Slashdot Mirror
Saving the Net
An anonymous reader writes "Doc Searls, editor at Linux Journal, has a very insightful editorial that brings it all together - the FCC media consolidation ruling, SCO vs. Linux, why broadband is under attack by telcos and cable systems, why we lost Eldred vs. Ashcroft, what's really interesting about Howard Dean's presidential campaign, and a very astute observation about the vast gulf between Liberals and Conservatives."
From the article: But they avoid visiting a fact that should be deeply troubling to every candidate running (and then governing) for money rather than for voters: Dean's lead is owed to a huge number of small donations, not to a small number of large special interests. If he's being bought, it's by his voters. This is a New Thing. It's also been made possible by the Net.
This was part of what the internet was all about: democratizing the ability of an individual outside the established powers to enter into competition or publication or public recognition. Dean has been smart about this and so far, he certainly has my vote.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
When will Americans learn what "liberal" really means? Many Americans use it as if it is an insult, and they seem ignorant to the fact that the United States was founded on the basis of liberalism.
The author spends too much time polarizing this into a liberal vs. conservative issue. That's a meaningless division, much like republican vs. democrat. Obviously he has a lot of issues with what he deems as conservatives, so he's stereotyping them and lashing out.
(As a side note, the raw meaning of the term "conservative" is pretty interesting in regard to his issues. You could say that people who want music and software to be free are "liberal." You could also say that people who think that a UNIX-alike is the pinnacle of operating system design are "conservative.")
To paraphrase a common saying, do not attribute to consipracy that which can be adequately explained by greed.
There's little doubt that there's movements working against what much of the Linux communities believe in, but there's no Big Bad hidden agenda here -- just simple, petty and local greed.
Regards,
--
*Art
But wait a minute - I thought that one of the requirements to be president is that the candidate must be an American-born citizen. Arnold, being Austrian-born and all, doesn't meet that requirement.
That article just seemed to be a collection of random quotes thrown together without one original thought from the author or even an underlying explanation of how they fit together.
A great example is the quote from the National Review. It is a great quote and specifically attacks the changes that have happened in copyright law. At the end of the quote the article "author" says "National Review is a conservative magazine. John Bloom is a conservative columnist. This is significant." But he doesn't go on to explain WHY this is significant. Is it because the author is surprised that a conservative can have an intelligent thought?
In other things he is just plain wrong. He states that "Liberals often are flummoxed by the way conservatives seem to love big business (including, of course, big media)." Yet it is the democrats who are most in the pocket of big business. Here is a clue - Hollywood is 99.9% liberals. The other 0.1% is Drew Carey. Senator Hollings is a Democrat. DMCA was signed by a Democrat into law. Mary Bono may be a Republican but only in name.
If you think that the internet is failing than this article is a great sign it isn't. The fact that any unintelligent schlub could post an article like this and receive praise for it proves it.
The word consumer, as a whole, is also a source of aggravation. It implies a notion of being fed, of being given content that you don't necessarily desire. And this is precisely what this notion of "distributors of intellectual property" is demanding of you. Sit down in front of your computer/TV, pay an exorbitant fee, and watch the same old boring content and advertisement barrage over and over again. The great thing about the current computer is its ability to allow for the construction of content, not its ability to supply it. This is further amplified by the Internet, and the accompanying ease of distribution and immense audience. For instance, a musician could record a song onto his computer and sell it via the Internet, or a graphic artist could market his art. In the future, perhaps even an independent film company could market it's wares online. A future dictated by DRM and "property" restrictions allows only a few select companies to digitally "watermark" their media in a manner which the now-crippled computer can read. Does anyone honestly believe that these same companies that desire such immense control will relinquish it in the future to independents desiring to sell to the same market?
Suddenly a person is no longer an individual, but a forced consumer of multiple mega-corporations. The prospect is as disturbing as it is possible. The myth of "intellectual property" is curbing and inhibiting the free expression of ideas and content, precisely what copyright law was intended to promote.
---rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Very smart.
The author does an excellent job of synthesizing a number of disparate, troubling issues going on in our society at the moment into a very coherent whole.
If you can understand that democracies are only as good as their voters' information systems, or that markets are only as healthy as the exchange of goods, services, and ideas in them is free, then you should be able to appreciate where the author is going.
The reason esoteric issues like telecom and media regulation, and intellectual "property" law end up commanding such a large amount of attention in the community is because both of these, people are realizing, are not just important, but absolutely essential, to maintaining those very important American principles.
A cheap, ubiquitous communications medium. The free flow of information which respects, but it is not outrageously hobbled by, the rights of authors... It's only our economy, and our democracy, at stake.
I think we need a galvanizing issue. I suggest Saving the Net. To do that, we need to treat the Net as two things:
1. a public domain, and therefore
2. a natural habitat for markets
In other words, we need to see the Net as a marketplace that has done enormous good, is under extreme threat and needs to be saved.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
I once told a friend, "There is far more Stupidity than Evil in the world."
I have since unfortunately found the corollary, "Sufficient Stupidity combined with enough Power is effectively indistinguishable from Evil."
Something like that applies here, "Sufficient Greed combined with enough Power/Wealth can effect the appearance of a Conspiracy."
Think "Greedy Lemmings," and it can look like a Conspiracy.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The other [factor] is the high regard political conservatives hold for successful enterprises. Combine the two, and you get conservatives eagerly rewarding companies whose primary achievements consist of successful long-term adaptation to highly regulated environments. That's what's happened with broadcasting and telecom.
Lest we forget, it is actually the Democratic Party that is more in the pocket of Hollywood and the media companies, while the Republican Party tends to favor "big business" in general. Both parties have their share of guilt in all this mess. The DMCA was passed with bipartisan (i.e. substantial Democratic) support and was signed into law by a Democrat (Clinton). Trial and IP lawyers also tend to support the Democrats (cf. John Edwards). (Over-)deregulation of the media and telecoms industries took place largely during the Clinton Administration (though it started in the first Bush Administration).
I seriously doubt that Howard Dean is any angel on this, either. He's just as much a politician as any other. His rhetoric about being from the "Democractic wing of the Democratic Party" is a little ironic, given that he's against gun control, is hardly a pacifist (he supported Gulf War I and interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo), etc. etc. etc. I don't see him as being a liberal at all (neither in the modern "leftist" sense nor in the older Jeffersonian sense), but an opportunist like any other.
FWIW given my own political positions I'll probably be voting for "anything but Dubya", but I dislike the idolizing that Dean has been benefitting from of late. And I also dislike disingenuous attacks on one party or the other...
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
From the article: And I'm hearing from people who insist that Linux is not exactly ownerless, either. "Linux is a registered Trademark of Linus Torvalds" appears on 268,000 Web documents, Google tells me. In at least one sense, these folks say, Linus owns Linux. That means it is, in a limited sense, proprietary.
This should really be corrected. The trademark is simply on the name. You can't go write your own software and call it Linux. But the software and code is as far from proprietary as you can get. If Linus started wrecking Linux with patches, you could take the code, rename it, and have your own kernel. This guy should RTFL (license) before he writes an article.
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
I'm a hardcore conservative, and I'm not sure how much I agree with this definition. To my way of thinking, it's not a matter of "rewarding the strong". It's a matter of incentive --- if people are going to be taken care of no matter whether or not they do any useful work, they simply aren't likely to do any useful work. It's more a matter of rewarding effort than of rewarding strength. Granted, there are some serious problems with the way capitalism works too, and it does often turn out that the "stronger" ones do better. But I think that's the nature of freedom. You can't truly have freedom without the possibility of great success or great failure.
On a side note, as a conservative, I'm very strongly against the modern notion of "intellectual property". I'm all for property rights, capitalism, and the free market. But as the article mentions, copyright isn't a property right and shouldn't be treated as one. I believe in the Constitution above everything else, as far as politics go. And in the thinking of the founders, copyright cannot be a property right. Property is a right that the founders envisionsed as being inherent to mankind --- right up there with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Rights like that cannot be infringed by the state. They are not granted by the state. They are inherent to the people. But, the Constitution allows Congress to GRANT and LIMIT copyright. If copyright were an inherent right, they would have protected it as such --- they certainly wouldn't have given Congress the authority to "grant" it. Therefore I must conclude that the notion of "intellectual property" is thoroughly unconstitutional, and thus I cannot support it.
>The internet is the voice of the people
But it's only the voice of the people who have access to things like electricity, telecommunications infrastructure, etc.
It falls short of being of much value to all the people who don't have those thing (refrigeration, plumbing, surplus food, literacy... much less home computers and cable modems...)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I think the situation is even worse than the author describes. The media companies are turning copyright into a property right, which is bad enough, but they are also ensuring that they don't actually transfer any property rights when you buy from them.
They are setting up a sort of feudal system, where they own all the property, and we are merely serfs who get to pay rent to access the property.
It is important to restore some balance in the copyright law between the public and the media companies; but I think it is equally important to define what property rights (i.e. fair use rights) consumers have when they buy a CD or a DVD.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
What? How does Flamebait like this get marked positive?
... the example you are thinking of is the Carthaginian model, which was an oligarchy... the rich became senators, because only they could afford to serve for no pay, which shut out the poor from serving in government. Even Aristotle recognized the flaw in this method of governing. I would say then that paying our congressment is definitely the correct method in equalizing who can participate in government.
It's funny that the Democratic party is historically more pro-Slavery compared to the Republican party... but I guess that if you don't like history, you get the schools and mass media to revise it until "history" is in your party's favor...
And I agree, I'd love to ban soft money. Let's all bitch about the party of "big business"... So what if Democrats are more dependant on (unregulated) Soft Money contributions than Republicans (Democrats: 61% of their overall funds in soft money, up from 47 percent two years ago. Republicans: 43% of their funds in soft money, increase of 8%).
Since the start of our american congress in 1789, congress has always been paid for participating. You will also find that even the Ancient Democracies had salaries
I would argue that it is not the money that is the problem in our governments, instead the problem is with (1) the philosophies and (2) the beaurocracies of those involved. I have a problem with people who have no regard for other people's money, and do not have the personal restraint when it comes to spending it. This philosophy of socialism has morphed our government into asset reallocation, something the creators of the system never approved of. On top of that, there is so much redundancy, waste, and unaccountability... but we know that already.
I went to battle MC Escher, but drew a blank
Rebirth must come via legislation. Any attempts at a rebirth via technology will end up the same way.
We can run an internet underground, connecting sites via wireless gear, and that would be legislated, not to mention that it does not scale well. We can purchase expensive gear, but we cannot connect it via private lines. We cannot lay fiber or copper. We could buy fibre and copper, but we don't have enough money.
If I understand what you're talking about, QC runs over the existing infrastructure, and therefore can be regulated. Run wirelessly, all communications are self-regulating. Without substantial infrastructure, planning and money, it will never be more than a pet project.
This is the key point from the article, the heart of what's wrong with the anti-IP movement and the Slashdot crowd:
On such a simple scale, it was clear how the majority of the Court would vote. Not because they are conservative, but because they are Americans. We have a (generally sensible) pro-property bias in this culture that makes it extremely hard for people to think critically about the most complicated form of property out there--what most call "intellectual property." To question property of any form makes you a communist. Yet this is precisely our problem: To make it clear that we are pro-copyright without being extremists either way.
So deep is this confusion that even a smart, and traditionally leftist, social commentator like Edward Rothstein makes the same fundamental mistake in a piece published Saturday. He describes the movement, of which I am part, as "countercultural," "radical," and anti-corporate. Now no doubt there are some for whom those terms are true descriptors. But I for one would be ecstatic if we could just have the same copyright law that existed under Richard Nixon..."
Through history the "there should be no such thing as private property!" movement has been driven by those who simply don't have much private property of their own and thus would like some of yours. This is the perception most of the mainstream has of the "it's our right to download movies and software!" crowd; that they simply want something for free because they lack the resources to pay.
You ask why we middle-Americans side with the big-media companies, but the answer is we don't. We side with the very basic American idea of you not being able to move into my houses with twenty of your hippy friends in the name of "property belongs to everybody!!! Who cares that we didn't build or maintain or earn or buy it!!!"
Someone will shout back that this isn't the argument of the anti-IP side, and I understand; but that's how it sounds to us. You didn't write or film or fund the movie. So why do you claim a "right" to see it free?
The author of the article is absolutely right; if you want to win the debate you must make it more about reforming copyright laws to make them more reasonable (the mainstream can get down with that), and less about "YOU EVIL CAPITALISTS DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO KEEP ANYTHING TO YOURSELVES WITHOUT SHARING WITH US!!!" The average American will NEVER come over to that side.
The ability to own property is as fundamental a freedom to this country as free speech or the right to privacy. If you want to change the minds of the masses (and you must if you want the politicians and CEO's to change theirs; bribes or no bribes they will go with the flow of public opinion in order to stay in office) you must re-frame the argument in that way... or watch your movement slowly die as the open-trading technology window closes. And it WILL close.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
I don't know where you've been, but we currently have a $450bn projected deficit for the year 2003, and that number may grow to $500bn by the end of the year. This number, along with the trillions of debt that Reagan and Bush created, are essentially a loan taken out in your name, and in the name of every taxpayer in the USA.
After the Bush tax cut, the rich still pay a much higher percentage and actual amount than the non-rich.
Ah yes. Because you're one of the millions of people who don't actually look at your paycheck before you cash it. Maybe I can help you, by pointing out the 7.5% Social Security tax that the government withdraws from your check, along with the additional 7.5% that the government demands from your employer (money that you could be getting paid, otherwise.) And even though this isn't "income tax", it's being used to fund the war in Iraq, Congressional Pork, and who knows what else. If it looks like a tax, smells like a tax... Then it's a tax.
But the great thing about Social Security tax is that you only pay that 15% on the first $88,000 of your income. So under Bush's new tax cuts someone who declares $70,000 of income pays 35.03% of their income to the Federal Government, while someone who makes $1,000,000 pays only 33.81%. So much for fair.
And that's without any fancy deductions, which the wealthier earner will almost certainly be better able to take advantage of. Ask George Bush, who only paid 29% in 1999, on $900,000 worth of income. It's without counting the dividend and capital gains tax cuts which are likely to disproportionately benefit the wealthier person (I don't ever make more than a few hundred per year in dividends.)
Basically, anyone who believes this shit is pulling out their wallet and handing it over to someone who makes more than 10 times what they do. They're doing this, while our budget bleeds, because they think it's "fair"-- though they obviously haven't done the math. They're doing this because they feel that making the wealthy wealthier will somehow help our economy, when the problem currently on the demand side, eg it's people like the middle class and working class that we need to have extra cash to burn.
And somehow, the Republican Party is able to raise ever larger amounts of money. Hmm. I wonder where it's coming from. Basically, if you believe any of this is right, just or fair, then you're a sucker.