OK, if I were Eddie Vedder, I'd be bummed that a lot of people are gonna download the new Pearl Jam album soon after it hits the streets in May (I'll be buying it, Ed). If I were Bill Gates, I'd be perturbed that there are copies of XP out there that someone hasn't somehow payed for (came with my Dell, Bill... smile).
That said, were I these folks, I'd also not be so insane as to think a kid listening to ripped tracks on his iPod, or someone doing some word processing on a cracked copy of Word is somehow funding suicide bombers, IED triggerers, and other various terrorist activities; it's just not reasonable.
However, that's
exactly what Gonzales, the RIAA and others who want to put such a lock on IP that even the
mention of cracking intellectually property would send you to jail would have you believe.
Copy some software, fund a terrorist. Share the latest Norah Jones? You might as well be pulling the trigger on our boys yourself.
Yea, right.
Programmers, how'd you learn to program? Technicians, how many things did you tinker with, take apart, perhaps modify on your way to becoming proficient as an engineer, designer, electrician, repairperson?
I recall with great glee the moment I discovered the 'view source' menu item on Internet Explorer back in the day. "Great," I thought, "Now I can figure out how to do some of this here interweb programmerin' myself!" And I did, made a few dollars from programming and designing, and was happy to do it.
I remember taking apart record players, tape recorders, hard drives, my first Mac... you get the idea. Innovation is built on a foundation of what's come before. Microwave ovens needed someone to make that vacuum tube so someone could set the popcorn too close to it. CD players needed someone to figure out how to make teeny lasers. Henry Ford would have been nowhere without a host of small inventions that came together in his Model T.
Understanding comes from knowing how and why a system works. Whether through reading technical specifications, direct experimentation, or other means, I enjoy knowing how my machines crunch the bits that entertain and inform me, or pinch the atoms that feed me, cut my grass, get me to and fro...
The RIAA and its enforcement wing, the FBI would like nothing better than you to know nothing of how anything works, where it comes from, or how it got to you.
They want to make the DMCA the strongest IP lockbox ever. Here's a couple of highlights, but do check the links, please (while you can... linking will probably be a prosecutable offense before long).
...create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement...
What if I use a serial number from a website to re-activate some software I purchased but can no longer find the packaging to?
..nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.
So, my Hauppage TV card that happily records anything I throw at it (Macrovision'd or not) would be a felonious possession.
...creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy.
Copy a CD, lose your house.
...copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements.
That includes your download logs, IP address, etc, etc...
This strengthening of the DMCA, coupled with the coming turnover of the net to the telcos will pour sugar straight into the engine of the economic engine that is the Internet. Innovation: gone. Fair use: gone. Democratic discourse: gone.
The New Dark Age: Howdy!!!
Here's a clever link that I learned how to do by taking apart someone else's HTML.
And another. Sue Me.
I mean, even Dubya understands (or can read the words) that the iPod is a confluence of disparate gadgets and technologies.
Contact your critters, try and stop this thing. I'm just glad I've still got that record player and some albums for it. But don't tell anyone. That's unsecured IP... I might be in big trouble.
R
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words