IP Rights Battles Are Only Beginning

There seems to be a great deal of celebration over having derailed SOPA and PIPA in the U.S.A., but they are not completely dead yet. In the meantime, ACTA has been passed by the majority of the EU nations. It still has not yet been ratified. That is little comfort, for I suspect it will be ratified easily when the time comes. To get an understanding of why this is a big deal, please check out my earlier posts on it here and here.

Another blow to the free travel of information came when the Supreme Court ruled that works in the public domain can be taken out of that status and copyrighted again. So those of you who have downloaded eBooks and movies in the public domain may end up becoming law breakers in the future. This aggravates the erosion of having limited copyrights and sets them well on the way to perpetuity, despite what Justice Ginsburg wrote.

It is ironic that there is such an effort to stifle the flow of knowledge and creativity in a time when we can finally share such things quickly and easily. Innovation is dying out in large part to actions such as these. Sure it sounds warm and fuzzy to talk about helping families of celebrities who were ripped off by their managers/producers/record labels, but resting on the laurels of those who came before is lazy. In the end, only the big media companies and their puppets in government truly benefit as most copyrights will be held by large corporations, not individuals.

So while a battle has been temporarily won, the war continues. If things keep up the way they are going, a long period of cultural stagnation is ahead for us. I firmly believe that humanity needs to keep striving and creating to advance. To my eyes, we have ceased doing so over the past twenty five years and the momentum generated in the past is fading away. We need some intellectual turmoil and the best way to create that is to ideas, concepts, and collaborations bouncing around like mad. Caging those is a huge mistake.

Freedom of Speech in Peril… From the Media?

As previous posts on ACTA have shown, I’m not a huge fan of Intellectual Property rights as they are currently handled.  While there needs to be a way to make money for ideas, those ideas shouldn’t be perpetual money machines – that inevitably leads to a decrease in new inventions and works. A little while back I read about a problem with Righthaven, a group suing bloggers for daring to quote from their clients’ publications.  Quoting small amounts from articles is covered by Fair Use, or should be. 

Now it has turned into a big business for the lawyers of Righthaven and they are going after bloogers big and small including ones who don’t even make money from their blogs.

For a glimpse of what is going on that involves some heavy irony, please read this thread at Broadband/DSL Reports.  The discussion is interesting and takes quite a turn on page two.  Yes, Righthaven is suing over content posted by a user on the forums, not content put up on the website.

So now we have media companies shaking down everyone and anyone in an effort to get money.  Free speech isn’t even considered as these intellectually bankrupt corporations look to hoover every last cent out of somebody else’s pocket.  What’s worse is that it is working. They are making serious money with these take down and lawsuit threats.

The explosion in blogs and forums has allowed more information to be shared than ever before in history.  While it often seems the Internet is a cesspool of the pornographic and the trivial, information that actually matters has proliferated changing much.  From politics to economics to wrong doings of totalitarian regimes, people have been able to get their messages out. 

It is appalling to think that the United States of America, a country founded on freedom and inalienable rights, would become the home to persecutors of opinions using quotes to back their arguments.  This along with the ACTA treaty show that things have gotten very out of hand.

Big Business & Big Government

One of the refrains I’ve seen of late is how capitalism failed and that’s why we are in an economic crisis. Something I’ve tried to explain to people in the past is that real capitalism is rarely seen in America these days.  What we have is huge corporations that dearly wish to be monopolies.  Monopolies don’t want competition, they want total control and are big believers in centralization.

So I’ve found it interesting how Republicans have been labeled the party of big business when so many big businesses mainly contribute to Democrats.  When big government and big business conspire, you get what we have these days.  What I am is a believer in competition of the free market which is different than being pro-business.  Jonah Goldberg has an excellent piece on this that everyone should read.

At Blogmocracy, Rodan has a post based on Goldberg’s op-ed that connects the union of progressives and big business with the policies of fascism.  In it, he uses a term I’ve used for years, Neo-feudal to describe the attitude of those wishing control through making everyone beholden to them. I have to point out that the ever increasing number of “czars” in the Obama administration accentuates the impression of feudalism to me.  Having people with cabinet level power who directly report to the President is all too much like vassals reporting to their lord, in my view.

I will say that the video in the post is annoying, it has some good content on socialism and George Orwell, then completely goes off the rails with the cartoony stuff at the end.

I think a fundamental human mistake is to vest power in one organization and then have all the decisions be made at the top.  This is the essence of centralization and history shows that it leads to inflexibility, inefficiency, and corruption every time.  This applies to businesses, organizations, political parties, and governments equally.

But here we are, repeating the same mistakes and being shocked when it goes wrong. While I think people are starting to wake up and see what is happening, I wonder if it is too late.  The consolidation of power by the federal government and large corporations has been going on for some time now.  The ACTA shenanigans are a good example of how it works, with the US government doing the bidding of the entertainment industry.

The solution is smaller government and small business.  A focus on these things will lead to better economic and political health in the country.  But will the American people do what is needed to bring reform about?  That’s the multi-trillion dollar question.

Government Gone Wild

With various things going on including a very demanding abandoned kitten to care for, I let things slide as far as blogging goes.  The links to interesting bits of news will stretch back into last week as a result.

Serves New London Right

At Hot Air, Ed has a post filled with immense irony.  After the idiocy that was the Kelo ruling , the original case has turned into a classic bad joke. Pfizer got New London, CT to use eminent domain to take homes away from residents and now won’t be developing the property.  To make it even more painful, the jobs lured there by the deal are being moved to another town!

The Supreme Court badly damaged private property rights in America with this ruling and the end results show why government having absolute control over who gets to own what is foolish. Makes me wish the founding fathers had put something in the Constitution or Bill of Rights about private property.

Big Guy Picks on Little Guy, Government Doesn’t Care

Back when SEIU member continued the proud union tradition of beating people during a tea party protest, most of the media yawned about it.  Kenneth Gladney was the recipient of the attack because he dared pass out “Don’t Tread On Me” items outside a Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-CT) forum.  The left spun the story by claiming Gladney started the fight, but the police report says otherwise. Interesting to read the behavior of the SEIU members present, including another assault, resisting arrest, and one who tripped and tried to claim the police beat him!  The district attorney in St. Lois has yet to do anything about it and no charges have been filed despite the video and police report on the incident. This smacks of corruption and favoritism. Thank you Big Government for posting the report.

This Message Will Be Controlled

One thing that sets dictatorships and totalitarian states apart is they insist on absolute control of the news media. Censorship abound and everything has to be in line with what they want.  It may surprise people that totalitarians will suppress even those of the same ideological or political persuasion, not just their obvious opponents. No criticism is to small to be allowed. More and more the Obama Administration is showing these tendencies. Besides attacking Fox News there is the curious case of Indymedia, a left wing website. The demand by the Justice Department for information on people who browsed the site is a privacy rights nightmare list with the following info demanded: Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and home addresses.  Read Ed’s post at Hot Air for the details of a truly bizarre story.

Secret Copyright Treaty Leaks

ACTA will affect Intellectual Property rights in the US and other countries beyond just dealing with counterfeit goods.  While this lecture at BoingBoing is a bit dry, it covers the concerns raised over this far reaching treaty. The idea of iPods being searched at the border is insane, but shows the reach of media companies into the government. Also, the ability to confiscate or destroy goods without compensating the owners is incredibly draconian. At around the 15 minute mark, the Internet provisions are discussed and I’ve touched on that before.

Orwell Predicted the Present

In Great Britain, phone companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will be forced to keep every telephone call, web visit, email, and any other thing done on Internet on record for one year. Originally the ministers had wanted this stored on one central government database, but backed off from that. Even so, this quote is chilling to anyone who believes in privacy:

653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors.

It is rapidly getting to the point where the only private communications in the UK will be face to face, for Big Brother is watching. The British are lost and only people fighting for their freedom will keep it here in the United States.