The Stinky End
2004-06-18 6:36 a.m.
We've got a very serious issue on our hands these days, and I'm not referring to the war or anything else you'll see on fox, msnbc or cnn all day every day.I'm referring to our rights to 'intellectual property'. Our right to play music in any device we want. Our right to enjoy the work of artists who have passed away. Our right to figure out how things work.
All these things are being trampled on, and personally I find it far more important than just about any other issue I've read, watched or listened to recently.
What makes it so important? Well, the difference between us and just about any other animal that we've come across in our world is our abilities of communication and intelligence. Not only can we feel, and think about our feelings, we can express those feelings to others in a multitude of forms.
Our truest freedom is our freedom to think. The systems and the people governing them seem to want to charge us for every communication of every thought we find the need to express.
It's important that we learn more about these things, and this guy has written one hell of an essay on the subject:
http://craphound.com/msftdrm.txt
Might also want to check out the EFF:
who is in the trenches every day fighting for our rights to our 'intellectual property'.
If you don't think such things matter, think about what it'll be like to pay for every time you hear a song. A couple cents a song sounds minute, but I've listened to about 6,000 songs this month just at home (since i work here). That's $120 at $.02 cents per listen. And how much do you think an artist would make off of $.02 per listen? Probably nothing, but even 5% which is an obscenely huge amount at industry stanards would be.. umm.. .001 cent per listen.
You think it wouldn't come to that if the music industry had their way? And what about you TV buffs? We're already paying obscene amounts for cable for those of us who have it. What about when TV is completely 'on demand'. There goes another few cents every 30 - 90 minutes, and we'll STILL have to sit through some form of advertisements.
What if you had to pay for every page view you made in your browser. I know my archives would never be touched.
This is the way things are headed. The corporations are pleased, and it's up to the people to show that we are not. I urge you to look into the direction our media is headed. Don't listen to the politicians and marketers telling you how bad sharing a song or lending out a book is. Find out how bad it really is. Then find out who it really hurts.
In the end, the artists and consumers get the stinky end of the stick.