Ugly legislation in the U.S. [LWN.net]

Ugly legislation in the U.S.

Posted Jan 26, 2006 4:50 UTC (Thu) by rknop (guest, #66)
Parent article: Ugly legislation in the U.S.

The sad thing is, there are probably a lot of people in Congress who believe that all of these laws are good things that will protect the innocent musicians and moviemakers who are just trying to make an honest living.

Hell, I got into a flamewar on the Robert J. Sawyer mailing list, where Sawyer himself was arguing for ever-increased copyright terms, and indeed using specious arguments and completely not understanding the arguments I was making against it. (I have to admit to not being on that mailing list much since that flamewar; it left a very bad taste in my mouth, especially where I was personally attacked because RJS simply didn't understand something very obvious I was saying. And to think that RJS is a personal bud of Marcel Gagne!)

There are lots of *people* who have bought the much-publicized line that digital piracy is a problem about which Something Must Be Done, and who will think that all of these laws are probably reasonable and just given just how horrific and scary the child-porn-terrorist-subversive-pirate digital world is.

It's horrifying to think about giving a neophobic industry veto power over not just the future creativity of other industries, but also over all future *individual* creativity. (I whined and moaned about this on my blog, which is at http://brahms.phy.vanderbilt.edu/~rknop/blog/ ; there I put the text of the e-mail I sent to my congressman.) Unfortunately, the meme that that is horrifying doesn't get a lot of play, and few people have heard it; of those who have, most people seem to think it's an extremist position. And that problem includes members of Congress. Even if they are honest, the corporate lobbyists have a lot of *access*, which they can use to convince the honest Congressmen that their position is right.

I wish there were some way to wake the world up to just what it is that these laws are tryign to do. And by "the world," I don't mean "people who read LWN.net and similar publications." Those people are already well aware. I mean the people who tape shows on VCRs, who run Windows without ever realizing that they might consider something else, who think that "Adobe" is a synonym for "PDF" and would be shocked to learn that things other than "Adobe" read PDF files, who read the entertainment section in the newspaper but have never heard of the Creative Commons, who think that Linux (if they've heard of it) is comparable to Microsoft in terms of what it is, and who care very deeply about abortion, drug legalization, flag burning, and other contentious issues that *do* make the front page of the paper. How do we wake those people up to understand what's going on? It's very tough. All of these issues come across as either esoteric legal issues or esoteric technical issues.

Bread and Circuses.

I'm depressed now.

-Rob

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Ugly legislation in the U.S.

Posted Jan 27, 2006 11:01 UTC (Fri) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

You restate your position in terms they understand and care about. Yes it's hard. Yes it takes patience. Yes it's difficult to get the magnitude of the powergrab to register. It's easy to cross the line and be seen as a conspiracy-phanatic.

If someone is a Anime-fan, ask if they ever considered the reason why a DVD bougth in Japan won't in general work on a US DVD-player.

If someone has an Ipod, ask what they think about newly released CDs that you legally buy, but which don't work with their Ipod. (or other mp3-player)

If someone plays games and sells old ones they're no longer interested in on Ebay, ask what they think about media that *cannot* be resold if you're tired of them.

If someone is a librarian, ask if they think it's a good idea to have material that cannot practically be archived, and what this migth do to our cultural heritage. (though librarians are generally more-than-average aware of the situation anyway)

If someone is a politician, ask if they think it's a good idea that people who legally buy music or movies should be allowed to listen to this music in their car. Or if a person filming his own wedding with his camera should be allowed to make a copy of the film for his parents.

If someone is a DJ, ask if they've ever used a sample from some CD, and what they think of requirements to make such sampling impossible, illegal, impractical or all of the above.

It's hardest with people who have no personal interest or investment in culture at all. The people whose horizon is limited to passively watching tv and listening to radio. Aslong as that continues to work, many of them couldn't care less. Indeed that's mostly the same demographic that couldn't care less about *anything* that's not presented as a problem on the TV, but *do* care if it is, especially if it involved Paris Hilton.

Ugly legislation in the U.S.

Posted Jan 28, 2006 1:26 UTC (Sat) by amikins (guest, #451) [Link]

Even before digital content, some of these types of issues showed up with copyright law already.

For instance.. It is totally illegal for my mother to make reprints of her wedding photos. They were done by a professional photographer, so the photographer has copyright on the photos. The photographer can no longer be located -- could be dead for all we know -- and no photography studio will duplicate the images, since the photograph is marked.

It's really kinda insane, that someone is legally unable to reproduce a picture of themselves.