I'm not sure what country you are from, but I know here in America, we have better ways. Civil Disobedience is the step that is usually taken prior to revolt. I just wish that people understood that Civil Disobedience is a limited form of civil warfare. It was called by someone "civilized civil war" after the the Marcos regime was toppled by the people of the Phillipines.
I am from America too, but in America there are large multi billion dollar media companies that will eternally kick your ass unless you stand up for yourself. People have a moral right to copy things wether or not they hire an armada of lawyers and full time staff to lobby their congressman. Since the technology exists for people to copy without limit, and without any violence or coercion whatsoever - I would say that there is now a pretty good argument for the civil disobedience case.
Now don't get me wrong. I love America, and I like politics. The whole idea behind politics is that it is better to fight wars of words than of bloodshed. But politics is not an end in itself, individual liberty is, and this time we can achieve liberty without harming anyone.
It is in our best interests to create a situation where they half to choose between copyrights and shutting down the internet. When that happens, then we will have plenty of BIG interests on our side that will be happy to fight the political battles and rally popular support.
He Said...The fact that the Internet can be used to massively violate intellectual property rights doesn't make it moral to do so.
I would assert that Intellectual Property is immoral, and that people trade freely on p2p networks and the internet, in part, to undo the damage caused by immoral copyright monopolies.
The moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that property has tangable limits - not from a King who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. Incentive does not a property right make.
Just because an institution calls something a property, does not mean that it is - any more that it did in 1850, where if you freed a slave you were called a thief - and could even be hanged.
As society enters the information age it is becomming apparent that the right to copy is a moral right that exists above government, like freedom of speech, religion, and the right to bear arms.
Look, it's not me that made this up. Infact, it was the #1 argument used by people who opposed Regan's tax cuts in 82 - they said lowering taxes would drive down the demmand for the dollar and INCREASE inflation. (even though just the opposite happened, because lowering taxes caused the economey to grow relative to the same ammount of dollars in circulation) If I earn my income in euro's - I half to pay taxes in dollars, if I earn them trade $$ from itex the barter company - I also half to convert and pay my taxes in dollars. You can't pretend like the govt taking a huge ammount of your worth and requiring that worth to be in dollars has no effect on it's value, creates no demmand for it.
2nd off, the government exists to serve me and protect my freedoms - not the other way arround. If I had a maid, and she went off and went off outrageously into debt (even trying to follow my expectations) - that is her debt, not mine. If she can't handle it, she is free to quit and let someone else try.
...The dollar is 'proped up' by the fact that it is the generally accepted medium of exchange throughout the world - and it is considered to be a safer way to hold fiat wealth than any other medium. US tax receipts are a miniscule percentage of the total US $ transactions recorded every day and have little effect on the desirability of the currency. If you are looking for a Federal culprit, maybe you should consider that the overwhelming majority of debt and equity securities are dollar denominated (Federal debt being one of the biggies) - this has a much greater affect on dollar demand.
You must not pay US taxes. Between state, federal, local, sales, property, income, capital gains, and all the other misc fines and fees - it is a miracle if you don't end up living half of your existence for the government. (and that doesn't even include social security, which may as well be a tax because I'm never going to get any value out of what I paid into it.) Of course, now days the fed reserve loans out money rather than print it up so that also creates a demand, as does the global demmand (to your credit) As does the fact that it is a pain to accept anything else as currency in the US. But lets face it, the money is paper - not ownership nor commodity. If it wasn't being proped up, people would soon be migrating to other more efficient things to keep track, make business, and do trade.
PS. The fed gov backs up and pays on it's debt with taxpayer money.
The thing with gold is that you just can't print it up and loan it out. The fed does this all the time, and the only reason why the dollar is proped up is because no matter how you provide your means (eg thru barter) you are still required to convert to dollars and pay taxes. That creates an artificial demand for dollars - without that leverage, watch how quickly things fall apart. In fact, they did fall apart a few years ago in some asian countries who were artifically proping up their currency in relation to the dollar. When investors started raising the money to call their bluff, things went downhill in a hurry. (why do you think all those countries decided to move to the euro, except for the healthier economies)
You are right about one thing though, I want good food, a home, medical care, and such - not gold. Gold is just a way of keeping track. Oil (certificates) are better, because they have an intrinsic value. In the information age, we could probably get away with stock - because computers could keep track of all their relative value. Perhaps a currency fund based off of an index of the nasdaq, amse, or nyse. IMHO, a stock based index would be the better of the two because it would be based off of human productivity - which tends to increase in productivity over time, rather than cash, gold, or oil.
The assumption you are making is,that it is American
foreign policy to liberate other nations. Outside of the United States this is not generally an accepted view of how things happen.
As is the case currently the United States will certainly liberate the Iraqi oil, and in doing so it might install a democracy and liberate the Iraqi people, but I see this as an incidental event.
Not an anti-war rant, just a differing opinion. Respond with comments not moderation.
Since I see individual liberty as an end in itself, I don't really worry much why they get it. I'm just thankfull and hopefull that they will, I think the Iraqi people deserve it. At home though, I do not like what I see.
We need solutions like requiring emergency knives on every plane, rather than restricting them - so that people can stand up for themselves. Enhancing privacy and security of our identities, rather than destroying it - digital signature solutions that don't require central repositories and single points of failure, are far harder to compromize by those who wish to do people harm. Encourage p2p network redundancy, rather than destroy it. People are thinking the wrong way, and that bothers me.
Over in the US, they stick an anal probe in you for everything you do - school, banking, job, driving, housing, that is except for voter registration. Then they are so easy going and unintrusive - it's truely amazing. I'm curious if it's the same in the UK?
has anyone else noticed that while liberties in many other places in the world is on the rise, Liberties at home seem to be more and more restricted and monitored? How can we free other peoples and nations when we can't even free ourselves?
A few years ago I told my manager that SCO was not enterprise quality and it was on the way out, and that Linux was going to replace it. They looked at me like I was on crack. Things didn't go to well for me there after that.
...It's important if it (or any of the others) go to a high enough court that it can recognize how poorly written the DMCA is and do something to get rid of it. The clearer-cut the collision or violation, the more likely it is to illustrate the inanity of the DMCA and to help us get rid of it.
There is a problem with this. The DMCA is just a symptom of trying to impose copyrights in the information age. If we don't get to the source of the problem, copyrights, we will forever be providing a revenue stream to those determined to impose controll over all information we use.
I think at this time it is important to understand that the real problem isn't the DMCA, but copyright monopolies. The DMCA (and also infinite extensions) are just a consequence of trying to impose copyrights in the information age. If you don't cut the vine off at the root, it will just keep growing back to choke us off in other ways.
Patents are a critical part of the foundation of successful free markets. Why would anyone want to innovate if not to profit from his innovations?
So that they could pretend to innovate and squeze money out of other industries that have or would have come up with the same innovations anyhow. Free markets exist and prosper inspite of patents, not because of them. Patents monopolies are worthless, it is only now that it is becomming seriously notable.
Try - "necisity is the mother of invention" - for a rational reason for people to innovate. Try - the moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that property has tangable limits. Try - incentive does not a property make. Surely it is as true today as it was in the 1850's when plantation masters insisted that they had no incentive to grow cotton without slave properties. It is ashame that so many have fallen for such fradulent forms markets and property rights.
Both money and copyrights are non tangable. But when you copy money you are making a fradulent representation of your self, of your value, and what you earned. Yeah, I know the government, banks, and some dishonest businesses do that all the time - but it still doesn't make it right for us to do it.
Howerver, with copying it is a totally differnnt thing. I'd say 99.99% of people who copy music or whatever are not attempting to fradulently misrepresent themselves as the original creator, they just want to listen to, share, or distribute information at their disposal.
Unfortunately, inspite of all his positive contributions, Lessing adamantly refuses to accept that copying things is a basic moral right, and when you restrict that (yes even for only 14 years) you are violating someone. A violation that the information age will simply not accept even if it is for 10 minutes. Here it is important to understand that information is so easy to copy and manipulate that there can be no room for middle ground - either you will half to attempt to controll all of it, or loose controll. The RIAA and MPAA understand that, and so should we.
The "Lessing" movement does not understand history. It reminds me of the people in the 1850's who desperately tried to make appeasements so that the free states could peacfully get along with the slave states. - just as the industrial revolution created forces that had to end slavery without appeasement, so does the information age half to get rid of copyright monopolies - all of them, no matter how radical and unappeasing that sounds. The real problem isn't a more sincere copyright, it is a failure to understand how evil copyrights really are.
The real problem isn't the DMCA - it's copyright monopolies being taken to their logical conclusion. If you don't cut the vine off at the root, then it will never stop trying to choke you off.
I just want to make the observation that in real life you don't get to choose your threat, of course; both threat models are present to some extent. You can only talk about which threat model $protection_measure addresses and to what extent.
Exactly, if anything - this article shows why it is an all or nothing game. Either they will half to try and controll all information, or none of it. But in all fairness we can't choose our threat either. The threat is not big media companies imposing overbearing and "glorious" sounding schemes, it is our own belief in copyrights and how far we will let them go in terms of pushing them down our throat. The sooner we refuse to believe in copyrights and all the fradulent arguments that go with them, the harder it will be for them to impose on us.
The biggest value of freenet is that if 10 million people want to download a 50MB mpeg video I made from off my cable modem at the same time.... They can do it!
If 20 million in the USA want to/. a low speed internet site in europe - they can do it!! and they can do it without downloading the same file across the atlantic 20 million times. Thank You!
No longer do you need a server room with OC48 connections and hundreds of servers running in parallel to serve up urestricted ammounts of content. No longer is the local artist limited by not being able to have a disney-world sized data center.
Freenet not only provides a nice side effect of enhancing privacy, but it is great for providing a smooth transition to the next generation of internet which most people now agree is moving toward a wireless mesh topology. If each one of these meshes also has a reasonable size data cache, the usefullness will be incredible.
You see this in every industry. It is one of the nastier side effects of "intellectual property" monopolies. The problem is that nobody will work together to create a standard, or stay together to improve it because there are inhernet risks that sharing information and collaberating cause when it's contributors can be locked out from the fruits of their own contributions.
You saw it with CPU's, BIOS, and PC's where the market was seriously fragmented until IBM came out with one that could be coppied without "intellectual property" liabilities. (notice, winntel wasn't the most elloquent technology, but succeded in the market place because it was least propriatary of all the options) You see this with AIDS research, where very few of the "big guys" are pooling resources to create a cure, and where all the R&D pushes into areas of "expensive solutions" that can be patented rather than cheaper ones that can't. We even saw this fragmenting and failure to cooperate with UNIX, that is, until Linux came out and is now causing everyone to standardize again (notice FreeBSD, was free too - but it didn't create forward momentum because it allowed for closed deravitives)
IMHO, getting rid of artifical copyright and patent monopolies is the quickest way to get the universal cooperation and collaberation society needs to move forward into the information age.
Contributions to BSD don't really help us as much because they can just be forked off into proprietary OS'es like Microsoft - which they will promptly use to put the reams to us with custom extensions. It would be much nicer if they went all GPL and nothing else.
I think the real problem is this attitude that free software is morally and intellectually equivalent to "owned" software. IMHO, this is an intellectual fraud, it screwed SCO, it will screw Sun, and it will screw us too until we finally get it.
There are many people who believe that the entire purpose of the internet is to leverage their copyright holdings for unlimited controll and profit. With information, and those who believe in DRM - it is eaither an all or nothing game - they will not give up controll to some govt collection agency, and that game will lielky be first played out to the end from the USA because that's where the forefront of the transformation to the information age is still happening, and that's where the biggest current potential for profit still is.
Renember, information is so easy to manipulate and process, that there can't be much middle ground. Either all of it has to be free, or none of it. Either they will have controll, or they won't. There is no middle ground.
heres a copy of a letter I wrote to the UK copyright office
Subject: Copyrights in the information age
To: copyright@patent.gov.uk
Dear Reader,
As society enters the information age, there are a few parallels to the industrial revolution that should be carefully considered when choosing how enforce copyright law. While my analysis is a little lengthy, I hope you take the time to read it so that you can make the best decisions about copyright enforcement
and successfully guide the UK into the information
age....
During the 1850's there were those in USA who believed
that the entire purpose of the industrial revolution
was to use inventions like the cotton-gin to expand
their plantations for unlimited control and profit.
Plantation masters, as they were called, envisioned a
system where continuous improvement in machinery and
technology would allow them to do more and more with
fewer and fewer slaves. Since the plantation system
was so enormously financially successful, there was no
reason to believe that the future would take any other
direction other than bigger plantations, more slaves,
and endless profit. While there were some concerns
about slavery, the plantation masters considered them
like any other property right. They were paid for,
there was no incentive to grow cotton without them,
and slavery seemed to have been there forever. The
plantation masters, who were astute at business and
commerce and very well educated believed that they had
nothing to fear. However, as time went on it became
more and more apparent that, in order to prosper, the
factory system would require an educated and mobile
work force. This was at direct odds with the
plantation masters whose profits hinged on being able
to control and restrict the movement of large parts of
the population. With billions at stake, and no
impasse in sight, it wasn't long before the plantation
masters were taking desperate measures to control
their slave populations. Those who tried to find a
compromize were useless. At first it started out with
unusually restrictive and harsh laws toward slaves,
and eventually resulted in a blatant attempt to break
off from the union. Of course, no one in the northern
states respected that boundary, so soon war broke out
and well over a half of million people died.
Ok, thank you for being patent enough to read that
first part, now comes the part about how this could
possibly relate to copyrights and the information age.
Today there are many people who believe that the
entire meaning and purpose of the information age is
to use new technologies like the internet to leverage
their copyright holdings for unlimited control and
profit all over the globe. The content sector, as
they are sometimes called, envision a system where
continuous improvement in information sharing and
display technologies, would allow them to earn more
and more with fewer and fewer copyright holdings.
Since the content industries are so enormously
financially successful, there is no reason to believe
that the future would take any other direction other
than bigger content facilities, more copyright
holdings, and endless profit. While there are some
concerns about copyright enforcement, the content
industry considers them like any other property right.
They were paid for or worked for, there is no
incentive to make creative works without them, and
copyrights have been around forever. The content
industry leaders, who are astute at business and
commerce and very well educated believe that there is
nothing to worry about. However, as time goes on it
is becoming more and more apparent that, in order to
prosper, many technology industries will require the
free and uninhibited flow of information. This is at
direct odds with the content industries whose profits
hinge on being able to control and restrict the
movement of large amounts of information. With
trillions at stake, and no impasse in sight, it won't
be long before the content industry will be taking
desperate measures to control their content
possessions. Those who have tried to find a
compromize have gotten nowhere. At first it seems to
already have started out with extremely harsh
punishments for copyright infringement and laws like
the DMCA in the United States, but will eventually
result in a blatant attempts to fence off all
information using content controls. Of course, no one
in the technology sector going to respect that
boundary, so soon all hell will break loose. With
trillions at stake, who knows how many people in the
middle will suffer, or what they will suffer until
copyrights are eternally unenforceable, but do we
really want to find out.
A little off topic, but IMHO government is the servent of the people. When times are bad they should be the first to take a loss, and when times are good government should be the last sector to recover. CA could especially take a hint.
IMHO, Linux has showed that information has more value when shared, than when controlled. I don't think it is a coincidence that both SUN and SCO have wraped themselves in the flag of "intellectual properties". They are dying companies chained to a dying idea. "Intellectual property" is no more a property in the information age than slaves were in the industrial age. It's just gotta go. The fact that some people don't have incentives, and that others call it a property, is irrelavent. Or to paraphrase the CEO of SUN... copyrights are dead, get used to it.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure what country you are from, but I know here in America, we have better ways. Civil Disobedience is the step that is usually taken prior to revolt. I just wish that people understood that Civil Disobedience is a limited form of civil warfare. It was called by someone "civilized civil war" after the the Marcos regime was toppled by the people of the Phillipines.
I am from America too, but in America there are large multi billion dollar media companies that will eternally kick your ass unless you stand up for yourself. People have a moral right to copy things wether or not they hire an armada of lawyers and full time staff to lobby their congressman. Since the technology exists for people to copy without limit, and without any violence or coercion whatsoever - I would say that there is now a pretty good argument for the civil disobedience case.
Now don't get me wrong. I love America, and I like politics. The whole idea behind politics is that it is better to fight wars of words than of bloodshed. But politics is not an end in itself, individual liberty is, and this time we can achieve liberty without harming anyone.
It is in our best interests to create a situation where they half to choose between copyrights and shutting down the internet. When that happens, then we will have plenty of BIG interests on our side that will be happy to fight the political battles and rally popular support.
If you don't like the law, change the law.
The best way to change this law is by open disrespect for copyrights and civil disobedience.
He Said ...The fact that the Internet can be used to massively violate intellectual property rights doesn't make it moral to do so.
I would assert that Intellectual Property is immoral, and that people trade freely on p2p networks and the internet, in part, to undo the damage caused by immoral copyright monopolies.
The moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that property has tangable limits - not from a King who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. Incentive does not a property right make.
Just because an institution calls something a property, does not mean that it is - any more that it did in 1850, where if you freed a slave you were called a thief - and could even be hanged.
As society enters the information age it is becomming apparent that the right to copy is a moral right that exists above government, like freedom of speech, religion, and the right to bear arms.
Look, it's not me that made this up. Infact, it was the #1 argument used by people who opposed Regan's tax cuts in 82 - they said lowering taxes would drive down the demmand for the dollar and INCREASE inflation. (even though just the opposite happened, because lowering taxes caused the economey to grow relative to the same ammount of dollars in circulation) If I earn my income in euro's - I half to pay taxes in dollars, if I earn them trade $$ from itex the barter company - I also half to convert and pay my taxes in dollars. You can't pretend like the govt taking a huge ammount of your worth and requiring that worth to be in dollars has no effect on it's value, creates no demmand for it.
2nd off, the government exists to serve me and protect my freedoms - not the other way arround. If I had a maid, and she went off and went off outrageously into debt (even trying to follow my expectations) - that is her debt, not mine. If she can't handle it, she is free to quit and let someone else try.
You must not pay US taxes. Between state, federal, local, sales, property, income, capital gains, and all the other misc fines and fees - it is a miracle if you don't end up living half of your existence for the government. (and that doesn't even include social security, which may as well be a tax because I'm never going to get any value out of what I paid into it.) Of course, now days the fed reserve loans out money rather than print it up so that also creates a demand, as does the global demmand (to your credit) As does the fact that it is a pain to accept anything else as currency in the US. But lets face it, the money is paper - not ownership nor commodity. If it wasn't being proped up, people would soon be migrating to other more efficient things to keep track, make business, and do trade.
PS. The fed gov backs up and pays on it's debt with taxpayer money.
The thing with gold is that you just can't print it up and loan it out. The fed does this all the time, and the only reason why the dollar is proped up is because no matter how you provide your means (eg thru barter) you are still required to convert to dollars and pay taxes. That creates an artificial demand for dollars - without that leverage, watch how quickly things fall apart. In fact, they did fall apart a few years ago in some asian countries who were artifically proping up their currency in relation to the dollar. When investors started raising the money to call their bluff, things went downhill in a hurry. (why do you think all those countries decided to move to the euro, except for the healthier economies)
You are right about one thing though, I want good food, a home, medical care, and such - not gold. Gold is just a way of keeping track. Oil (certificates) are better, because they have an intrinsic value. In the information age, we could probably get away with stock - because computers could keep track of all their relative value. Perhaps a currency fund based off of an index of the nasdaq, amse, or nyse. IMHO, a stock based index would be the better of the two because it would be based off of human productivity - which tends to increase in productivity over time, rather than cash, gold, or oil.
The assumption you are making is,that it is American foreign policy to liberate other nations. Outside of the United States this is not generally an accepted view of how things happen.
As is the case currently the United States will certainly liberate the Iraqi oil, and in doing so it might install a democracy and liberate the Iraqi people, but I see this as an incidental event.
Not an anti-war rant, just a differing opinion. Respond with comments not moderation.
Since I see individual liberty as an end in itself, I don't really worry much why they get it. I'm just thankfull and hopefull that they will, I think the Iraqi people deserve it. At home though, I do not like what I see.
We need solutions like requiring emergency knives on every plane, rather than restricting them - so that people can stand up for themselves. Enhancing privacy and security of our identities, rather than destroying it - digital signature solutions that don't require central repositories and single points of failure, are far harder to compromize by those who wish to do people harm. Encourage p2p network redundancy, rather than destroy it. People are thinking the wrong way, and that bothers me.
Over in the US, they stick an anal probe in you for everything you do - school, banking, job, driving, housing, that is except for voter registration. Then they are so easy going and unintrusive - it's truely amazing. I'm curious if it's the same in the UK?
Try maintaining an address and record database on government officers and employees and see how quickly you get shut down.
has anyone else noticed that while liberties in many other places in the world is on the rise, Liberties at home seem to be more and more restricted and monitored? How can we free other peoples and nations when we can't even free ourselves?
From what I understand, the virus itself doesn't directly kill you. It just causes your throat to swell up so bad that you can suffocate.
A few years ago I told my manager that SCO was not enterprise quality and it was on the way out, and that Linux was going to replace it. They looked at me like I was on crack. Things didn't go to well for me there after that.
There is a problem with this. The DMCA is just a symptom of trying to impose copyrights in the information age. If we don't get to the source of the problem, copyrights, we will forever be providing a revenue stream to those determined to impose controll over all information we use.
I think at this time it is important to understand that the real problem isn't the DMCA, but copyright monopolies. The DMCA (and also infinite extensions) are just a consequence of trying to impose copyrights in the information age. If you don't cut the vine off at the root, it will just keep growing back to choke us off in other ways.
Patents are a critical part of the foundation of successful free markets. Why would anyone want to innovate if not to profit from his innovations?
So that they could pretend to innovate and squeze money out of other industries that have or would have come up with the same innovations anyhow. Free markets exist and prosper inspite of patents, not because of them. Patents monopolies are worthless, it is only now that it is becomming seriously notable.
Try - "necisity is the mother of invention" - for a rational reason for people to innovate. Try - the moral and historical foundation of property derives from the fact that property has tangable limits. Try - incentive does not a property make. Surely it is as true today as it was in the 1850's when plantation masters insisted that they had no incentive to grow cotton without slave properties. It is ashame that so many have fallen for such fradulent forms markets and property rights.
Both money and copyrights are non tangable. But when you copy money you are making a fradulent representation of your self, of your value, and what you earned. Yeah, I know the government, banks, and some dishonest businesses do that all the time - but it still doesn't make it right for us to do it.
Howerver, with copying it is a totally differnnt thing. I'd say 99.99% of people who copy music or whatever are not attempting to fradulently misrepresent themselves as the original creator, they just want to listen to, share, or distribute information at their disposal.
Unfortunately, inspite of all his positive contributions, Lessing adamantly refuses to accept that copying things is a basic moral right, and when you restrict that (yes even for only 14 years) you are violating someone. A violation that the information age will simply not accept even if it is for 10 minutes. Here it is important to understand that information is so easy to copy and manipulate that there can be no room for middle ground - either you will half to attempt to controll all of it, or loose controll. The RIAA and MPAA understand that, and so should we.
The "Lessing" movement does not understand history. It reminds me of the people in the 1850's who desperately tried to make appeasements so that the free states could peacfully get along with the slave states. - just as the industrial revolution created forces that had to end slavery without appeasement, so does the information age half to get rid of copyright monopolies - all of them, no matter how radical and unappeasing that sounds. The real problem isn't a more sincere copyright, it is a failure to understand how evil copyrights really are.
The real problem isn't the DMCA - it's copyright monopolies being taken to their logical conclusion. If you don't cut the vine off at the root, then it will never stop trying to choke you off.
I just want to make the observation that in real life you don't get to choose your threat, of course; both threat models are present to some extent. You can only talk about which threat model $protection_measure addresses and to what extent.
Exactly, if anything - this article shows why it is an all or nothing game. Either they will half to try and controll all information, or none of it. But in all fairness we can't choose our threat either. The threat is not big media companies imposing overbearing and "glorious" sounding schemes, it is our own belief in copyrights and how far we will let them go in terms of pushing them down our throat. The sooner we refuse to believe in copyrights and all the fradulent arguments that go with them, the harder it will be for them to impose on us.
The biggest value of freenet is that if 10 million people want to download a 50MB mpeg video I made from off my cable modem at the same time .... They can do it!
If 20 million in the USA want to /. a low speed internet site in europe - they can do it!! and they can do it without downloading the same file across the atlantic 20 million times. Thank You!
No longer do you need a server room with OC48 connections and hundreds of servers running in parallel to serve up urestricted ammounts of content. No longer is the local artist limited by not being able to have a disney-world sized data center.
Freenet not only provides a nice side effect of enhancing privacy, but it is great for providing a smooth transition to the next generation of internet which most people now agree is moving toward a wireless mesh topology. If each one of these meshes also has a reasonable size data cache, the usefullness will be incredible.
You see this in every industry. It is one of the nastier side effects of "intellectual property" monopolies. The problem is that nobody will work together to create a standard, or stay together to improve it because there are inhernet risks that sharing information and collaberating cause when it's contributors can be locked out from the fruits of their own contributions.
You saw it with CPU's, BIOS, and PC's where the market was seriously fragmented until IBM came out with one that could be coppied without "intellectual property" liabilities. (notice, winntel wasn't the most elloquent technology, but succeded in the market place because it was least propriatary of all the options) You see this with AIDS research, where very few of the "big guys" are pooling resources to create a cure, and where all the R&D pushes into areas of "expensive solutions" that can be patented rather than cheaper ones that can't. We even saw this fragmenting and failure to cooperate with UNIX, that is, until Linux came out and is now causing everyone to standardize again (notice FreeBSD, was free too - but it didn't create forward momentum because it allowed for closed deravitives)
IMHO, getting rid of artifical copyright and patent monopolies is the quickest way to get the universal cooperation and collaberation society needs to move forward into the information age.
Contributions to BSD don't really help us as much because they can just be forked off into proprietary OS'es like Microsoft - which they will promptly use to put the reams to us with custom extensions. It would be much nicer if they went all GPL and nothing else.
I think the real problem is this attitude that free software is morally and intellectually equivalent to "owned" software. IMHO, this is an intellectual fraud, it screwed SCO, it will screw Sun, and it will screw us too until we finally get it.
There are many people who believe that the entire purpose of the internet is to leverage their copyright holdings for unlimited controll and profit. With information, and those who believe in DRM - it is eaither an all or nothing game - they will not give up controll to some govt collection agency, and that game will lielky be first played out to the end from the USA because that's where the forefront of the transformation to the information age is still happening, and that's where the biggest current potential for profit still is.
Renember, information is so easy to manipulate and process, that there can't be much middle ground. Either all of it has to be free, or none of it. Either they will have controll, or they won't. There is no middle ground.
heres a copy of a letter I wrote to the UK copyright office
Subject: Copyrights in the information age
To: copyright@patent.gov.uk
Dear Reader,
As society enters the information age, there are a few parallels to the industrial revolution that should be carefully considered when choosing how enforce copyright law. While my analysis is a little lengthy, I hope you take the time to read it so that you can make the best decisions about copyright enforcement and successfully guide the UK into the information age....
During the 1850's there were those in USA who believed that the entire purpose of the industrial revolution was to use inventions like the cotton-gin to expand their plantations for unlimited control and profit. Plantation masters, as they were called, envisioned a system where continuous improvement in machinery and technology would allow them to do more and more with fewer and fewer slaves. Since the plantation system was so enormously financially successful, there was no reason to believe that the future would take any other direction other than bigger plantations, more slaves, and endless profit. While there were some concerns about slavery, the plantation masters considered them like any other property right. They were paid for, there was no incentive to grow cotton without them, and slavery seemed to have been there forever. The plantation masters, who were astute at business and commerce and very well educated believed that they had nothing to fear. However, as time went on it became more and more apparent that, in order to prosper, the factory system would require an educated and mobile work force. This was at direct odds with the plantation masters whose profits hinged on being able to control and restrict the movement of large parts of the population. With billions at stake, and no impasse in sight, it wasn't long before the plantation masters were taking desperate measures to control their slave populations. Those who tried to find a compromize were useless. At first it started out with unusually restrictive and harsh laws toward slaves, and eventually resulted in a blatant attempt to break off from the union. Of course, no one in the northern states respected that boundary, so soon war broke out and well over a half of million people died.
Ok, thank you for being patent enough to read that first part, now comes the part about how this could possibly relate to copyrights and the information age.
Today there are many people who believe that the entire meaning and purpose of the information age is to use new technologies like the internet to leverage their copyright holdings for unlimited control and profit all over the globe. The content sector, as they are sometimes called, envision a system where continuous improvement in information sharing and display technologies, would allow them to earn more and more with fewer and fewer copyright holdings. Since the content industries are so enormously financially successful, there is no reason to believe that the future would take any other direction other than bigger content facilities, more copyright holdings, and endless profit. While there are some concerns about copyright enforcement, the content industry considers them like any other property right. They were paid for or worked for, there is no incentive to make creative works without them, and copyrights have been around forever. The content industry leaders, who are astute at business and commerce and very well educated believe that there is nothing to worry about. However, as time goes on it is becoming more and more apparent that, in order to prosper, many technology industries will require the free and uninhibited flow of information. This is at direct odds with the content industries whose profits hinge on being able to control and restrict the movement of large amounts of information. With trillions at stake, and no impasse in sight, it won't be long before the content industry will be taking desperate measures to control their content possessions. Those who have tried to find a compromize have gotten nowhere. At first it seems to already have started out with extremely harsh punishments for copyright infringement and laws like the DMCA in the United States, but will eventually result in a blatant attempts to fence off all information using content controls. Of course, no one in the technology sector going to respect that boundary, so soon all hell will break loose. With trillions at stake, who knows how many people in the middle will suffer, or what they will suffer until copyrights are eternally unenforceable, but do we really want to find out.
A little off topic, but IMHO government is the servent of the people. When times are bad they should be the first to take a loss, and when times are good government should be the last sector to recover. CA could especially take a hint.
IMHO, Linux has showed that information has more value when shared, than when controlled. I don't think it is a coincidence that both SUN and SCO have wraped themselves in the flag of "intellectual properties". They are dying companies chained to a dying idea. "Intellectual property" is no more a property in the information age than slaves were in the industrial age. It's just gotta go. The fact that some people don't have incentives, and that others call it a property, is irrelavent. Or to paraphrase the CEO of SUN