EFF: A broadcast flag update
Posted Sep 28, 2005 7:27 UTC (Wed) by
farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to:
EFF: A broadcast flag update by ncm
Parent article:
EFF: A broadcast flag update
If it really bothers you, give up their content and write to your
legislators (at all levels capable of imposing unwanted legal
restrictions). Let them know that you've stopped purchasing media as a
result of these restrictions, and that you would like them to vote
against any further extensions of copyright, or increases in the power of
copyright holders.
Yes, it's another small step, but it's a significant one for three
reasons:
- You, as a constituent who bothers to vote and write to their
legislators, are scary to
legislators. Firstly because you could vote for their opponents;
secondly, because there is a good chance that you'll push friends and
family to vote "because it's important". Your legislators do not want you
actively opposed to them.
- You've put your legislators on notice that you're watching them, and
that if they vote for (e.g.) "Save American Disney Act", they cannot
later decry the effects it has without creating a local scandal. If the
result of the SAD Act is to get a sympathetic party jailed (local
schoolkid, for example, or parents who were unaware that their child was
using KaZaA behind their backs), your legislator knows that they cannot
try and disclaim responsibility, as you'll call them on it. Not a
position you want to be in when your opponent goes round accusing you of
being against all that makes your local culture great. Further, they run
the risk that you'll be sympathetic from a press perspective, and that
there'll be a "Legislators Ignore Local Resident" scandal, just because
the press want to get at them today (e.g. for refusing to organise a
press pass to an important event for them). OK, none of these situations
are
particularly likely, but they all result in loss of office with disgrace
in the worst case; most politicians really can't stand that idea.
- Finally, you've given them an anecdote to use against the media
giants' "piracy is killing our sales" claims. Unless your legislators are
statistically trained, in which case they'll see through those claims
too, you've added a group to the list that the media giants try and
ignore: "people who don't like our restrictions and laws, so don't buy
our product." Politicians tend to go in for point-scoring, and if
bringing up the anecdote of you discomfits the person trying to buy a new
law, they'll do it for fun, let alone the chance of extra money.
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