Lessons learned from the failure of DMCA.

Maybe it’s all for the best that Mr. Patry will write a book, “How We Got Here in this Mess.’ Should be a eye-opener. The RIAA and MPAA have been the bottom-dwellers of lobbyists. We must commit our task to draining of the Toxic Swamp in DC. (Good work. Kept my metaphors straight. I still refresh Orwell’s essay on the English language.)

Richard Florida seems to think Canada is a wonderful society built on diversity and is welcoming to artists. But even he is subject to ferocious attacks. Gay-baiting.

I never discussed politics with Bill Evans. We had a mutual admiration agreement. Perhaps things were not as partisan then.

It became increasingly obvious to me in the era of 2003 and beyond, that the RIAA tilted rightward. It was an authoritarian impulse that came out of the “fear of the Internet.” (Patry calls it–”moral panics and folk devils.”)

The RIAA hopes to achieve copylock through any– and every– means necessary, whether as a rider attached to a Satellite Bill, or Immigration, border control, you name it. The US Trade Delegation seems to be pushing a treaty that we cannot get at, residing in the Executive and beyond Congressional oversight. It seems unstoppable.

As to the rumor of impounding laptops at the border—that’s Secret! No one knows. And yet we shout at the restrictions of the Chinese Olympics and the draconian surveillance of journalists. Erase your hard drives, people!

Jury’s out on Obama. It doesn’t move the needle of polls. I have no reason to trust Obama. One of his vice-presidential candidates, Evan Bayh, is a balls-out supporter of copylock legislation.