I think, therefore I am
p2p news / p2pnet: "The difference between ideas and things is obvious as soon as someone hits you over the head with an idea – so obvious that until recently it was entirely clear to the law. Things could have owners and ideas could not. Yet this simple distinction is being changed all around us. Ideas are increasingly treated as property – as things that have owners who may decide who gets to use them and on what terms."
That’s the intro to an article by Andrew Brown in the Guardian Unlimited.
It’s a long, carefully measured piece and in it, he emphasises that ideas are now ‘owned,’ citing Amazon’s patent that, "covers getting shoppers to review the things they have bought on its web site" and that "Microsoft is trying to patent XML, a way of writing computer files that is fundamental to the operation of modern business" as examples.
Brown also points out that Bill Gates first came to the attention of "other hackers" because he successfully objected in law to their "taking his earliest Basic programming language and copying it, as they were used to doing". He won, "and Microsoft’s riches rest on copyright law".
But, "they also depend on its constant violation. Around every legitimate, full-priced piece of software hangs a penumbra of pirated versions. Most of these will be converted, at some time, into legitimate purchases. But the fact that you can use most MS software for free has been an important factor in spreading the habit of using it and in killing competition. The companies that make most fuss about ’software piracy’ know perfectly well that if it were entirely abolished, they would be less well off."
Brown brilliantly drives his points home and at the end writes:
"For most people these concerns may seem abstract – at least until they listen to music, where arguments about ownership are fought over all the time in the courts and, increasingly, inside the gadgets that we use. Only last week, Sony was forced to withdraw software concealed on some of its CDs that installs itself – without the owner’s knowledge or informed consent – on a computer, prevents copies being made and breaks the machine if an attempt is made to remove it. At least 47 recent CDs have been infected in this way, and one recent survey suggests that they in turn have infected half a million PCs during the last three months. Any PC thus infected can be attacked by more obviously malevolent hackers who can use the Sony technology to install their own programs on the victims’ PCs. But whether it is Sony or some Russian mafia gang that ends up working through these security holes, it won’t be you, the poor sap who thought he/she owned the computer and had bought the music.
"Legally, of course, we don’t buy music, any more than we buy software. We agree to buy certain, limited rights, which vary from country to country but which have all been routinely disregarded until very recently.
"In the US, for instance, it is illegal to copy your own CDs on to your own iPod. Obviously, this is a law that is broken all the time, or nobody there would ever buy an iPod. The 60GB model sells for $350 (£200); to fill it up with freshly downloaded content from the Apple store could easily cost another $25,000.
"Just as with computer software, the legal market has broken down because there is no obligation for buyer and seller to agree on a price, or even on what is being sold. Computers have made it possible for both sides to cheat on their agreements. Buyers can use some forms of file sharing and sellers can write ever more restrictive licence agreements to make it clear they are not selling anything, merely renting it out. There are some download services where the music you have already downloaded will no longer play if you stop your subscription. The obvious answer is to pay for it with money similarly protected – special digital rights money, which would vanish, like fairy gold, when you stopped playing with the new toy. Nobody would accept payment on those terms. Why are there companies which think the opposite is fair?
"The answer is that they are operating in a climate where intellectual property seems to guarantee an endless, effortless stream of money to its owners. The big content owners have been determining the world’s intellectual property regimes for the last few decades. By clever lobbying at extraordinarily boring conferences, they had managed by the late 90s to commit governments, through the world trade talks, to a draconian programme of laws extending the notion of intellectual property to the point where a Norwegian teenager can be threatened with jail when he writes a clever programme to let him watch DVDs on his own computer – because he is said to be providing tools to steal intellectual property.
"This is madness. Ideas aren’t things. They’re much more valuable than that. Intellectual property – treating some ideas as if they were in some circumstances things that can be owned and traded – is itself no more than an idea that can be copied, modified and improved. It is this process of freely copying them and changing them that has given us the world of material abundance in which we live. If our ideas of intellectual property are wrong, we must change them, improve them and return them to their original purpose. When intellectual property rules diminish the supply of new ideas, they steal from all of us."
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
Also read:-
Guardian Unlimited – Owning ideas, November 19, 2005
November 20th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Clearly patents and copyrights laws are allowed in the U.S. Constitution. The purpose of allowing of these types of laws was to allow the copyright or patent owner a LIMITED monopoly (originally 7 years) on who could reproduce and sell their works. This is a fine use of copyright. Now, the Korporate Kartel Klans have puchased legistlation to make copyrights affective unlimited. The fact that copyright and patents effectively never expire, and can be applied to ANY private use is killing the excercise of an even more important fundemental human right, and that right is also protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That right is called FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Unfortunately, governments, cartels, and even courts in the P.S.A. (as well as other countries) ROUTINELY IGNORE AND VIOLATE the God-given Constitutional rights of the people.
This will change ONLY when the masses RISE UP, BAND TOGETHER, and FORCE the protections of their rights. I advocate the non-violent way of doing this first. In the P.S.A., people are chosen for jury duty every day. If you or a friend receive a jury summons, you or your friend become one of the most pwerful people in the court room. It is YOU who decides the fate of the accuse (as regards to guilt or innocence) whether it is a civil or criminal case. Yes, the judge would like for you to believe that you have no choice but to follow his or her instructions to the letter. You do not have to do this folks!!! THINK FOR YOURSELF, do not let the judge do your thinking for you. Before finding anyone guilty of breaking a criminal or civil law, please check to make sure that law is Constitutional. If it is not, disregard any and all evidence that the accused is guilty and find the accused INNOCENT!!! The jury system was orginally created to protect the massess from corrupt courts and government, otherwise, judges would be allowed to render a verdict themselves. To learn more about the power of a jury, visit http://www.fija.org
Not only have judges usurped the rightful power of the law, so have lawmakers. The problem with the lawmakers today is that they get their election or re-election campaigns financed by the very people who want certain laws passed. LameScream politicians also get vast amounts of money or free advertisements from the Democratic-Republican PARTY. If “We the People” want to break up this racketeering, we must vote for candidates who are not Democratic-Republican. We must vote for candidates who run as independents or are members of alternative parties. If only members of the Democrat-Republican PARTY are running, then look at the one who has spent the LEAST amount on campaigning, or the ones for whom you have seen the LEAST number of advertisements in the LameScream media. I knoe that I myself will almost always vote for the LEAST KNOWN candidate on a ballot if there are no independent people running.
I also encourage you search the alternative political parties until you find one that you agree with the most. I then recommend that you support that party and/or it candidates via bloggin, monetary contributions, and even signs and bumper stickers. I will post the names and website of some of these alternative parties below:
http://www.veteransparty.us Veterans Party
http://www.lp.org Libertarian Party
http://www.constitutionparty.com Constitution Party
http://www.reformparty.org Reform Party
http://www.greenparty.org Green party
http://www.sp-usa.org Socialist Party
I myself am a member of the Constitution Party and just gave a recent campaign Contribution to Jim Gilchrist (Minutman Founder). I got an email from which I want to quote some parts (Please read even if you don’t agree with the Constitution Party’s platform):
-BEGIN-
Finally, people are hearing the truth – the truth that the establishment is too fearful and corrupt, to proclaim. Thatâs why itâs so important that Jim has the resources he needs to continue on to the December 6 finish line.With your help, I am more confident than ever that Jim will cross that finish line in first place.
“The success of the Gilchrist campaign in Tuesday’s election is yet another sign that the political winds in America are finally starting to change” stated Constitution Party National Chairman Jim Clymer. He pointed out that the American electorate is fed up with the national leadership of both so-called “major parties, “who continue to break promises, ignore the concerns of their constituents, dismiss constitutional restraints on their lawmaking authority, and cynically cater to corrupt corporate and other special interests.
-END-
I want people to pay attention to the last paragraph. Pick a party to support based on WHAT YOU BELIEVE is right rather than who has the greatest chance of winning. If you stay home on election day or never bothered to register to vote, now is the time to do so, because these independents are giving people a real choice. The corrupted LameScream everything is TERRIFIED of the NET, because for the first time in about 500 years, the average Joe Sixpack has as much power to be heard as the rKorporate Kartel Klans. Use YOUR POWER to affect a real change in how you want to be governed.
November 20th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
“In the US, for instance, it is illegal to copy your own CDs on to your own iPod.”
Really? when did that happen?
November 20th, 2005 at 8:47 pm
What an excellent article…
November 21st, 2005 at 12:02 am
Great article.
The whole idea that patents and copyrights promote the creation of intellectual works comes from age old beliefs that are not based on science. Mere conveniences, speculation and favoritism.
My father was a composer, possibly a very great one. He repeatedly said that the music popped into his head without any effort. He said it was all intuition. He never made money from the songs since to make money he had to gamble first by giving away his songs to music publishers who did not guarantee any income. He still continued to compose, even while he was dying in a hospital. Clearly money was not, never. an incentive to composing really good music. The same thing can be said about the music of many great composers who died broke.
Einstein did not discover relativity because a patent or copyright laws provided an incentive. It was Einstein’s intuition.
Perhaps in the near future it will be established that the drive behind great inventions, great discoveries and great artistic creation is in the DNA. Possibly we will then say that great creations comes from the DNA, not from law induced incentives. The corollary is that the drafters of the contitutions and laws if they were honest started with a wrong premise and if they were dishonest (as is likely) acted to protect the interests and monopoly of the publishers-printers class, at the expense of the people as a whole.
I recognize that some great creations are the work of many and the creations would not exist if there was no economic incentive. Certainly no one is going to invest millions of dollars in the production of a movie if there no money to be made, with the exception being that the production is made by a non profit organization or a socialist government.
I also recognize that, in music, the copyright protection that publishers and record companies have is promoting the creation and marketing of worthless creations en masse, not jobs and well paid artists, as is repeated in the propaganda of the music industry.
Just this week it was revealed that there is a dna for valor, in rats. And all the time we though that soldiers had valor because they were patriotic or were obliged or induced to act valiantly.
The meaning of it all: Copyright and patent laws and the idea that discoveries made and ideas discovered through intuition can have owners who can then sell the discovery and the idea to copyright and patenet squatters should be a subject of discussion among philosophers, scholars and scientists and not the lawmakers. Let’s get to the truth.
Rafael Venegas
http://www,gvenegas.com
November 21st, 2005 at 12:31 am
Possibly it is meant to say UK.
I think that’s what the law here currently states. We have some of the toughest copyright law in Europe.
We didn’t have the Open Rights Group (the UK version of the EFF) when that bill passed. If you are in the UK and haven’t already signed the pledge to support ORG, please do so here: http://www.pledgebank.com/rights
November 21st, 2005 at 1:24 am
I saw an article linked by Google News about retailers who are frustrated because customers pick up CD’s and put them down once they see the copy protection label.
Another part of the article talks about a record label not wanting to implement copy protection because it turn off those who want to buy. The label asks, “Why do would we want to piss off the customers.” At least one label is beginning to “get it.”
I also think it is funny that the media cartels are bitching and moaning about piracy. Filesharing has nothing to do with “piracy.” Filesharing has everything to do with outsourcing. Just as these multinational corporations say that they want to use less expensive (read that as slave) labor to meet budget constraints, we want to meet our budget constraints by saving money as well. We have outsourced the cartels to the likes of LimeWire, Bittorrent, FTP, and many other less expensive alternatives. When we want original quality product, we will buy from the cartel, until then we will use the cheaper alternatives.
I also believe that the media cartels are going to stop encoding their products with Digital Restrictions Management in the very near future, instead, they will attempt to curb filesharing by buying or otherwise controlling ISP’s and and the information they conduct. While this is happening filesharers will use alternative means that will accomplish the same thing: FreeWans, SneakerNets, and muni-nets. Once the cartels accept the fact that filesharing is beyond their control, they will begin to set their price to one that customers will be willing to pay. Unfortunately, a free Internet will be a casualty in this war.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:18 am
Last century people fought against the notion of slavery, or particularly the enslavement of human beings as physical property. I see the next struggle as a fight against the enslavement of ideas and against the notion of intellectual property. Filesharing is part of that larger struggle.
The only original thought or intellectual property that a person could claim to have, would be if the person were to be raised in a dark closet all his life. But such a person would have few great ideas and would be intellectually retarded. Most of what people have claimed to be their original ideas, are borrowed and mixed from others.
Most of the science and technology that companies use in their patents come from free public knowledge that is taught in schools and is available in libraries. To then use such knowledge towards the pursuit of ownership of intellectual property is like stealing. The proponents of intellectual property are the real thieves, as people long ago were thieves by taking human beings and claiming ownership of them.
WIPO must be destroyed.
November 21st, 2005 at 10:29 am
As a juror you have the power not only to decide innocence or guilt, but to judge the law itself. That is the power of “jury nullification” which judges do not instruct juries about.
I originally supported Howard Dean, and I ended up voting for Nader in 2004, and many people told me that by doing so I was wasting my vote, because he had little chance of winning. So that means according to them that one would have to vote for the winner in order not waste a vote. But then again if the person is winning then there is no need to vote for the person. And votes are rarely decided by a margin of one vote.
If you vote for the best candidate regardless of the odds of the candidate winning, then you are not wasting your vote. It is when you vote strategically, for the lesser of two evils, that you are wasting your vote. That happened with the millions of supporters of Kerry, who voted for him even though he was not their favorite, and still saw him lose. That to me is what I would call a waste of a vote.
November 21st, 2005 at 12:24 pm
Right on target. We now need altenate methods to pay artists and inventors, that do not depend on making and stealing “property”.
Why should Billy, the wealthiest man in the world have so much money (made by the work of others) while most voters have none? The answer: Just plain luck and a anti-people legal system called democracy. The irony is that the system is supported by the voters.
Why an Arab monarchy family have so much money to throw away while the vast majority of people in the very continent they are go to bed hungry? The answer: Just plain luck and a anti-people government system called monarchy. The irony is that the system is supported by the so called democracies. Another Irony is that ther religion likes it the way it is.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
November 21st, 2005 at 1:22 pm
I totally agree with your post and the one above. It is about damned time that we the people stop the government, cartels, and courts from treating us as if we are merchandise. We have rights, and they will be respected if only we assert our authority over the givernemnt.