero protection for IP (not my position).
Though Michael (charmingly) seems to think it is, "code as law" is not a new idea. Check out Marc Rotenberg's article here. It's a pretty obvious idea, actually, not particularly "groundbreaking." Lessig is an interesting writer though, and a great speaker.
Hey, but wait. I am pro-IP, where IP is the balanced set of rights that the framers of our constituiton embraced. To be anti-Valenti is not to be pro-zero protection.
The "commons" was originally often found as part of a system in which people were property. At that time, the commons was for the use of those who were bound to the local fiefholder. As more and more autonomy was granted to individuals, this system no longer worked and the commons system morphed into one in which the "owner class" began to seek compensation for the resource in the form of rents or other consideration.
I cannot help but think that Lessig's "intellectual commons" is part of a system in which the ideas that populate them are already bound through other less obvious means to entities such as universities and corporations. The proposition that these ideas be "set free" will lead to exactly the kinds of DCMA shenanigans that Lessig seems to passionately want to avoid??
Is it possible that the concept of an intellectual commons is already becoming an anachronism in the same way that the concept of a common pasture became unusable as the system changed? As our society is driven towards a different notion of property, driven by Disney, RIAA, and other content owners, will fair use of ideas even exist as a tenable mechanism?
Perhaps there will become "free ideas" just as there were "freemen." These ideas would be certified as free, and could be combined with other free ideas... Wait a minute, I've heard this idea before; RMS, where are you when I need an overcharged rant about freedom?
42
If the defense's strongest argument can be creditably dismissed by hand-waving, then the defense needed stronger arguments.
I seriously doubt that the RIAA will press civil charges against anyone who cannot be construed to be a threat to society (ie: pirate, terrorist, hacket, etc.). As for criminal charges, that's the DoJ's turf, and the case against Dmitri Sklyarov is the best example of how they'll work. In both arenas, they'll pick the ugliest targets, and try them for who they are, not what they've done, merrily building up precedents here and case law there.
Regardless of your feelings about DeCSS (I'm for it), the RIAA did a very good job of picking a target when they picked 2600 Magazine. It's right up there with Hustler for content and editorial integrity, and 2600 came into court with a serious negative image problem. The rest of the case went about as well as could be expected. That earned the RIAA a legal precedent, and set up additional hurtles for the next target.
The only way that the DMCA will get overturned is if someone manages to do something that obviously violates the DMCA, but is also easily recognizable as something that is socially acceptable and/or necessary. At this time, I can't think of anything that matches these criteria -- the right to download Star Wars movies off the 'net doesn't qualify, and neither does anything else I can think of. Anyone got any suggestions?
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
Garrett Hardin proposed what is to me the same thesis 33 years ago in his paper The Tragedy of the Commons. Hardin was proposing a class of problems that had no technical solution, no matter how hard we looked for them, as they were moral problems. Specifically he was talking about growing populations taxing resources, but the analogy is fairly easily applied to "the internet as commons" model.
The 400 lb gorillas of IP are trying to maximise their utility gains from the internet while impacting the utility to others negatively. Good old utilitarianism.
Hardin goes on from there, but it has been a few years since I read the paper so I'm going to breeze through it again. I'm looking forward to picking up this book to see what new thinking it might bring to the analysis.
I'd be interested to hear from Mr. Lessig (as he seems to be posting here) how much his thesis was influenced by Hardin.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
Look here. The entire episode was more of a case of bad UI design than wicked digital rights management.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
>>why doesn't he publish his book under the public domain
Probably because he wouldn't be able to find a publisher with the kind of distribution he would want for his book. I talked with Jessica Litman a little bit about "Digital Copyright" and her choices when it came to publishing. She'd be perfectly happy to see the entire work available online, but her publisher wouldn't allow it.
I find it unlikely that Lessig would feel that much differently. He's a lawyer - can't be in too much need of the income. I'd think he would be trying to get the widest distribution possible, to have the greatest number of people exposed to the ideas he's presenting. GNU license for documents (or BSD) would be too limiting for most publishers who deal with mass publications.
Don't just complain - DO something about it!
i am all for the message that lessig is telling us. i have followed the debate some what however, for what it is worth, i feel as though it is ineffective. the message that the holders of ip are stifling the commons is valid however the words are falling on deaf ears. the only people who are really listening to him are his student (they have to, as he is the grader of their papers), academics and some ip lawyers who are not attached to to large companies who have large holding of copyright.
in order for his message concerning the future of ideas to be effective it must be received and adopted by the techies. it is only after the techies take up the cause that they are being threaten will his message will have some true meat to it. the people who are the most influence, i.e. congress and courts, are being inundate with anti-lessigism and are blind to the alternative (will we ever see mickey mouse in the public domain? No). the lobbies and the lawyers are drowning out whatever counter arguments exist against the extenuation of copyright controls.
until some of the 'leaders' of the techies take note and start supporting this platform we all will just end up watching our rome burn like nero. eric raymond thinks the message in code and most likely his new book are false. he feels that no matter what happens the techies will be able to adapt, overcome and conquer anything that washington throws at the techies. wired news on aug 29, 2001 says "linus torvalds... wasn't quite so pessimistic. 'a lot of people are wasting time over disagreements,' he said, referring to legendary sectarian squabbles within the open-source community. 'but i think people will get their act together,' torvalds said. ' within the last six months, there has been a lot more (political) activity.'" However as long as Prof Felton isn't publishing, the DCMA is up held and Dmitry Sklyarov is being prosecuted... then there isn't enough support for open source and more must be done.
once the techies, the geeks, the open sourcers and those who are most affected by copyright controls (DMCA), then perhaps the public will take note. without the techies support then the message lessig is telling us is ineffective and the internet will be lost.
there are hundreds of lawyers and millions of dollars against us, why aren't we doing something about it?
hey, I'm a twerpy looking Stanford lawyer, not a twerpy looking Harvard lawyer.
now I am pissed.
Just to hack away at the notion of ownership concentration a little more, it does seem intuitive that an individual person could "own" an idea, at least while he or she lives.
That limits the concentration of original ideas to the a density equivalent to the number of original ideas a person can come up with in his/her lifetime.
Corporate ownership on the other hand, or the resale or inheritance of owned ideas seems to be the real problem. If ideas are freely transferable property, concentration becomes inevitable...
Concentrate enough of them and you can easily own culture and political thought itself.
The idea of a corporation as a legal person seems to me, in my innocence, to be the root of much evil.
Individual IP ownership is a potentially "humanizing" and just construct... group ownership, corporate ownership, inheritance of ideas... these things seem to be fatal trends....
this is rightly the core of the problem. the American constitution gives congress the power to grant copyrights to "Authors"; the framers were anti-publisher. Our problem over the years is we've not resisted the tendency to encourage assignment of copyrights, such that highly concentrated holders (hoarders) of IP get to veto the future.
Consider how many geeks complain about their freedoms being threatened and then go work their day job writing proprietary software or designing hardware wrapped up in patents and trade secrets owned by their employer. Guess what? The only reason unethical corporations exist with the power to control 'our' technology is because we GIVE it to them. Business execs don't produce technology, they buy it and sell it. Their only power is the dangling carrot of higher salaries and (supposed) job security. When geeks take entrepreneurship into their own hands, then we'll get somewhere. Be 'greedy.' Capture markets with ethical enterprise. You deserve more than those morons who drank and partied their way through business school and now control your career because they accidentally discovered strength in fraternity. Stop believing the lie that you don't have what it takes to survive outside of the hampster wheel.
'Every man dies. Not every man really lives.'
Rewarding those who do good things is certainly something nobody will argue against, for it's how we teach our children.
But to be rewarded with the ability to then tell others they cannot make use of what good you have done is for others worse then you never having done it.
Do you see the inherent contridiction of giving exclusive use as a reward?
Change the IP laws from "cannot" based to "CAN" based and the forward moving force to advance will have a great deal less friction against it.
Who is to say that being rewarded with exclusive use that you will use such exclusive use to it fullest benefit to you and society? There is no magic intelligence that you somehow receive upon getting exclusive use granted you, that insure you will do the best thing.
However, to have "CAN" based laws such that anyone can use what good you have done, so long as they give you proper credit and reward. Perhaps based upon a relative percentage of the profits one makes in using your good. Or perhas this is a probelm area the public can better solve? see below!
This way, it's not up to just the do gooder to then figure out the best way to impliment the good, but rather up to any and everyone who wants to make use of it. Consider the following quote!
One of the papers from the Duke university Public domain conference didn't make it into the "download all papers" archive on that site: Coase's Penguin
"At the heart of the economic engine of the world's most advanced economies, and
in particular that of the United States, we are beginning to take notice of a hardy,
persistent, and quite amazing phenomenon--a new model of production has taken root,
one that should not be there, at least according to our most widely held beliefs
about economic behavior. It should not, the intuitions of the late 20th century
American would say, be the case that thousands of volunteers will come together
to collaborate on a complex economic project. It certainly should not be that these
volunteers will beat the largest and best financed business enterprises in the world
at their own game. And yet, this is precisely what is happening in the software
world." - Yochai Benkler
BTW, my home page is relative to this matter.
.
If corporate personhood is the real problem, why don't they address it? I could sign on to that. After all, why should we cater to the desires of fictitious people?
The AIP movement does not address corporate personhood, neither does it distinguish between corporate and individual IP. Instead, they attack all IP which implies to me that they don't care a single bit about individual IP.
I don't know what you mean about it being "unthinkable" to attack corporate personhood. Has anybody tried? And no, I'm not talking about throwing dumpsters through the front window of your local Starbucks. I'm talking about oh... for example, restricting and ultimately eliminating donations to political parties made on behalf of corporations. After all, corporations aren't real citizens so it makes little sense to afford them full rights as citizens. OTOH, such an approach has ominious implications for freedom of association.
Might I suggest a different course of action? How about common sense. The nice thing about common sense is that it makes... umm.. common sense. Common sense tells us that you can't found a business based on taking somebody else's work (Napster) it also tells us that you can't take away somebody's domain name just because some corporate weenie doesn't like it (*sucks.com). The nice thing about common sense is that it's neither AIP or unduly pro IP. Most people have an inate sense of what copyrights, patents, and trademarks are supposed to do, and what they are not supposed to do. How about bringing judgement back into the judiciary? If we did that, maybe some of these judges would look at some of these cases (Skylarov) and say "egad! They can't do that to this guy" instead of writing 50 page anesthesia documents full of precedent and rigid beurocratic formality. Then again, have any of the people under the gun of unfair IP practices even bothered to ask for a jury trial? Perhaps the elitist crowd who purport to defend these people have sold the public short, as they are wont to do.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The objective here is not to remove law but to change the incentive generated by the reward. To change the incentive of restricting others from use to incouraging them to use.
Certainly you would NOT want the following law to vanish.
The Universal Law
Preamble
The purpose of human life is to prosper and live happily. The function of society is to guarantee those conditions that allow all individuals to fulfill their purpose. Those conditions can be guaranteed through a constitution that forbids the use of initiatory force or coercion by any person or group against any individual:
The Constitution
Article 1: No person, group of persons, or government may initiate force, threat of force, or fraud against any individual's self or property.
Article 2: Force may be morally and legally used only in defense against those who violate Article 1.
Article 3: No exceptions shall ever exist to Articles 1 and 2.
neo-tech.
istartedi,
Do you have any idea what kind of revolution would be required to eliminate "corporate personhood"?
Such an idea would die laughing on the floor of the Judiciary committee. Because limited liability corporations are persons you have to sue them... their board members and officers are not personally liable for their actions by and large.
If you say the corporations are not the legally responsible party, you are restoring a world of direct personal ownership and business partnerships in which owners become personally liable for what is done by the company.....
Needless to say there isn't a chance in hell that that will ever come to pass.... For one thing, in extremis, it would mean that every stock owner could be sued for the actions of the company he held stock in!!!!
Common sense didn't help you understand this issue... so I'd suggest that you need a little more than common sense to deal with IP issues.
Corporations have "personhood" and their officers limited liability in theory to spur business... in practice it enables all sorts of venal things to be done by people who are not themselves held personally responsible.... its the core of modern capitalism. To destroy it you would need a revolution.
So yes, as a practical matter, it is unthinkable that it would really happen.... that battle is already over and lost.
"restricting and ultimately eliminating donations to political parties made on behalf of corporations. After all, corporations aren't real citizens so it makes little sense to afford them full rights as citizens"
You must be kidding? I'm telling you the system is already bought and sold. The fact that it makes "little sense" is quite irrelevant. Exxon and Microsoft OWN the Senate already... who is going to vote against that cozy relationship? And Exxon and Microsoft and many others want corporations to own intellectual property.... and they will.
And the monopoly concentration of power will continue.... look what happened to the effort to break up Microsoft? The corporations got their man in the office, and the "penalty" is now going to be that lots of poor children have to learn to use Microsoft software!
Microsoft must be saying.... please! penalize us again!
Dear Rev'd. King,
Do you have any idea what kind of revolution it would take to eliminate Jim Crow?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I don't know why you are such a pessimist. The corporate system thrives to the extent that it benefits the majority. At this point in time, it has begun to impact the rights of a minority--legitimate hackers and consumers engaging in unusual types of fair use practices (e.g., DVD on Linux). NOTICE: I am not endorsing piracy or black-hatting here. The legitimate hacker and unusual fair-use community is a tiny special interest at this point.
If you are a pessimist because you fear that this minority will continue to be oppressed, then that is understandable. The "fashionable left" that holds itself out as the defenders of their rights has done these people a disservice in a number of ways. Positioning themselves as hostile to the entire system certainly doesn't endear them to most people. Too many people benefit from the status quo. Instead, they should be attacking the ridiculous extremes that are currently finding their way into the law. Most Americans hate extremism be it Left or Right wing. The problem is that too many of these people, Lessig included, are themselves extremists. This is only leading to polarization, which is bad.
If you are a pessimist because you are strongly AIP, then I have little sympathy for you. In most cases, IP law benefits the majority and does not harm the rights of the minority. Too many people on /. are under the impression that the creation of a technical or artistic work conveys rights to people who have nothing to do with the creation. This leads to the falacy that you can somehow oppress people simply by creating an artistic or technical work and not giving it to them.
If you are a pessimist because you fear that IP extremism will eventually oppress most users to an unbearable extent, I believe this is unfounded, at least in the US. The American people will only tolerate so much BS, and if it gets to the point where the system is really concentrating power in the hands of a minority, people won't stand for it. You might think that's the case now, but it isn't. The majority of the US is now bought into the system through their 401k, or because they work for a corporation.
I might sound like some communist, but I am most certainly not that. I'm just a simple social democrat, and unfortunately very pessimistic about the eroding political power of "the people".
Just remember, every enemy looks powerful before it's beaten. As for being a social democrat, that can mean so many different things that I'm not going to comment on it.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
If you don't understand that this has already happened, I'm sorry for you. Precisely because the majority of the US has been SOLD (or as you say "bought in" but the truth is SOLD, as in sold a bill of goods) on the ownership of stock as the key to their future, instead of on the collective national "ownership" of the instruments of wealth production as a key to their retirement, the country is highly "bought in" to a system and can't afford to change it, or challenge it. Hell, I can't afford to challenge it either... my retirement is tied up in the stock market too. My retirement assets (such as they are) are tied up in companies that buy and sell intellectual property, and I'm dependent on the corporate system as much as the next guy.
OK, when you start mentioning "collective national 'ownership'" it sends up a red flag (no pun intended). That's the dictionary definition of socialism, and history has proven it to work no better than the current system with regards to the defense of individual rights, economic prosperity, or any other measure of success.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Actually, it satisfies me quite nicely. It was just that your original language strongly resembled that used by the far Left. I think we can all sign on to the idea that when an individual knowingly commits a criminal act, that individual should be held accountable. In practice, the mere existance of a political movement aiming to compel CEOs and board members to accept such responsability could have a stronger impact than you believe (imagine suits thinking to themselves that it might happen, so they had better get used to it), but that's just my opinion.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
1) Suing anyone who replies and quotes my copyrighted message.
Is that a god in your pocket, or are you just glad to sue me?
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.