Slashdot Mirror
White House Cracks Down On Piracy & Counterfeiting
GovTechGuy writes "On Tuesday the White House made a show of rolling out an expansive new strategy to combat online piracy and counterfeit goods, to the delight of industry groups. The plan emphasizes targeting foreign websites that host pirated software and movies and increasing the number of investigations and prosecutions by the FBI, FTC, and Justice Department. Here is the complete plan, introduced by the new 'copyright czar,' Victoria Espinel."
Let's keep on expanding the "ease of use" for anonymous p2p networks.
p2p is the ENTIRE future of our progress as humanity.
Governments/Corporations (and Government, Inc.orporations) have no idea what will happen when nanoscale-printers arrive, USB Plug&Play Ready.
Think about pirating processors... monitors... wireless antenna designs... turbochargers... medicines... perfumes... textiles... Rolex watches... solar panels... more nano-printers.
The future belongs to us.
Let's work on the p2p networks.
=)
While I think it is unfortunate that they have legitimized the phrase "intellectual property", it's actually a bit of a relief to see them focusing on piracy and counterfeit goods. I never had any expectation that any major official entity subject to political forces would act to weaken copyright or other "intellectual property" rules, since most commercial content creators want the maximum possible revenue from their work (regardless of broader social consequences to society and creativity). The general mindset is that creativity is fueled by the profit motive, so the more profit the more progress we will see in the arts and sciences. And while this is demonstrably NOT universally true (see open source, as just one example of many) it IS true that vast revenues are generated by copyright laws supporting commercial endeavors and the resources contributed by people so benefiting are of much more use to political campaigns than those who are creating for motivations OTHER than money.
Given that reality, Creative Commons and Open Source style licensing are probably the only practical means of preserving any of the benefits of what used to be the public domain going forward. With the courts suggesting that Congress can yank things OUT of the public domain even after they are placed there, it becomes clear that the best way forward is the "opt-in" community approach. This means, of course, that the body of work available for creative purposes outside of a commercial framework will be drastically reduced. However, the current social and legislative trends suggest that it's all we can hope for. Given that reality, those who prefer this environment can work to improve the tools and content so released in order to build up our own "subculture" over time. If it appeals to enough people, it may eventually function more or less independently of the commercial world without needing commercial content to fall into the public domain (indeed, in some sense this has been the practical situation for virtually the entire lifespan of everyone on this site anyway - how many of us remember any work released commercially in our lifetime that is now public domain?)
However, even this proposed subculture can exist only if it is not thwarted by legislative efforts. So long as works CAN be used without commercial payment, free and open source culture can survive as long as there are people willing to make it survive. My greatest concern is that Big Content will try to push for laws making ANY content available without charge subject to "unfair competition" rules - i.e. make it impossible for anyone to do ANYTHING with ANY content, regardless of license, without some form of concrete financial or goods based payment changing hands between creator and user. This might be phrased as the "Fair Compensation Act" intended to "ensure that content creators are compensated for their efforts" and "able to make a living". Free ANYTHING may be branded as "socialist", "communist", "anti-business" and "un-American". I have heard this feeling expressed - that nothing should be free; every product of any kind should be bought and sold in the open market to ensure fair compensation from users to creators. The existence of ANY free content is unfair competition and a dis-incentive to today's creative minds. Open source software prompts this opinion occasionally - for example, the "market destroying effects" of things like free compilers has ruined the livelihoods of people who might have made commercial tools. If that attitude ever makes it into the letter of the law, we are in Big Trouble - THAT is what we really need to watch for.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Student loans provided by the Federal Gov. have the same effect as mortgage loans provided by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae- they raise the price of the underlying product. Just like cheap credit inflated the cost of housing, gov. provided loans are inflating the cost of education. In addition, educational institutions like to tempt students with the promise of high paying jobs (just like that house will be worth more in the future!), leading many students into oppressive debt burdens. Unlike many home loans, however, default on a student loan is a lot more problematic.
If education had less government subsidy, it would probably be cheaper or at least more cost effective. Everything the government subsidizes to "help the people" distorts markets by raising the price or over production. It can also encourage other risky behaviors. This is not to be confused with long lead time gov. led efforts, such as basic research, environmental studies and the like, in which a "market" either would not exist or would be dysfunctional due to lack or participants. Government clearly has important roles. Providing student loans is not one of them.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe