Damn the torpedoes! Full spe-- wait piracy?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The world still hates us (we tend to piss people off), our economy is spiraling (dwindling? I like the adjective.), our government is conducting illegal electronic searches at the border (data is apparently explosive), discrimination is written into many state constitutions but rest assure (!) the Recording Industry can continue to screw artists and those who listen legally. Because the RIAA, and everything it represents, cannot grasp the ultimatum set forth by the digital world, the RIAA instead will try change the world and the bush (I refuse to capitalize his name) Administration to adhere to the RIAA's obsolete business model.
The Justice Department has increased its investigation and prosecutions of intellectual property violations when it just so happens that the JoD was under direct instruction from the White House to make Intellectual Property cases their first priority. Naturally this means there will be more prosecutions (go figure), so "tout"ing it to the public is quite obscene. Aren't we still at war?
Sadly, what the government is really doing is diminishing our fundamental right to fair use. It may not seem so in plain fact, but what this will do is cause certain rights to fade away from existence because other laws will treat you as a criminal. I disfavor my rights being diminished. You didn't take away the rights, you took away their ability to even be used as a right.
This came from fredmenace at News.com:
Copyright is NOT a property right. (The notion that "ideas" could even be owned has historically been considered odious, and rightly so, I believe.) Hence, no "theft" can occur when dealing with intellectual "property" (really a misnomer from the beginning). Anyone who tells you otherwise is either uninformed or trying to mislead you (the **AAs are notorious for the latter). In addition, even if you did "use without authorization", you are not depriving the "owner" of anything tangible - only some potential (and hypothetical) value from possibly unrealized sales.
He is absolutely right and I too believe that the notion that "ideas" can be owned is very ludicrous. All in all, you really are not depriving the owner of anything except some hypothetical value from an unlimited good that is falsely (and wrongly) distributed as a scarce good.
As copyrights laws become stronger and the patent system becomes worse, I only see a social decline in the middle class. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I think its time to start fighting.
From the outset, patent/copyright laws were meant to establish the fact that no idea can be fully owned by anybody. It only gives the so called patent or copyright owner the right (privilege) to commercialize the use of what he has a patent/copyright over for a certain period of time. So, if, for example, I want to make use of the words iPod, Microsoft, Apple or any other copyrighted material, I can do it, as long as the nature of my use of it is not commercial, only personal. This also applies to patented inventions. Anybody can use the patent as basis for making their own gadgets, as long as it is for personal use. This fact only changes when there is an agreement or TOS made and accepted by the user. Upon acceptance or agreement to any rules and regulations imposed by anybody regarding anthing, as long as it is not unlawful, that accepted fact becomes a law between the parties. These are, I think, the basis for all the actions of RIAA and the government.
I think the thought of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is just the inevitable outcome of human nature. Nobody can change it. It's a given, so to speak. That's life and that's the way it will always be, regardless of race, color or nationality.