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Lessig's Challenge: Are You Up To It?
Eloquence writes "At the 2002 Open Source Conference, law professor and cyberactivist Larry Lessig, last prominently featured here because of the Eldred case, asked some poignant questions: 'How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service? How many people have given more money to [the] EFF than they give each year to support the monopoly--to support the other side?' Luke Francl has interpreted these questions as a challenge, and decided to chronicle both his donations to good causes and his less voluntary payments to 'the media oligarchy' on this page: Lessig's Challenge. This is a good idea if others imitate it: If these pages become interlinked with each other, not only can they motivate us and let us track our progress, they may also help us to keep each other up to date about 'good causes' -- there's more than the EFF, after all. With Harry Potter in theatres and Lord of the Rings before us, should 'nerds' also be thinking about supporting those who fight for our rights to, say, play DVDs on an open-source OS?"
OSS will lose its appeal the the mass if they end up having to pay for opensource software as well
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
Uhm, this is sorta weird.
He bought a print of a small artist and counted that? He donated to a radio station and counted that? I buy lots of things from small companies. But small companies don't lobby. They don't actively undo the damage that giving to your local telecom does. That's why Lessig mentioned the EFF.
I mean, I'm a hypocrite by posting this I guess, since I have never given to the EFF, but if I just get to count purchasing things from small companies/artists, I'll clobber my telecom bill every month, guaranteed.
...is that while the EFF does good works, and I am a member in good standard having given nearly $500 in the past year, the problem is one of motivation.
While regular folks and even a lot of techies realize that not paying their DSL/cable modem/satellite Internet bills is going to get their service cut off, the same cannot be said for the EFF. Yes, I totally agree that there may very well come a day where we cannot do anything due to companies strong-arming governments to pass legislation to reduce what we can do with the Internet, but unless and until the majority of folks get this message and understand its severity and urgency, Lessig's challenge will be unsuccessful.
I would also like to point out that many people take issue at some of the causes that the EFF fights. Please don't let one or two court challenges that the EFF helps with deter you from becoming a member if you already haven't. The fact is that the majority of the EFF's aid is of critical importance to my and your free speech rights and they need every cent of help we can offer.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
It's really important to pump money into the guys doing what is right, just because that means you're NOT giving $ to the side that does the wrong thing... and hopefully they'll ge the message (cough cough... MICROSOFT)
sir_haxalot
stuff |
The problem here is how to bring that message to folks. An uncontrolled medium such as the Internet is very easy to at least publish and, to a lesser extent, promote. The sad part is the very media that would reach the masses are controlled by the other side - namely, television and radio. It's the lowest common denominator, yet how do you penetrate it when it is on the opposite side of the fence?
This needs to start with us, every day. With our secretaries, our neighbors, our grandmothers, everyone in every way. Word of mouth is powerful. But it can't just stop there, and I fear that it won't be enough in the end. With digital tv and DVD Audio just around the corner, and more severe copyright controls, you can bet that this problem will be even worse, and this message will sadly be further quelled. Nevertheless, it all starts with us...
If you *really* believe that these companies are doing wrong you shouldn't be spending your money on them in the first place. Believe it or not, you'll be able to live without seeing hobbits on the big screen or having 1.5Mbps into your bedroom. Giving money to the opposition after the fact may make you feel better, but doesn't change the fact that you've already compromised your morals!
Why is it always about "destroying microsoft" and whatnot. Why can't open source users just come up with a better product that people will want to use, or come to understanding that, at the current time, windows is better than linux on the desktop, and realize that every OS has it's place. It's not all about total world domination for OSS.
Of course, I have an old American trick, competition. Time-Warner also competes for broadband in my area with Roadrunner, so we have two competing firms lowering the prices and raising the quality.
Perhaps it's heresy to suggest on a site so filled with such anti-corporation activists that it's nearly the Democratic headquarters, but good old fashioned competition is just about the best remedy there is for monopolies on broadband, OSes and media. I know business, competition and capitalism aren't very in vogue with the anti-globalization digerati (they prefer socialist fiats, sure, drag the competent down to the level of the lazy), but without keen agressive business people, you would all be reading Slashdot as a BBS on 14.4 telephone lines and Soviet copied 386s.
As for Harry Potter, I doubt I will bring the family to see that, as it kind of glosses over just which fate will befall those who practice witchcraft and necromancy. Perhaps the seventh film will tie it all together, Harry Potter and the Abyss of Eternal Torment and Damnation.
A. Rightmann
Lets be honest - just how much success have they had? They've managed to get the word out about open source, but they failed to stop the DMCA, and none of their legal fights against it have been particularly succesful.
And lets be honest - it was RedHat's lobbying that reduced the effect of UCITA. The only thing that stopped the CBDTPA and that P2P protection bill was the noise made by people on discussion forums writing in protest.
What's better--working for an hour to remove works from the tyranny of copyright, or working in a "regular job" for an hour and donating the proceeds to EFF?
ScienceSeeker.org
I'm not sure if I can totally approve of this type of activism, because it mirrors exactly what is wrong with the USA today. It shouldn't be just about "how much money". If you really care about something, get off your butt and do something about it. Get vocal - organise grassroots movements, write letters, explain the problems you see to your friends, family and community. But don't just expect to buy influence with money - that's what is currently ruining the democratic fabric of the USA.
if the EFF registered as a charity in the UK then the Government would topup any contributions I made.
Is the EFF a charity?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I just see all sorts of problems with this.. what does the middle "F" stand for in EFF anyway? I never thought "free" software was just about shifting your income from one source to another (or even worse, doubling your current expenses), but making software free. Hmmmm if this sort of pressure is a trend maybe it is the beginning of a split in this here movement.
'How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service?
Well I have Cable but besides that I get good service. So that'd be $0 to a shitty ISP and $0 to the EFF.
How many people have given more money to [the] EFF than they give each year to support the monopoly--to support the other side?
Let's see, I haven't bought an MS product at retail value in a long time so again, $0 for MS and $0 for the EFF.
Do I win something now???
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
I'd happily make donations to the EFF if I knew that they'd act for issues I'm faced with too (I live in England).
The last time I checked, I couldn't find any information about whether they would do this (please correct me if I'm wrong).
Of course, the rest of the world (Europe especially) do seem intent on matching American laws, so making American law sane would indirectly affect me, but that seems a very roundabout way to make my money effective.
How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service?
Well, what kind of high speed access is EFF going to provide for me?
As soon as the EFF has the monopoly on freedom, they can send me a bill in the same amount as my cable bill (with modem). Until then, it's small donations. Sorry guys, but I'm just not going to send a "Microsoft Tax" to someone else who is trying to guilt me into it.
You're certainly right; it shouldn't be about how much money you raise. If you're a lawyer, by all means volunteer. If you're not, pony up so other people can pay for them.
It shouldn't JUST be about money, but money always helps.
I could say my DSL service is shitty. But to be honest in over two years there has been one "outage" and 2 slow-downs, none of which lasted for more than 30 minutes.
"The saddest words of mice and men, are not those which were, but should have been."
we've given away almost more than we could afford in time/services/products. IT feels real good though.
talk about giving back, probably as some form of recognition/appreciation of our gooed works, we're being listed as one of the "Top 10 Companies of 2002"(tm) , on fuddle's use-u-all-e-buy-assed searchamagig.
there's no hiding from the good gnus, i guess.
continue to support the Corporate States of America, and hasten the day when the revolution arrives.
I suspect you're trolling, but I'm going to bite anyway.
This has nothing to do with pricing, competition, or even the quality of your service. Donating money to the EFF isn't going to lead to the fall of capitalism and the beginnings of a socialist empire.
Rather, by not donating to the EFF and helping to fight some of their free-speech causes, you might find that all of your beloved competing Internet providers won't provide you with certain sites or materials that the government deems offensive that day. Imagine having six or seven Internet providers to choose from, their prices kept low by competition, only to not be able to surf a large majority of the Web that has been silenced by government regulators.
So I guess you'd be happy to choose Acme DSL and pay only $12/mo but only get to surf AOLTimeWarnerViacomCBSNYT's media sites and those sites that haven't been censored by the government. Worth it?
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Sure, it's a problem, but let's get a sense of priority going here, folks:
While waiting for your cracked copy of Eminem to finish burning, how many of you have done anything to alert your representatives about the madness of a unilateral attack by the US on Iraq?
I tried to make a donation to a good cause. But I could not find out where to send the money. I couldn't track anyone down at all. So I guess SPEWS will have to do without my money and we'll all still have to deal with a growing spam problem.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You shouldn't ask "how many gave more to the EFF than to the opposition". Most people didn't give anything to the opposition. Usually, those who do not favor freedom *take* what they want.
To ask how many people give to the EFF, you are asking, how many people give to the EFF from their disposable income. A person's disposable income is usually a lot smaller than the nominal income, from which the oligarchy "takes" the lion's share.
Now, there is some grey here. I would contend that some amount of music is a necessity for basic human life, especially living in the techno world that we live in. However, you do have some choice about where you get your music. As long as you have some choice, you should probably be selecting non-RIAA sources. But people also require some continuity; and if your business plays Debbie Gibson all day long (showing my age there...), then you're going to want to have some Debbie Gibson stuff at home, which is why the RIAA pays radio stations to play their music.
But when you think about it like that, you realize that America's freedom isn't all that great. In fact, in a lot of ways America is not free at all. It is an oligarchy, and its citizens are considered posessions.
Just something to think about. I don't advocate revolution. I advocate walking away. As Ken Hamblin, the Black Avenger says in the title to his book, "Find a Better Country!" It's not that hard to do.
No, because this way of taking it into action is absurd. If your point is to fight against the monopolies, then the answer is to give zero $ to monopolies and a penny for EFF. If you understand it like this, then the Lessig challenge makes sense...
This should be extended beyond the "geek-movement" and donations to "good causes". Think about how much money that is being spent BY YOU to support HUGE corporations. Unless they gain our support, these conglomerations CAN'T become so powerful as we spend time and energy bitching about every day.
It all begins with YOU. Start making a list of where your money is going. Can you find alternative, more eco-friendly, healthy and holistic products in your local community? Instead of buying shitty products in malls, you can buy a little more expensive, but *QUALITY* products somewhere else, and your money is supporting the "little folks" instead of "The Man".
I know this sounds like an exercise in futility. "You can't change the world", etc, etc. However, YOU can change, and feel better for it too. Especially if you eat healthier food and enjoy better products overall (that you have put a little more mind to finding the right ones).
Unless we support our local community and the stores that have the best products, they're simply not going to survive in the long haul. Don't be a mindless consumer, become alert and aware as a human being!! Feel all that power come back to you again. Maybe you can't change the world, but you CAN change your life.. No matter what negativity others try to spoon-feed you, that is *THEIR* negativity. Don't take it as your own.
This can extend to just about everything, where you work, what you watch, services you pay for, donations, where you get your information, knowledge, etc, etc. Don't give energy to all the channels that spouts propaganda from the men in power. Our whole society is streamlined propaganda from kindergarten to the deathbed, unless YOU seek the truth yourself.
If somebody has a strangehold on us, it's because we've let them.
Very Good point :)
everyone in the end does what they will with their own $$, only a few try get us to do what they want with our $$.
'How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service?'
We shouldn't have to pay as much for a just legal environment as we pay for goods and services. If the current legal environment is pay-to-play instead of a representative democracy (I believe it is), then shouldn't your lobbying contributions be going towards campaign finance reform?
The proposal that we must give as much to the EFF as we pay for goods and services seems like suggesting that it would be good financial policy to max out your credit cards and then put all of your disposable income into savings bonds instead of paying down the debt.
If the only course of action is to continue to play the game of having to buy laws; if fixing the process that makes the laws is not feasible, then it seems to me that it's already too late. It's time to forget reform and switch to either revolution or abandonment.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I agree with you wholeheartedly. There are some organisations over here such as eurorights and there is someone claiming to be the eff-europe but there doesn't seem to be the same momentum as in the USA. Hopefully things will pick up here before the laws get passed, rather than after.
Stick Men
Of course I don't give as much money to the EFF as I would to my ISP or to the movie theaters. Although I agree with just about everything the EFF does, and although I disagree with just about everything the movie and music industry do, there is the basic fact that I'm paying for real services.
A more balanced question would be along the lines of "How much are you shoring up private interests with your money?". I'll just take a completely random guess that, say, 5% of what you spend on stuff is profit for the Big Guys. So, do you spend THAT much on countering what their money buys them?
On the other side: yes, the EFF does a hell of a lot for us. No, I don't think I can credit the EFF with any direct wins, but they can be credited with stopping some big problems. Having an effecitve oppostion is important in any democratic system. Since parties to not provide the correct context in the US, this is an effictive (if poor) backup.
Here's my question though: I do not live in the states. I'm a Canadian citizen living in the UK. I care deeply about information privacy and freedom issues in a worldwide sense. I know the US tends to drive some of these issues, but I really don't know: where should my money go for the most efficitive worldwide advocacy?
I believe you are confused.
Ducat n.
A piece of money.
vs.
Ducket n.
You can do what you please with your ducats, but please be careful with your duckets. Ducklings can break.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Does the EFF offer bandwidth now? Seriously though, the EFF rocks, I'd love to give them some money..I'd also like to find 3 grand to pay off my credit cards..
1)Send Me a bill
2)Credit Card
3)EGold/EDinar
4)Network for Good
5)PayPal
6)Stock
6-12 Months of Anonymizer Private Surfing is included with a minimum of $25 donation. Your gift is 100% tax-deductable.
A visit to the Action Center at the EFF would be useful as well. Do your part or watch your rights slip away! Direct others to help you in the fight.
If you want to help break the entertainment industry monopoly, just keeping your money out of their hands isn't enough - for every well-informed person who boycotts them, there are ten morons who are waiting with baited breath for the next XXX movie. We need to use our dollar votes against them.
That doesn't mean abstaining, and it doesn't mean giving away your money - it means supporting small, independent film studios and small, independent recording studios; it means that when you save thousands of dollars moving from MS software to free software, you donate some of your money back into the open source movement. Note that you're going to be getting higher quality entertainment and software anyway.
You can't just support organizations against these big evil corporations - you have to put your money into the alternatives.
Personally, I'm working on a system to create new copyright-free textbooks to be used as an alternative to copyrighted ones.
this sounds cool. if you would like help send me an email. i've been toying around with writing a math text, and i'm pretty good with latex.
-- john
Great, more linux nazi's
Does illegally downloading RIAA and MPAA proteced mp3's and divx movies count? According to the RIAA and MPAA that is equivalent to stealing from them. So instead of funding the opposition, might I attack the media conglomerates by depriving them of their income? I sure think it would be easier to motivate people to contribute this way.
I like the fundamentalist christian touch at the end, classy.
"you'll be able to live without seeing hobbits on the big screen or having 1.5Mbps into your bedroom"
I, as a 30ish geek, have grown up EXCLUSIVLY in order to afford 1.5Mbits in the bedroom streaming Hobbits on the videoprojector.
Baka 8p
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
You can use the Combined Federal Campaign to contribute. EFF is #2229.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
It's a sad fact that, alas, most people out there are far too greedy for their own good. Just think how much money a site like slashdot or kuro5hin would have coming in if every visitor gave a dollar once a year.
$Millions.
Hell, even if only the "regular" users donated you'd still be talking an impressive amount.
Alas, I don't see it happening any time soon...
why don't we just do the normal /. thing and bitch about MPAA, RIAA, XYZPDQ, etc and then whore ourselves to the movies? Perhaps we can even find witty sounding justifications and use them as sound bites! YAY politics! If you really care, then do something...
This is where the whole Open Source / Free (as in beer) software idea breaks down. All for one and one for all, socialism is very very nice in theory, but the fact is people get greedy.
I want to have my cake and eat it too.
Right now i can get the latest linux iso, and have a fully working OS. Sure, I _could_ donate some cash, but lets face it... I dont have to, and as beer is not free (as in beer), I would much prefer to spend the money on beer.
So there it is. The net result is that donating to all these nice people that are fighting for my rights, writing me software, etc, for no charge would be a nice thing for me to do. Unfortunately i think most people cannot be bothered / are greedy / dont agree 100%.
I think this is similar to where the communist ideal breaks down... greed. Simple.
* Disclaimer: well if i wasnt such a poor student I might actually support such things.
those who control the past, control the future. those who control the present, control the past.
Do not forget about the ACLU which also does a great deal to ensure your liberties cyber or not. ACLU Cyber-liberties page.
Oh shit! Thank you, that was both funny and rewarding! You sir, get a +1 Educational from my sorry ass. My point remains however.
I suspect if you were to allow "real" charities that do such useless things as provide food, cloting, or shelter to those Less Fortunate, you'd find a LOT of people giving more to such Charities than we give to Micro$oft, Verizon, or AOHell.
Most folks, admitedly not all, would reduce their contribution to other charities were they to donate to EFF.
Potential Best of Both Worlds: donate time to a charity helping them set up and manage (yes, long term) an accounting system that does not require sending a lot of money to Bill Gates.
'Just a thought, a mere wrinkle.
Mark
This sounds like a fund raising guilt trip to me. If you contribute money to EFF, then good, but don't be appalled when I fail to contribute $39.95 every month.
I give money (and time) to charitable groups when I'm able to, and feel like it. I'm not required to give anything. If everyone gave money to every person/group that had a "worth while cause", then we'd all be flat broke. This is typical liberal bullshit.
Before you start flaming me for "not caring", let me say this: I *do* contribute to various groups. I contribute money, I contribute my time, I contribute my own belongings, and last but not least, I contribute my opinions and ideas.
Lessig does have a point, but there "evil groups" out there than just the telecom and entertainment industry. By owning and operating a car, you contribute to pollution, middle eastern oil barons (that's how osama bin laden got his money to train people to kill us, which is funny, since that's how GW made his money too), and at least a dozen other industries of ill repute. By living in a home with electricity, you once again contribute to pollution by way of traditional "dirty" power generating plants and nuclear generating plants which outputs nuclear waste material that remains hazardous for thousands of years. By buying that computer you contributed to substandard labor practices in china. By moving out of the city to be closer to nature you contribute to suburban sprawl further reducing natural habitats for endangered animals. For meat eaters, you contribute to wasteful practices in raising the animals, not to mention the slaughter. But even vegans aren't safe here: Hundreds of small animals are killed by farming equipment when processing crops. Let's not forget the substandard of living once again imposed on those poor chinese people when you eat your rice or cheap 10/$1 packages of ramen noodles. Think buying American helps? Your still contributing to some large corporation with interests only in greedy profit. But oh... let's boycot that greedy corporation you say? Great, now you've contributed to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people losing their jobs.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Last time I gave MS money, it was for Windows 3.0 boxed with the old MS mouse. All on 1.2MB 5.25" floppy disks.
That was the beginning of the realization of what pure hatred is.
Since then, I have not purchased any MS hardware, software, services, books or certifications (which are a complete farce anyway, the best IT people I've known (stock exchange WAN designers/admins, top military engineers and government science research labs), never needed or gained any knowledge through getting MS certified).
Microsoft products and revenue channels are for joe six-pack. If you disagree with this, YOU ARE joe six-pack.
As an ex military tech, I am disgusted that a Navy ship was put in a position so that it could be disabled, dead in the water, by a single instance of a Microsoft product.
This is NOT the Navy I knew. The "don't fix what aint broke", redundancy, redundancy, redundancy entity that was typically 20 years ahead (technologically) of the "real world" only in areas that mattered and practical where practicality mattered.
It had never occured to me in the past that EFF might be on their big list but they are! So this year, my donation has gone to the EFF conveniently via payroll deduction and the CFC
For those of you wishing to do the same, the CFC code is 2229
so now my money gets me nothing AND... has the added bonus of goin into a lawyers pocket???
sounds like a recursive problem to me.
want a REAL solution? I will be the first person to donate $1 a month (so if everyone in America did this it would be $250 million a month, give or take) and I want this money to fund full time workers who will monitor all of our government officials' spending pattern.
the moment their spending rises significantly over their governmental salary, launch a small investigation and find where the money came from. if it came from any lobby, throw that person in jail and backfill his government seat.
as soon as our whores quit getting money from corporate giants, they might actually start to think about repersenting us again!
in the meantime, screw paying MORE leach lawyers.
A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.
I propose these 'chronicles' of expenditures be listed in the Microsoft(TM) Money98(TM) format, to facilitate collation and summation of the financial data by those of us not privileged enough to afford the fancy-pants corporate accounting software the EFF and media companies use to track these contributions/profits.
if I gave away as much money to these groups as I'm forced to pay to the others, I would soon have no money at all. I don't think my individual measly contribution will either pay for itself (for me at least), and my meager income is worth a lot more to me (to keep me alive) than it is to one of these organizations (to fund a few flyer mailings or a couple hours of lawyer's time).
If you're rich, then do this and more.
I go through a local company called Bevcomm for my DSL internet and I use to have a cell phone service with them too. Not only does my internet go down all the time for no apparent reason, but every other week I have someone trying to steal my IP and I have issues cause of that too. My ISP does nothing to stop any of this. I also cancelled my cell phone I had with them too (I even paid the $200 cancelling fee before my year was up to get rid of them). They were really that bad, I had random charges to my cell phone even if I didn't make a call, the phone would not let me make phone calls when I had full service and they charged me for it. Suddenly I blew over my 300 minutes without talking for an hour on the phone. What I want to know is, if I did start donating to the EFF, what could they do to help me, a person living in a small town with little options on internet except for the local companies? I would be glad to donate if they would help people like me.
I'm going to start a web page, showing how much time I've wasted reading meaningless sites full of non useful jargon or one man crusades linked from slashdot...
Many people who read slashdot are very interested in "open" software and would like to see it prosper. While the EFF does not exist to promote open software, the issues it tackles almost always also benefit open software. How many of you would be insufferably proud if you could submit a tiny patch to the Linux kernel? Or a new feature to one of your favorite projects? (I'd be)
Many of us would be, but either we don't program, don't have the time, or don't have the legal ability. So, stop sitting on the fence and do something. It doesn't have to be a ton. $500 USD is a lot to most people. $15 isn't. If you can give 500, do it... If you can give 15, then do that, and I can assure you that you have done more for something you beleive in than 90% of the other geeks you know. And that's something to be proud of.
Writing a check is sometimes more valuable than writing code.
Im not saying that we should all as much as this guy, but most of us can spare 10 or even 20 euros a month. Im a student, but Im not that poor.
This is the cool thing about Open Source, noone is forcing you to pay anything.
Extremists are almost always idealistic in some way. In this case, we have MS at one side of an extreme and RMS at the other. MS wants all your money, RMS wants no one to have any. I'm much in thinking to the RMS way, but even he has spent his energy (and thus part of the money which has been given to him) in ways that I think are insane.
Lets take an example: The legal paperwork required to submit code to any Emacs related project. In principal, it's a good idea, but I strongly doubt that the energy to maintain that ideal is worth the end gain. I suspect that if it came to a trial, you'd find that they couldn't prove they had assignment rights for everyone that has submitted code. (In fact, the guidelines for accepting a patch is something like "well, if it has less than 6 lines of code changed then we can accept it without paperwork", which alone will cause problems). So, in the end I suspect this whole policy has actually just slowed down the progress of their coding force rather than really helped "get things done".
Any idealist is likely to actually impeed progress in some way. Certainly M$ is doing an excellent job shooting other people's feet, and we can all agree on that. But, I suggest that RMS is actually doing similar things some of the time as well.
So my rule of thumb: Don't support the idealists. I don't give M$ any money, and I'm not sure I want RMS to spend all my money barking up a tree just because he thinks a dog might some day be up there.
Ok, it's 6:00 and I haven't had any coffee yet. For the moderators out there: this really wasn't intended to be flamebait. I wonder if it'll hold.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
Is this the same Lessig that is totally clueless about spam, and proposes silly ideas like this?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
'How many people have given to [the] EFF...
Do you also write "the NASA?" This same rule can be applied to correct references to "the UML."
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
An email I just sent to Luke:
Hey Luke...I decided to take up Lessig's challenge as well. I am kicking it off by cancelling my AOL account, and I will donate the amount of money I would have spent on that account for one year to the EFF. That comes out to 19.95 x 12 = $293.40.
I'll give AOL a call, let them know why I'm cancelling the account and where the money will be going, and then post my notes on that call in my journal!
The web page for my slashdot journal is "A HREF="http://slashdot.org/~Locke!Erasmus/journal/" >here . Please do not list my email address, just the link to my slashdot journal.
Thanks!
I should have picked out the nickname Demosthenes!Tecumseh.
ie, to pay our Telecom de facto monopoly
(ie, Telstra) for each local call we make,
and our ISPs seem to have a & in that Co's
pocket, as most limit session lengths to,
say 3 or 4 hours, before we have to ring
them back to re-connect (if we're dial-up
customers)...
I'm a UK citizen, and I support the EFF. I don't meet Larry's exacting standards, but agree with the OP about the profit issue. I was going to post the same point if no-one else had. The reason I keep a close eye on US legal issues and support the EFF is that we usually get the same problems a few years after the US. Nip it in the bud, so to speak.
As long as EFF is supporting the rights of spammers, I will not be making donations of any amount to EFF.
Examples of this include John Gilmore's infamous toad.com mail server, Brad Templeton's boneheaded statements about spam as free speech and EFF's objections to anti-spam filtering.
It is time EFF to stop the support of this cancer of the net.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
and a monopoly is not an evil thing.
If your concerns about war make you forget everything else, then welcome to 1984. "War is peace".
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I don't need some bourgeois lawyer from some elitist university trying to guilt me into giving him cash.
I don't spend my money on any corporate products, if i can help it.
Obviously the name of the game in capitalism is making it impossible for someone to not buy your trash so this is hard but i try to avoid it as much as possible.
Since in the past 5 years i saw one movie in the theater and bought 0 DVD and 3 CDs on an indpendent label this guy can go fly a kite.
If you look through FOIA records you'll probably even see Stanford having a record of working with the CIA. Harvard and Yale certainly do. I can't see any excuse for someone to associate themselves with one of these institutions. That goes for MIT too so screw Chomsky's bitch ass as well. Gee MIT only does the most military research of any school but Chomksy can somehow be associated with it and have no conflict of interest.
Any real change will come from the workers not some holier than thou academics in elite ruling class insitutions.
As it is, I double what it costs for me to keep my vanity domain, and give half to the EFF.
Paying my telco for net & phone is definitely a necessity while jobhunting for a worthwhile EECS job.
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
I disgaree.
"NASA" is an acronym. EFF is not.
Pronounced like this:
"NASA", not "the N.A.S.A"
"the EFF", not "Efffff"
-Dave
I'm a little more concerned about my freedom to choose, freedom of speech, and freedom (from) of religion under our current regime.
But I am probably just messed in the head.
--mandi
All organizations i want to donate to are on government watch lists so i guess i'll just keep my money and eat food with it.
Fuckers.
I like the monopoly, it keeps me employed. It inderctly bought my house,car and the trips that I go on.
The trouble at least here in the (Northern?) Europe is that you don't really see or hear about the new proposed EU laws until it's too late. That is, unless the new laws would concern the farming subsidies or alcohol taxation/importing quotas.
I read Danish and Swedish mainstream papers daily as well as follow the German and UK press and I don't recall seeing any mention of, for instance, the EU's DMCA equivalent that to my understanding has already passed the European Parliament. Similarly, trying to find specific information from the EU's elephantine web site is a hopeless task.
The owls are not what they seem
Larry Lessig want us to pay $40-75 a month to him so we can receive his blessing to use the internet freely? (And maybe a few lawsuits that enrich, that's right, Mr. Lessig.)
Right.
The FSF's true colors are coming out. (Of course it's all in the name of a good cause, Commun-- er, Socialism.) Here's a better idea: Why not provide internet service (or legal service for internet services) the offers that freedom.
Do you know why most independent ISPs have gone the way of the dodo? It's because of the hassle. The PUCs, CLECs, and DMCA lawsuits have driven them out of business. Many were profitable, and most were a labor of love, but the frustration of dealing with the corrupt system is what drove them to sell; some at a profit at the height of the boom. If there had been someone to stand up with them, there'd be more free ISPs, and more freedom.
But don't give me credit for the idea. Look at the *real* software projects out there. Linux was a proactive (ouch, did I just use that word?) alternative to proprietary systems. Stallman didn't give us GCC, Cygnus did.
Hell, $40 a month is more than the RAII is asking of us.
our rights to, say, play DVDs on an open-source OS?
This argument makes me ill. Arguably you have rights to play DVDs that you bought before the whole DVD brouhaha on an open-source OS. But now that it's clear what the license holders are demanding, I find it crazy to demand that you have a "right" to play, say, next-year's DVDs on a given OS.
To me, it's like smoking. ARGUABLY, tobacco companies should be liable for smoking-related deaths that happened due to smoking in an era when the health-risks of tobacco were not widely disseminated, and when people could plausibly have misinformed about them. But now that EVERYONE knows (and has known, for the last 2 decades or so) that cigarettes can cause a host of problems, I shed no tears for people who do fall ill due to their smoking now, and I don't think the tobacco companies should be liable for THESE deaths.
Similarly, I shed no tears for people who "demand" their "rights" to play the latest DVD on platform X. If you don't like the conditions that are being attached to a product - say the latest Star Wars DVD, or the latest Metallica CD - don't buy it, don't go to the theater, don't listen to their songs on the radio, and don't hype it on your website. That is the surest, best, and most honest way to get the MPAA, RIAA, etc. to listen to your demands.
Another anology: I might not like the terms of some GPL'ed product, thinking it "really" should be under a BSD license. Does that give me the RIGHT to use it under a BSD license ?
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03228.html
EFF will never get a penny from me.
I made it a point to use DirecTV's DSL service ( it's still regular DSL ) instead of Bellsouth's DSL service so can in some way support the underdog.
The competitors to the telcos do lobby and the more customers they have the better. Please think about switching from the 'baby bells' to one of the upstarts eg. DirecTV or Speakeasy.
Some competitors offer great deals as well. For instance, bellsouth would charge me $120/month for a static IP, while a static IP is free with my DirecTV DSL service, and they don't mind me running any servers.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
I never pay a dime for muzak and I pirate all my w4r3z off of P2P networks, so beating my investments in those two with EFF donations is a slam dunk *smile*
So where do I sign up?
£22 a month for my ADSL
No movies,
No TV
No computer games (I'm boring!)
Total £22 a month = £264 a year
In the last year
3 Mandrake-powerpack boxes ($60 each)
£10 a month to CARE international
Several hours a week working on OSS projects.
A few paid for tracks from www.besonic.com (and a lot of free ones)
Lots of beer for the people who organise free parties(raves). say £50+
Total
£350 + lots of my time.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Playing DVDs on an open source OS is not a right, in any sense of the word. Please don't cheapen the Constitution by equating that with, for example, the right to free speech.
> How many people have given to [the] EFF more
> money than they have given to their local telecom
> to give them shitty DSL service?
This is pretty easy to do when your local (independent) telco offers no DSL service, shitty or otherwise (not that I could afford it anyway).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
James Bond movie from Kazaa $20.
Copy of Windows XP from my last visit to Russia $200.
Brittney Spears latest copied from a friend $15
See, I'm doing my part. Using their arguments I'm costing them a fortune!
knock knock
Oh shit!
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
;-)
Good to know I'm not the only one who actually judge people by their mail client...
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Pronounced like this:
"NASA", not "the N.A.S.A"
"the EFF", not "Efffff"
Hrm, and the FBI and the CIA too. I stand corrected. Thanks!
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
> his less voluntary payments to 'the media
> oligarchy'
Nobody is forced to use a service. Your call.
How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service?
What if I like my DSL provider better than I like the EFF? Besides, I pay a lot for my DSL. It's high quality. I can't imagine paying the EFF that much money.
I am an avid member of the eff. I donate my wimpy 10 bux a month. For me that is a pretty resonable amount of money. But in reality the most results I have ever seen from them is my congress man sent me a letter and stamped his signature on it. The problem is congress and other people are getting thousands of these, all the same...so they toss them to the trash they do not mean that much to them. You need to be forceful and show things that do not scare congress but the public. I hope I don't get super flamed for this but hacking is a real anwser. Not script kiddie shit or dumb dos attacks. But you need to show something that forces people to look. As a community we need to have targets and a well thought out plan of corse but hacking forces people to see through our eyes. I feel hackers get a bad rap and scape goated but in reality we are the protectors of the free internet. just my .02
There are far too man instances of EFF treating people who should be their allies as if they were morons. EFF often even takes "Soft sponsors" of bills we're against and makes their stance solid in opposition to the EFF. In effect, EFF causes the congressmen/women to vote against EFF instead of for or against the bill. EFF is normally populated by people who hold extremely strong oppinions and treat the people their working against as idiots. I have to say, knowing at least a few Washington politicians myself, this sometimes is the case, but when a congressperson attempts to obtain answers to questions, they're often confronted by the EFF with a statement along the lines of "If you don't get it, you won't. So you much be stupid and therefore just do what we tell you to instead."
I would prefer to contribute to a tech savvy lobby with experience in debate and negotiation than align myself with a group of radicals.
BTW, I would also like to align myself with a group of lobbyists in favor of improving education so that my son will be able to spell better than I :)
I strongly believe that the battles that are coming will require that FSF (where I work) and EFF both be as strong as possible. I pay $107.40 annually for my home Internet service (a cheap 56K dialup). I am today renewing my annual donation to EFF, increasing my usual amount from $65 to $107.40. I just yesterday pledged $120 to FSF for 2003. (Eben Moglen, BTW, recently gave substantially more than that). I hope that you will choose to support both organizations at the same level as your ISP charges (or split the amount of your annual ISP charges equally between FSF and EFF).
Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
so i've donated. not that there's anything wrong with lazy unskilled idealists.
but, what about the ultimate irony--setting up an account on amazon and other services through which we can buy our cd's (if we choose to do so any longer), dvd's (getting less and less likely), and books (i do know there are libraries, damn them for making me buy books, more books, lovely books...)! this would be like automatic donations.
Hi, I'm the guy who made the Lessig's Challenge website. I'd like to address some of the concerns which have been raised with the idea.
To my doubters: This isn't about a fundraising drive for the EFF (though I think you should join. Did you know the EFF only has 7,000 members? You can make your voice heard in the way the EFF operates if you join). It isn't about me buying cool stuff and writing it off as hurting the MPAA.
It's about supporting a different way to do things than the MPAA and RIAA. They want to lock up content and charge you every time you view it. They want to prevent you from viewing DVDs on Linux. And we help them do it. Every time you buy a CD, every time you go to a movie, you help them take away your freedom.
It's time to fight back. We can fight back not only by giving money to the EFF and the ACLU and the Free Software Foundation and Digital Consumer -- orgainizations which will fight against the media oligarchy -- but also by helping those artists and programmers who are outside the system. If they can make a living without turning to the RIAA or MPAA, the media oligarchy will not survive for long.
I'm not asking you to boycott these orgainizations entirely because it's not really plausable. Everyone likes to go see a movie now and then, everyone likes to listen to the radio or buy a few CDs. What I'm challenging you to do is to keep track of how much you're giving to the oligarchy (to take away your freedom) and counter that with a donation to people who will fight against that.
Here are a few suggestions:
The list goes on and on.
I get my DSL not from a monopoly, nor a company that sells content, and certainly not one that tries to restrict what services I can run. Covad might be a couple more bucks a month, but if more people would sign up with such businesses, we'd have fewer worries about AOL/TimeWarner/BabyBells.
I am the one who started this Lessig's Challenge business, and I suggest that you do both.
I contribute to free software, help with several weblogs that promote the gift economy, free exchange of information, etc., and write my congressmen when there is pending legislation.
But I can also help out by giving money.
You can (and should) do both. But for people who are too busy or ambivialent for activism, giving money is an easy way to help.
I am in Europe. Is there a European counterpart to EFF that I can support? Or alternatively, is the EFF interested in branching out?
While I'd argue that a phone line is probably a necessity, high-speed access is not. Nor are CDs, DVDs, or video rentals. These are all choices people make on a daily basis, by those who are either oblivious to the onslaught of legislation that is eating away at their rights as consumers, or who simply don't care enough.
Simple self-discipline will go a long way...give up some short-term convenience in order to accomplish a long-term objective. If consumers stop paying the RIAA and MPAA to lobby for both the rediculous laws and the arcane technology 'solutions' they're proposing, chances are, they'll stop doing it.
I saw this in a recent issue of Wired magazine:
Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation--
Analog to digital converters. For years, the tech savvy have laughed at digital rights management on the theory that no potection could stop you from putting a microphone in front of a speaker. Well, what if every A/D converter incorporated lockware that prevents unauthorized digital recording? The MPAA has proosed this as their preferred fix for the "analog hole." It's the next stoin th emarch to Senator Hollings' Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Acts dystopic, where all digital technology is redisigned by the Feds to Hollywood's specs.
This is serious business. How much more of this are people going to tolerate? The point is that we don't have to buy this stuff. All we as consumers have to do is tell the RIAA/MPAA to keep their 'content', and we'll look/wait for an alternative.
"NASA" is an acronym. EFF is not.
>>>>>>
Pronunciation aside, those are both acronyms.
Giving money to the ACLU will help further all of those goals.
For next month's part of the challenge, I intend to donate to the ACLU.
Luke (the guy who's webpage we're all talking about)
The problem is that it is NOT clear.
When I buy a DVD, I am not presented with a contract from the license holders that I have to sign.
It has never been illegal to use DeCSS or libdvdcss to play DVDs in most of Europe or Australia or indeed anywhere in the world except the United States. Until that changes, I think people in the United States have a legitimate gripe.
If you don't want me to use free software to play DVDs, then say so in a contract and give me the choice of whether or not to sign it. Buying a special-interest law like the DMCA is, frankly, more sickening than anything that anyone on the free software side has ever done.
In terms of Operating System purchases over the last few years I've personally run: MS: W2k - pirated W98 - Came with CPU XP - $40 partner program OSS: SuSe 7.3 pro - full purchase price RH 7 WS - full purchase price SuSe 8 Pro - full purchase price Caldera (Corel?) - full purchase price I am proud that I've never run a freely downloaded Linux disto and proud also to run no pirated SW (I make an exception with MS). Cheers, Bill
And how many of you have spent more money on providing for the poor than you have on supporting the EFF?
This isn't about licenses. It's about the government creating an overreaching law which says it's illegal to decrypt data you have purchased, even when you're planning to use the data in an otherwise completely legal way.
It's equivalent to outlawing alcohol, because someone might drink and drive.
The DMCA was written in order to prevent illegal distribution of copyrighted material, but it is so broad that it makes illegal an entire class of activities which harms nobody.
It's especially galling, because you don't have to decrypt DVD's to distribute them illegally.
Joining an organization like the EFF is great--really. I'm a member, and you should be too. But if you really want to be effective in changing the policies that effect you, there are cheaper and better things you can do. The refrain here on /. is that Big Evil Corporations do whatever they want. As a political scientists, I can tell you that's only half true. In general, big corporations and special interests only win on issues that are out of the public eye. In other words, issues members of congress don't get bothered about.
Forget all this stuff about emailing your representative--most (though not all!) members of congress ignore email, because they get so much of it. Snail mail is the traditional way to go here. However, academic studies have shown that faxes and phone calls to congressional members' Washington office are the most effective in influencing policy. A few short phone calls are a lot cheaper than a membership in the EFF. And what sort of a geek are you if you can't get your computer to send a fax?
So what the fuck are you waiting for? Find out who your Senators and Rep is, and pick up the phone.
Say, "My name is Joe Hacker, a I'm a constituent and regular Slashdot reader. I use the Linux operating system on my computer and I'm a member of the open source software community. I'm deeply concerned about digital rights issues. I want to know where Senator X / Rep. Y stands on these issues."
Force them to articulate an opinion, and ask them to send you a packet outlining the member's positions on digital rights issues, the Microsoft Anti-Trust action, online privacy, the DMCA, etc. I guarantee you that if only 10% of Slashdot readers had called up their elected representatives, 80% of the crappy legislation we have to deal with wouldn't have been passed in the first place.
The EFF is a non-profit and forbidden to spend a single dollar on political campaigning. Even with a billion dollars, they can't get rid of Fritz "Hollywood" Hollings and the rest of our enemies.
Without somebody making sure the firehose of bad law gets turned off in DC, all EFF can do is give some of us who make good test cases a bit of shelter from the flood, and when they occasionally win, the rest of us will get help. At least those of us who can afford legal counsel when the C&Ds show up will. Also remember not all the laws that threaten our rights and our jobs are actually unconstitutional, just dangerously stupid, and that no matter how good the Constitutional arguments are at the Supreme Court level, the Supremes are not especially friendly towards the rights of individuals against that of either the government or major corporations.
The people including Lessig who think non-profit traditional geek activism has the slightest chance of protecting us against what's coming down are living in a fantasy world.
A political action committee (PAC) created by credible people (credible means they're raised $1M before announcing their public existence) is the only solution that will get us permanent relief from bad law. We have to punish our enemies and reward our friends. That's the only thing that'll make this problem stop.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If you want to support EFF or other nonprofit organizations, you may be better off donating directly than going through the Combined Federal Campaign, which is administered by the local (D.C.) United Way.
The United Way in D.C. has been dogged by scandal because of improper financial management.
An article last week in the Washington Post reports "A new audit of the local United Way's handling of federal employee donations shows that the group held onto about $1.3 million it should have distributed to charities, took an unexplained $3 million short-term loan from the contributions and ran up more than $120,000 in questionable or unsupported expenses."
The article also notes "A federal grand jury began investigating the Washington area United Way this summer after revelations that the organization had withheld donations from charities, inflated its donation totals and allowed a former executive to take a retirement payment that was not authorized by the pension's rules."
Automated charitable payroll deductions through CFC may be convenient, but at what cost?
Why didn't the grammar police notice the use of "poignant" where "pointed" was meant? Eloquence's ineloquence brought a tear to my eye.
I used to give the EFF money, and now I don't, for precisely the reason you cite -- I disagree with them whole-heartedly on a couple issues they're totally, utterly wrong about (particularly, their constant, wrong-headed attacks on spam-lists as being anti-free-speech, as if my decision to use the SBL somehow gags an activist, or is not a personal decision like chosing which newspaper to buy).
I won't give money to support an organization that makes such awful decisions and is unwilling to listen to reasonable arguments.
If you're like me, pick your fights more specifically -- donate to individual legal funds, find smaller, more issue-oriented causes.
-- q
i am more interested in making music.
Who writes your songs? If you write your own songs, how do you keep yourself from unconsciously copying somebody else's musical work?
Will I retire or break 10K?
What are you going to do when your kid insists (in her very convincing way) to see the latest Disney movie?
Look at it this way. What are you going to do when your kid insists (in her very convincing way) to smoke freebase cocaine?
Will I retire or break 10K?
"should 'nerds' also be thinking about supporting those who fight for our rights to, say, play DVDs on an open-source OS"
No one is saying you can't play DVDs on an open source OS. However, you need to lincense the algorithm from whatever consortium created the DVD standard. Otherwise you are guilty of IP theft. That's what the whole DeCSS controversy arose over. Reverse Engineering DeCSS to create software to play DVDs without licensing the technology is illegal.
Vote for Pedro
How much money does he charge for his presentations on Free/Open source?
Gamerz vs Crackheads .
who wins ?
I also have a right to put it in my microwave, or anything else I want, except the 6 things listed here [cornell.edu].
Playing a DVD involves making an ephemeral reproduction of the data in the RAM of the player. There exists a backup exemption that applies to computer programs, but DVD Video titles are "audiovisual works" and not "computer programs". Playing it with the windows open is a "public performance". What will you tell the judge?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Professor, I understand that you urge people to donate to the EFF an amount equal to what they spend on products from the MPAA, RIAA, and other cartels pushing for abusive laws and DRM schemes to further their Mafia-like control over information and culture. But the EFF has demonstrated that it will spend donations, not only for that purpose, but also on unconscionable lobbying against well-respected legislative and community tools to control spammers -- the hands-down worst abusers in the internet culture. I have read your book "The Future of Ideas" and was impressed by what you had to say. But I cannot for the life of me imagine how the ubiquitous spamming of unwilling net users could be regarded as a positive component of the "digital commons" you described.
So this is my challenge to you, Dr. Lessing:
Respond to this post with a persuasive defense of the EFF's pro-spam lobbying, which convinces me that my freedom as an internet user is enhanced by forcing me to continue being bombarded with emails for porn, fraud, and garbage products. If you persuade me, I will immediately donate $500 (the estimated amount I spent this year on cartel-controlled media) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
When did Iraq attack the U.S.? Perhaps their aggression against U.S. planes along the "no-fly zone"? If only it were something that we could legally enforce, but, alas, it is not. Perhaps their stockpiling of biological and chemical weapons can be considered aggression? Sure, but we (under Smilin' George Bush, Sr.) gave those weapons to him. Maybe we should lock up Bush for supporting terrorists!
Osama Bin Laden, using Saudi money, has perpetrated numerous attacks against U.S. soil and citizens. We tried to get him in Afghanistan, we failed. We didn't even stop his terror network, unfortunately. When will we attack Saudi Arabia, the "friends" of the U.S. that give money to terrorists who commit actions against us, to families of "martyrs" that blow themselves up, killing women, children and other innocents? Why does Bush allow the terrorist loving nation of Saudi Arabia to continue? Is Bush a terrorist-lover?
Shouldn't we be stopped for committing acts of terror against the Iraqi people? After we stopped the invasion of Kuwait, shouldn't we have stopped there, or occupied Iraq? Why do we bomb them year after year, for no other purpose than to kill them and show that we are their master?
But I do believe that there is a way to boycott the Entertainment Cartel - it's not the optimal way, but I think it would work:
You can't kill their product because we want their product, but they don't want us to consume - they want a feeding frenzy. they want people around the block, or waiting in the cold in Norway for a month before the opening. They want you act without thinking...unorganized and unprepared, we're there's no resistance.
Don't kill the movies or the machine, kill the PR frenzy.
Here's my suggestion - when the latest and greatest flick comes out, don't go see it for the first week or two. Stay home. See it in the theatres, by all means, but not in the first 2 weeks.
The reason is so the opening weekend grosses don't become the marketing muscle Hollywood needs to drive our mass frenzy.
Instead of 110 Million, what would happen if SpiderMan opened to a 50 million dollar 3-day weekend.
Go in the third week, have fun. But by then the frenzy never comes.
We would need to organize, pick a movie from a studio for a good reason (they're active on some legal front) and then not see it for a few weeks.
Heck - most movies are formulaic crap (like Wild Wild West) so by the 3rd week we'd all know whether it's worth going or not.
I wouldn't go after something like the Two Towers - I'm not sure if you agree with me, but New Line seems to have been quite fair to not rape the marketplace to squeeze out every last penny. I was impressed to find the DVD (and a colelctors edition too) out so soon.
Unlike some people (George, you know we're talking about you). Or Disney's Eisner, who thinks anyone with a burner is a thief.
I suggested this before in a previous post, but it was buried in a discussion, but I think it would really be worth trying...
This seems like "If you're not 100% for us, you must be against us."
The EFF does not in any way support spammers, any more than the ACLU is a Nazi-supporting organization because they defended their right to march in Skokie. The EFF defends principles, and thinks that government regulation of E-mail and vigilante justice are not the best answers to spam. I get 230 spams a day personally. Trust me, I hate it even more than you do.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
"I understand the advantages that can come from this technology, but it also scares the #$^@ out of me."
;)
Advantages? Hmmm... I wonder who will benefit most. Morlocks and Eloi?
Scares me, too. (But what's more scary is that I'm still going to pay to see Matrix Reloaded
They've lost their focus by going from a cyber-liberties organization concerned with online free speech and privacy and morphed into a anti-market, Naderite consumer-advocacy group.
Now I donate to the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the American Policy Center instead.
Even the Ayn Rand Institute has denounced Lessig as a Marxist.
Perhaps if each of us on this board had given them the equivalent of one hour's salary, they might have actually had a chance.
I have a feeling it doesn't pass the "Political organizations and activities" test. I want to know if I can get my company to match my dontation to the EFF.
mbbac
Fair use won't matter if the legal proceedings have bankrupted you.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Because we aren't privy to the internal accounting data of a movie studio, and we probably wouldn't have the time to wade through it if we were, we can't accurately answer the following very important question:
When I pay $7.50 to watch Lord of the Rings, how much of that is funding the MPAA's legal efforts?
I might enjoy the movie enough to see it several times. While I might be fully in favor of rewarding New Line Cinema for bankrolling this risky project, and I might be fully in favor of Peter Jackson raking in the royalties on his excellent work, I can't tell whether or not I'm *matching* funding to the EFF unless I know how much of that ticket price went to "the enemy" the EFF fights. I could just do matching funds and say for each $7.50 I spend on any movie I'll donate $7.50 to the EFF, but that gets a bit excessive very fast.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The EFF is a 501(c)3 non-profit. That means it does not loby politicians or campaign against specific legislation. If your employer matches non-profit donations, they will probably match to any 501(c)3, including the EFF.
So as long as 1% of the money spent on a product goes to something you don't like, you shouldn't spend the other 99% on the product either, even though it goes to the things you *do* like and want to support? The frustration with using the free market power to vote with your wallet is that most purchase prices include a heck of a lot of "riders" you are also voting for, just like a bill before Congress. And, just like a congressman you are stuck where the only way to vote against those riders you don't like is to simultaneously vote against the rest of the bill that you would otherwise have supported. When you support the making of good high fantasy movies, like LOTR and want to see hollywood make more, the only way to "vote for" that is to also "vote for" the DMCA as a small rider tacked on to your ticket price.
Asking people to never support these riders EVER isn't a practical solution unless you plan to move up into the mountains and live as a hermit. The solution of making sure you give more money (votes) to the opposition than you do via incedental riders on your ticket prices, CD-R prices, and so on, is certainly sub-optimal. But it's the only practical way short of not being a participant in the modern marketplace at all.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
As long as they are opposed to CAUCE, I am opposed to the EFF. Under no circumstances will I support an organisation that is determined to see that we don't get a law banning spam.
It really doesn't matter how much other good they might do, their support of spammers (including Hamidi <spit>) more than cancels out the good stuff
a quick summary of my technology spending habits per year:
:) like donate to the EFF, buy a second machine where Linux and only Linux will be run (maybe dual-boot to 98 for the games), and still not support micro$oft :)
- $1000 - hardware
- $100 - software (games)
- $0 - microsoft (though i use Windows and Office and Visual Studio. i refuse to pay for that priveledge because i have no choice but to use windows for these things. if i could choose, i would pay)
- $0 - DSL service
- $0 - EFF donations
- $250 - other non-profit donations
=============
so lemme see. i give nothing to microsoft because i am forced to use their inferior software (except possibly VisualStudio - i did purchase the '97 version of that). i give nothing to the EFF directly, though more out of ignorance than choice. i give a bit to other non-profit organisations, i buy a couple of games per year, and i upgrade my computer fairly regularly.
now if anyone would pay me to work, i could do more stuff
Dammit, I meant to post that anonymously!
that large portions of the movies mentioned in the blurb were created using OSS/Free Software. No doubt, they will be available on DVD, requiring some illegal activity to view them on my Linux-powered PC, if I choose to view them at all. (No, I don't have a stand-alone DVD player)
So, guess where my money goes?
C|N>K
No. An acronym is an abbreviation you pronounce.
No doubt this new meaning (the first letter of some words) will creap into acceptance by sheer repetition, but not yet.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
http://d
-Dave
...and how about a challenge to lawyers to donate some time. I'm not sure about everyone else but donating money to pay some lawyer $300/hour doesn't make me all warm and fuzzy.
It may not be nessesary, but the question you need to ask is "are you willing to give it up?"
Are you (and I am refering to you the poster) willing to give up highspeed internet access and go back to 56k? Are you willing to use a no name local ISP (assuming you can find one) to avoid funding the giants? Are you willing to stop watching all TV (not that hard) stop watching movies and stop listening to the radio or buying CDs? Are you willing (assuming you haven't already) to go 100% opensource? That means no commercial software whatsoever. Are you willing to stop buying from corporations period in order to prove your point? Can you?
The problem is not nessesarily that people aren't seeing what they need to protest, it's that they aren't willing to give up what they have. The crisis is not to the point where people feel they are better off without. And untill that point is reached, resistance will be minimal.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I understand your argument to be: money in the political process is corrupting, therefore giving money to the EFF is just throwing fuel on a corrupting process, and we should instead... well, then you advocate either campaign finance reform, revolution or abandonment (whatever you mean by that term).
The EFF doesn't operate by bribing legislators with campaign contributions. They spend their money on staff, which they use to do legal action and analysis. You could ban campaign contributions tomorrow and it wouldn't affect the EFF. Giving them a lot of money is not "paying for a just legal environment" because they do not function to counterbalance contributions of their adversaries with their own contributions. They influence the legal process the old fashioned way, by writing papers and filing suits.
Hmm... although I'm not Lessig, I can imagine that he thinks that you're all quite blind to the values of your own freedom - whether you read his books or not. I hate spam as much as Bill Gates hates the GPL. I give money to Bill by buying Windows. I give money to FSF via donations. What's the fucking difference between this and donating to EFF????
Write it on the check: "Rethink your position on SPAM!", don't complain here on slashdot. On the check. On
P.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Seth Schoen's Broadcast Protection Working Group montor now has a blog, and there is a more general page that looks like it will be the directory for similar endeavours inside the EFF. Cory Docotrow of course maintains the excellent boingboing and he now works for the EFF as well.
The problem is not nessesarily that people aren't seeing what they need to protest, it's that they aren't willing to give up what they have.
This has been my point all along - you've just stated it more succinctly. This is also exactly what I find so mind-boggling, because when people fail to act, they're only delaying the inevitable.