bend over and spread
I don't think enough average users really care about their rights' pertaining to the internet. When you don't know a whole lot, you're much more likely to just sit back and let the policy reign down and just follow the new rules because you don't know any better. I've been trying to figure out exactly how to explain my position about the entertainment industry's lobbying of congress to establish much more lenient rules on preventing peer to peer file sharing. You may or may not know, but a bill was introduced into Congress that would give entertainment companies the ability to "hack" into computers and remedy the situation as they see fit. They want to be able to distribute files that would seem at first to be the intended file you wanted but then would go into destruction mode and render you unable to file-share anymore. Does this sound scary to you? I don't disagree that file-sharing is wrong; but i think the entertainment industry in all their greed is exaggerating the facts. I download music, but i also buy music that I like. I would have never bought Howie Day's cd; nor would i have traveled to Albuquerque to see him live if not for file-sharing.
The entertainment industry claims that us, file-sharers, are ripping them off. I say however, that if they hadn't of been ripping us all off the past 10 years, maybe this situation would be different. I pay $18 for a cd; who's ripping off who?
I think Dave Winer says it best:
It's hard to explain to non-computer-users how irresponsible the Berman-Coble bill is. I think any analogy is likely to miss the mark. But enough people know about computer viruses, I think, to allow for a direct explanation, which might go something like this. "Computer viruses are dangerous, they can delete files, disclose private or sensitive data, and can even be used for terrorism on a global scale. Even if the entertainment industry feels that it can write a 'safe' virus (they haven't promised they will, btw), software always has bugs, and a bug in a virus could be devastating, not just to people who use music on the Internet, but for all people who depend on computers for their livelihood, or for medical care or education. Computer technology is used for many important things that have nothing to do with listening to music or watching movies. We can't let the entertainment industry dictate how our computers are used, or take control of our computers, or destroy their utility. We paid for our computers, not them."6 August 2002
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