News & Views

Well, things haven't changed since last year, so it's time for another of my long-winded rants on the wide-ranging evils inflicted on us by Big Media. They are at it again, so I'm stepping up on my soap box to spout my opinions about their behavior again.

Judge Marilyn Hall Patel recently granted the evil MPAA a preliminary injunction against RealDVD who created software which allowed consumers to copy their DVD collection onto their computers without removing the copy protection. This is a blow to consumers everywhere because it potentially eliminates one route to an amazing digital future where you could legally carry your entire movie collection around with you just like you carry your CD collection now.

But this decision isn't Judge Patel's fault. Her hands were tied by the actions of a Congress that is apparently wholly owned by rich "Big Media." The blame lies squarely with "Big Media" companies who essentially bribed and cajoled Congress into passing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) under the guise of protecting their copyrights. The law was passed with zero regard for how it would affect consumer rights, because that is exactly what Big Media wanted.

With the DMCA, Congress destroyed consumer rights. We already have the legal right to make a copy of media we buy (just Google "Fair Use"), but the DMCA made it illegal to remove copy protection from media. SO, the evil media companies just put copy protection on everything, which conveniently bypasses our right to copy our media. Sneaky, right?

Well, RealDVD figured out a way to copy the media to your hard drive and play it without removing the copy protection. The copy protection is still intact, so technically it doesn't break the DMCA. Making a copy is protected by Fair Use. So, this is completely legal. Yet, Big Media still went ballistic. They ostensibly sued RealDVD for breach of contract (which RealDVD technically DID do), but they sued with the main intent of preventing RealDVD from helping us exercise our Fair Use rights to copy our media. Big Media paid good money to get the DMCA passed. They don't want anyone finding a way around it and messing with their cash cow.

What should really happen is that somebody should challenge the legality of putting copy protection (Digital Rights Management - DRM) on media to begin with. It inhibits our Fair Use rights. After all, if they can't legally put the DRM on, then it doesn't matter if it's illegal to remove it. But that probably won't come out of this case. This case is about evil companies squeezing more money from paying consumers.

So why would Congress basically make it illegal to exercise a right we've had for a long time? Because they are crooks. Our lawmakers are bought and paid for by Big Media companies with deep pockets. Despite being OUR elected representatives, and working in a government we finance with our taxes, lawmakers care ZERO about consumers. That's because they get far more money from lobbyists than what we pay them. Yes, our system is severely messed up. Further, any time somebody proposes that we outlaw lobbyists, it gets voted down by Congress, who coincidentally are the primary people benefiting from the current arrangement. Big surprise.

If ANY of our lawmakers actually cared about voters, they would introduce a Digital Media Consumers Bill of Rights. That law would protect our right to use any piece of media we buy on any piece of equipment we own. It would make it illegal for ANYONE to infringe upon that right by using DRM or by tying media to specific hardware. Of course, if any of our lawmakers cared about voters, they would outlaw lobbying by special interests. That's not going to happen anytime soon. So, what can we do?

Big Media companies are squarely at the root of this evil being enacted upon consumers. The RIAA and the MPAA are organizations populated by evil companies who abuse the legal rights of their paying customers in a quest to milk more cash from us regardless of the morality of their tactics. DRM does NOT stop piracy. Piracy has escalated even as DRM has become more strict and more common. DRM only hurts legitimate paying customers. Yet, they continue to use DRM. It's obvious why they really use it and it has nothing to do with piracy. That's just a cover.

They use DRM (and the DMCA) to support a business model which makes zero sense in a digital world by turning our government into a media-owned private police force. They bypass our previously established "Fair Use" right to make a copy of media we already bought for our own personal use. Fair Use predates the DMCA. The DMCA doesn't even outlaw Fair Use. It just creates a sweet loophole for Big Media to screw law-abiding consumers. The DMCA makes it illegal to remove DRM. So, the evil studios simply put DRM on everything, which conveniently sidesteps our Fair Use rights. I believe that was their real intent from the start. In my opinion, their act of pushing through the DMCA never had anything to do with stopping piracy. That was just the reason they had to give publicly in order to push it through. The law was designed to sustain their failing business model and generate revenue through legislation.

How does the DMCA (and DRM) support Big Media's business model?

I'll explain. If we want to use our purchased media on more than one device, Big Media bought enough legislators to force us to buy multiple copies of the same product, when we already have the legal right to make a copy. They did this by basically authoring the DMCA without any input from consumer rights groups and pushing it through Congress by buying votes through their lobbyists. It is an evil and backhanded way to force legal, paying customers to give them more money for something we already bought. The DMCA is written to help them rip off paying customers by sidestepping our rights and has zero impact on real world piracy. DRM and the DMCA don't stop piracy and never have. Only the simple-minded would think this is about copyright theft.

This case is all about Big Media continuing to use the DMCA to obstruct our previously established right to make a copy of media, all so they can continue to milk us for far more cash than they should legally be entitled to get. RealDVD breached their contract because they believe the restrictions the MPAA placed on them should be illegal. I agree with them. RealDVD tried in good faith to obey the law, as it is written. They required your original copy-protected media in order to copy it to your hard drive. They also kept the copy protection intact, which means you can't just give copies to all your friends or sell copies on a street corner. So, any notion that this case is about preventing piracy is nuts.

It's about Big Media bypassing our Fair Use rights on media we already bought. It's about milking their paying customers, not inhibiting thieves. The fact that the MPAA is even pursuing this case shows they hate their paying customers. They abuse our rights only so they can rip us off. They put restrictions on RealDVD which should be illegal. That's why RealDVD is fighting and I support them in their fight.

My suggestion? I hate to say it, because I've bought more media than just about anybody I know (850+ movies, 600+ CDs, hundreds of books, hundreds of pieces of software), but the only solution that will work is we just need to stop buying their products. I've given these companies the benefit of the doubt for far too long. Do we really want these companies to keep doing this to us indefinitely? Do we really want to keep paying $14 for a CD which costs 18 cents to make? Do we really want to keep paying $20-25 for a DVD that costs $1.50 to make? Do we really want to buy 4 copies of a movie so we can put it on 3 iPods and watch one copy at home? Do we really want to give them more cash so they can buy more politicians and eliminate more of our rights? I sure don't.

These companies are doing things the same way they have for many decades. They don't want to move into the future. They like the huge money machine they have now. They are fat, lazy, bitter old men who hate change and want no part of it. These companies are the only thing holding us back from quickly moving into a far better future for all digital media. These companies are the real problem. The RIAA should be killed off first, with the MPAA to follow if they don't change their ways.

We need to replace these dinosaur companies with modern digital-age companies who put customers needs and desires first. If Google or Amazon were running these companies, we would see a total change in how we watch movies or listen to music within a very short time. Our media collection would be stored in a virtual library online, easily accessible anytime, anywhere, and on any device we own. The media would cost less to purchase and be far more versatile. Progress and innovation would be enhanced, not hindered. Old distribution models would be dumped in favor of purely digital transmissions. Every aspect of the industry would be better for consumers if Google or Amazon replaced Big Media companies. What we need are companies who can turn that dream into a reality.

Just as an example, can anyone explain to me why music CDs are EVER made in advance and shipped on trucks to a store? It's a freaking digital file. Transmit the CD to the store over the Internet, store it on a hard drive, and only burn it when customers actually buy it. At a minimum, this would save manufacturing and shipping all those really crappy CDs which never actually sell. It also saves tons of shipping costs for the ones which DO sell. It could also allow people the option of putting the CD on an SD card, iPod, or thumb drive instead of a disk.

Who needs CDs anyway? I bought CDs to avoid DRM. I also bought CDs so I had control over the quality of the digital file. But, want to know where all my CDs are now? They're stored. I put the files on my computer, threw away the bulky CD cases, and then stored the disks in binders. Every one of them was pressed in a factory, packaged, warehoused, and shipped through multiple distribution points to end up on a store shelf. Then, I bought it and drove it home where I copied the files onto my hard drive, threw the case in a landfill, and put the CD in storage never to be used again.

That's a huge waste of resources and money just to support an ancient distribution model that a bunch of old geezers at big media companies simply refuse to abandon. The CD started as digital files on hard drives and ended as digital files on my hard drive with a bunch of expensive, wasteful stupidity in between. All of it created just so those Big Media idiots could stay rich. My suggestion? Cut out all of that middle crap and pass the huge savings on to me and the original artist. I'd buy a lot more.

What about iTunes or Amazon, you ask? Well, one thing I hate is that I lose control over the quality. Yes, iTunes does let you cut out the middle distribution part (mostly), but instead of it being a lot cheaper, it's even more of a rip off than the CDs. There is no way that copying a dozen digital files from a server should cost nearly as much as pressing, shipping, warehousing, merchandising, and selling a real CD. Yet, they are priced far too similarly. Plus, the quality of what you get is worse.

This is because evil Big Media is inflating the price far beyond reasonable. Selling 50,000 copies of a digital file on a server costs only a tiny bit more than selling 1 copy. Their markup is insane, even if you spread out the initial production costs. There is no manufacturing, shipping, warehousing, or distribution channel. Plus, even with the vastly inflated price and vastly reduced cost to distribute, the original artist doesn't get any more money at all. I'm guessing it all goes into the pockets of Big Media, so they can buy more Congressmen.

Remember, I said they need to cut out the middle processes and pass the savings on to me and the artist, not hoard the savings. Using the immense cost savings of digital distribution to make themselves far richer isn't any better than keeping the price of new release CDs at $14 for the past 25 years despite the fact that the cost of making them has dropped to pennies compared to the high original cost decades ago (about $8 each originally?). Both practices are just plain wrong, but when you have an entire industry colluding on product pricing, and Congress in their pocket protecting them, the consumer gets hosed.

If the HUGE savings of digital distribution of media files was actually passed along to the consumer, media would become so cheap that piracy would simply disappear. If it's dirt cheap and extremely easy to obey the law, why break it? Plus, everyone would own more media. The door might even be open to keeping all of our media securely online and easily accessing it from all of the devices we own. All of the media files could be stored once and anyone who owns it could point to that same file, just like on Amazon's Kindle service for books. But if the Big Media companies have their way, this bright future will never happen. They want things to stay the way they've always been.

We basically need to kill off the root source of all these problems. If you don't kill the root, the wart just keeps coming back. "Big Media" is a major blight upon our digital media future. They are the worst sort of wart that just won't go away. We just need to put them out of business. So, think very carefully before you give them another dime of your money for ANY of their products. The only way things will change is if WE change them. If we stop buying, perhaps fear of bankruptcy will bring them to their senses before they die off completely. If not, then good riddance.

So, maybe it's time to stop buying their products. Personally, I think we should all hold hands and loudly wish every single one of those evil studio execs and their vast number of lawyers the worst possible life followed by a slow and painful death. What they are doing to their once loyal customers is just plain wrong and I can only hope karma makes it right.

For more information about evil Big Media companies see: 
http://www.boycott-riaa.com
http://riaasucks.com/
http://gizmodo.com/241595/even-foxtrot-thinks-the-riaa-sucks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/10/riaa_keeps_12yearold_quiet/
http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MPAA_v_ThePeople/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/05/reminder-from-the-mpaa-drm-trumps-your-fair-use-rights.ars
http://kirksigmon.com/2009/05/thoughts-on-the-mpaa-lawsuits/

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, Movies, MPAA, Music, Opinions, PRO IP, RIAA

Google recently swung a deal where old orphaned works would be scanned onto its servers and made accessible via the Internet. This could make millions of previously out-of-print works instantly accessible to the entire world via web browsers. The works would comprise every type of creative work man produces, from the written word to recordings and films. This may not sound like an Earth-shaking deal to many, but it stirred up an old dream I had about the future of human knowledge on planet Earth.

In the future, I always saw the world using NetSlates. What is a NetSlate? Imagine this. Your personal NetSlate can run for weeks without charging. It has virtually unlimited bandwidth for displaying any type of media. The connection is bi-directional allowing interaction between an unlimited number of these devices in real-time. It has an ultra-high resolution, wide-color gamut display. It has incredible audio capabilities built-in, too. Perhaps it can even project full-color imagery or interfaces in 3 dimensions when it lies flat on a table surface. The device is incredibly thin, perhaps even flexible and weighs next-to-nothing.

Sounds great right? It's like a cross between the most powerful supercomputers, the best graphics workstations, and the lightest, thinnest, tablet PC's available today. Think nuclear-powered Kindle on steroids. Also, think unlimited cheap wireless bandwidth. Ok got the picture?

Now, imagine literally everyone can own a NetSlate because they are dirt cheap. In fact, they're free in many cases because advertisers give ad-supported versions away constantly. They all display basically the same information and media. Our NetSlates are totally compatible with one another because they all feed from open format, world-standard files stored on insanely fast servers connected to the wireless super Internet of the future. This is an idealist future I've babbled on about for a couple of decades to my wife, family, and friends (started thinking about this device back in the pre-WWW "CompuServe" days). I believe this is where we are finally headed now.

For proof, simply put that Google media-scanning deal in the early development context of that not-too-distant future vision of NetSlates. Everyone owns a NetSlate and all the information ever created by mankind is available instantly to all  of us. These early scanning efforts and other efforts by Google to put literally everything online are the baby steps needed to reach that admittedly idealistic NetSlate future.

In fact, the Amazon Kindle could be seen as another of those baby steps toward ubiquitous access to knowledge and the ideal of a futuristic NetSlate. Amazon has 250,000 publications available for the Kindle. Imagine if the device were also a high-speed, non-DRM, unlimited-bandwidth, browsing device pointed directly at Google's scanned-information storehouses. Adding millions more creative works which are currently out of print would make the Kindle vastly more useful than it already is. If Google and Amazon were to combine their future efforts and stick to open worldwide standards, the significance of their separate baby steps would become even more important toward the long-term future of human knowledge.

Imagine a future where bulky books, magazines, cables, and plastic discs are replaced by slim personal devices with always-on, unlimited, wireless connections to limitless media and information. Imagine there literally being no limitations to the information you could explore on your device. The barriers between us would fade as we all gain equal access to all knowledge and information.  Now, that's an exciting future, right? We will absolutely have the technology to do all of this in the not-too-distant future.

Unfortunately, my NetSlate dream will likely never fully happen. Why not? Didn't I just say we'll have the technology? Yes, I did. But technology won't be the limiting aspect of this ideal future. The NetSlate future won't happen because we'll never be given access to the total of human knowledge, no matter how far technology progresses. Knowledge is power, so it just won't happen.

The rich and powerful control the masses by throttling information. They monitor and control the sources, the quantity, the quality, and the accessibility of all information and that is largely how they maintain their power over the middle and lower classes who far out-number them. The NSA and HSA now routinely monitor all information flow, thanks to the laws passed by the scared old men sitting in Congress. Their regular efforts to regulate the Internet are another demonstration. If literally everyone had access to all human knowledge, the most powerful would lose one of their best tools in controlling us. So they will do their best to prevent this ideal future from ever happening. Just watch the news and you'll see it.

For example, those same scared old men in Congress created laws which legalize the extortion of children and grandmothers by rich media companies (like Sony, EMI, Universal, Warner, Disney, Viacom, and others). Those rich media companies now get insane amounts of control over what we do with the products we purchase from them. They take gestapo-like actions against completely innocent individuals and then are not held accountable for their extortion attempts. They aren't even required to provide proof that a law was broken before they begin their extortion and harassment process. In this way, they have more power than the local police.

These rich media companies amuse themselves by bankrupting poor college students who didn't cost them a dime of profit because they couldn't afford the media product to begin with. This tactic often takes a potential college graduate, who would have later purchased products from them for decades, bankrupts them, and puts them out on the street. So, in place of a high-earning college graduate, the rich media companies create a college dropout who hates them and will never purchase another product from them. Why would these media companies do something so stupid? It's all about control. They are blinded by their hunger for power and control, so they shoot themselves in the foot over and over.

Yes, the technology will someday exist to create NetSlates we can all afford. The technology will someday exist to create high-bandwidth wireless connections for those NetSlates which will allow all of us equal access to vast stores of online information. The question is: What information will be available to us when that full-blown technology finally arrives? That's where the bright future of the "NetSlates ideology" falls apart.

It will be the rich and powerful who will kill my dream of "widespread access to all knowledge via NetSlates." It will be the evil efforts of greedy media companies which will kill our future ubiquitous wireless knowledge and media access. Yes, we may get some useful subset of my NetSlate dream, but we will never realize its full-blown potential. We will never be allowed full access to all of human knowledge and creative works. That is the bittersweet reality we live in. Those in power will always control our access.

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, MPAA, Music, Opinions, Predictions, PRO IP, RIAA, UI, User Interface

Wind power will allow us to purchase $300 billion less in foreign oil every year. That's the upshot of an amazing plan presented by T. Boone Pickens. The plan, known as "The Pickens Plan," may really be the salvation for our ever growing dependence on foreign oil. He has found a way for us to replace oil imports with wind!

According to Pickens, we now import about 70% of the oil we use in the United States. This figure is nearly triple the percentage we were importing in 1970. But the real kicker is that the foreign oil costs us a whopping $700 billion a year! That's money taken straight out of our pockets and sent overseas.

Pickens is working to help us stop sending so much of our own money to foreign interests, while creating more jobs, saving us money on fuel costs, and reducing our environmental impact. To accomplish this, Pickens wants us to utilize our wind power. What is odd about his enthusiasm for wind power, is that Pickens made his fortune in oil.

You may wonder how building wind farms will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce transportation costs. Oil is used primarily for transportation, while wind is used to generate electricity. You may be thinking, "he's pushing electric cars."  You would be wrong. If he's not suggesting we drive electric cars, then how are we going to make transportation costs cheaper at the same time? Oil is going up in price. How does all of this fit together?

This is where the genius of his plan really becomes evident. Pickens says we should use wind power to replace natural gas for generating electricity and then use that extra natural gas to power our transportation. This is one of those ideas that is so simple it's brilliant. It makes one wonder why nobody thought of this before. There are already 8 million natural gas vehicles on the road, so we know it works well as a transportation fuel. But can we really reduce that $700 billion number by using natural gas?  And if so, by how much?

Currently, we generate 22% of our electricity using natural gas. If we were to generate that 22% using wind power, we could apply all of that natural gas toward transportation. According to Pickens that would reduce our oil imports by 38%, to the tune of around $300 billion.

So the next question becomes, "can we generate enough electricity to replace the natural gas?" The Department of Energy released the results of a study last April which seem to verify that it is indeed possible. Take a look at the Department of Energy wind map, and you will notice that the United States has more land area with usable levels of wind than anyone else in the world. Best of all, we have a huge "wind corridor" running straight down the middle of the rural portions of our nation, which will make for easier east-west distribution of the electricity.

The location of the "wind corridor" also means we'll be utilizing lots of wide open fields surrounding small communities that have been hit hard by changes in agriculture over the past few decades. Putting wind farms on all of that land will not only generate the electricity we need, but it will revitalize those ravaged rural communities. Farm owners will have an additional source of income by becoming wind generation sites.

There are other benefits from the Pickens plan, too. Additional jobs will be created from the manufacture, operation, and maintenance of the wind generation facilities and equipment. A larger percentage of the nation's vehicles will burn natural gas, which burns much cleaner than gasoline, with fewer emissions. The Honda Civic GX Natural Gas Vehicle pictured is the cleanest internal-combustion vehicle in the world, according to the EPA. Further, natural gas is cheaper than gasoline, which will save us all money. Plus, I personally feel better knowing we wouldn't be handing as much of our cash over to nations that despise us and our way of life.

One of the things I like most about the Pickens plan is that it can be implemented fairly quickly. I saw Senate hearings where numbers were tossed around about costs and timetable. It was stated that this plan could be fully implemented within 10 years at a cost of about $17 billion per year of private industry investment. Compare that cost with the (constantly rising) $700 billion per year we are already handing to other nations to purchase oil, and it seems trivial. Put another way, spending $17 billion per year for 10 years could save us $300 billion a year forever. That's less than half the amount we are spending each year on the war in Iraq!

At this point, I can't see any logical reason why both Presidential candidates and all of Congress shouldn't be jumping up and down to implement this plan. In fact, I don't see why we need to wait for private industry to make that $17 billion per year investment. This should be an infrastructure expenditure like the national highway system or the Hoover dam.

In a nutshell, we should just do it! If we need to, bring the troops home and put THEM to work helping to build it. If we as Americans pull together to make a change, it can happen much faster. Let's put some pressure on our elected officials to make this happen quickly. The quicker it happens, the quicker we can stop pumping our own cash into the hands of other countries.

Labels: Congress, Environment

Several years ago, the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change, assembled 928 peer-reviewed and published research findings from long-term studies on global climate done by scientific research teams all over the world. This comprises research done, cross-checked, and verified by probably tens of thousands of climate research scientists in total. The UN IPCC compiled this report in order to see if there was consistent scientific evidence that we are experiencing a human-induced, long-term global climate change. They came up with the following results, as reported in Science magazine:

"The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

(Excerpt from "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,"  Science Magazine, December 2004.)

In other words, close to a THOUSAND peer-reviewed scientific research studies were compiled into one combined report and not a single one of those research studies disagreed with the fact that global warming is real.

Think about that. If global warming weren't real, you would think at least ONE of these reports would disagree. Wouldn't you?

Our freakishly-stupid government officials still deny the reality of global warming, despite the entire legitimate scientific community supporting it time after time in hundreds upon hundreds of studies. Why would our government do this? It seems to me these government puppets cannot bite the hand that feeds them (special interests) so they constantly vote down any form of government response saying, "it needs more study." As if the 928 long-term studies cited by the UN IPCC report aren't quite enough and one more report might just do it. The Bush administration, in particular, has tried to sweep all of the world scientific research under the rug with disinformation because the "good old boy" himself sleeps with "Big Oil" more than he sleeps with his own wife.

These same large corporations who seemingly own most of our government officials (big oil, coal, gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, and other manufacturing industries who do not want to clean up their emissions due to the expense) are forming and financing small no-name organizations which are tasked to find believable ways to discredit the masses of global warming research and convince us we're all ok with things the way they are now.

These little organizations supposedly do research, but they won't subject it to scientific peer review because they know it would be proven to be fabricated or biased. Yet, they still publish the research without ever having it reviewed and call it truth. Sometimes they use it to try to promote conspiracy theories about the "global warming movement," as if these many thousands of independent climate scientists all over the world have something to gain by saying we're doomed.

In reality, the only people who stand to gain anything are the people trying to convince us it isn't real since they get paid more if they find some evidence, however small, that it might not be true. That should make their motives suspect. Then they use the Internet to spread disinformation because the Internet is free, and people will believe anything they receive in email or read in a user forum.

It's pretty easy to find published results of real scientific studies on global warming. Just do a quick search on Google or Wikipedia.

 
More information on this chart.

Most scientists don't want to cause complete panic so they temper their public statements, but the situation really is dire. I can look at the numbers myself and understand a lot of the calculations on what is coming. It only takes 2 degrees Celsius of increase in world average temperature to completely change our world in a disastrous way. It only takes 2-3 degrees to melt almost all of the ice on Earth, raising sea levels dramatically.

More information on global warming.

So what could happen if all of these predictions are true? You may want to sit down while I tell you.

Within 30-60 years, if this rate of warming and glacier/polar ice melting continues, we could be 3-5 degrees Celsius hotter. This means the Midwest could mostly become a desert. The polar icecaps and glaciers of the world could be almost completely gone. Some areas will have horrible storms and flooding. Others will suffer extremely long periods of drought.

Canada and Russia may become the major agricultural suppliers to the world due to warmer temperatures and much longer growing seasons in the far north. The Colorado River may dry to a comparable trickle causing people to abandon entire cities due to water shortages in the desert southwest.

Most of the coastlines of the world may be under water. A lot of Florida could be under water. The island of Manhattan could be under water. London could be under water. Some island nations may disappear completely. A lot of fish species in the oceans will die off due to lack of oxygenation, upsetting a huge portion of the world food chain and causing widespread famine.

Two hundred million people in THIS country alone may need to be relocated to other areas and literally billions will be affected worldwide. Many trillions of dollars of property could be lost, bankrupting a huge number of big corporations and banks. The effects might plunge the world into the worst depression in history. Economies of a lot of nations might completely collapse.

Governments could fall. Violence could erupt from food shortages. Our own nation's economy may come close to collapse as well. There might be worldwide famine. I wish I was making all of this up, but we might live to see it happen if we don't do anything to stop it.

For my generation, it's easy to say, "So what? I probably won't be here by that time anyway." But do we really want to be remembered as the generation that sent the entire world back into third-world status when we could do something about it now and prevent it? I don't want our generation to be remembered that way, but it doesn't matter what I want.

In reality, I'm completely certain this nation won't do a damned thing. Our country has never even signed the Kyoto agreement. Some individuals may care, but our leadership obviously doesn't. We won't do anything about the future because we are a nation governed by short-sighted, power-crazed, money-grubbing, ill-informed, puppets sitting in marble halls plotting what legislation they can pass next in order to get the rich lobbyists to pay for their next family vacation on a private corporate jet.

That's the American way. Stupid people breed like rabbits and intelligent people don't. Self-serving jerks move up in power and nice people get walked on. The rich own the politicians and the politicians run the nation into the ground while ignoring the rights of the people. All of this while the apathetic majority in this country sits at home and watches Jerry Springer reruns with every light and appliance in the house turned on.

What can we do? We should all install compact florescent light bulbs. We should all recycle. We should embrace more efficient technologies in our transportation and homes. But in the end, this may only delay the inevitable until our generation is dead and gone. At some point, humanity will have to pay the piper for the mistakes of our leadership.

The bottom line is, we are likely all doomed because of the short-sightedness of our leaders. We might as well sit back and enjoy the ride while it lasts and hope we are dead before the worst of it hits. Because, our long-term future looks truly grim.

Labels: Congress, Environment

As I was reading a news item today on the "ars technica" web site, I wondered how many people are still under the delusion that the details of their lives are private. In truth, our online privacy is a complete illusion. It has been for quite some time.

I have previously pointed out, here and in my blogs on other sites, how the NSA has been watching the email, chat, Twitter, file transfers, web browsing, etc., of Internet users for quite some time. I've also pointed out how the RIAA and MPAA have had hackers poking around into the personal files of individuals for years. Both facts have been documented in many places, including major TV news shows. I've also pointed out the documented cases of thousands of individuals being falsely accused and still being forced to pay huge fines due to the practice of extortion by the RIAA and MPAA.

Yet, there is still no widespread public outcry. The technical media recognize the implications of this totalitarian behavior, yet the average Joe keeps going about his daily routine as if nothing has happened. I guess he figures as long as he isn't one of those 8,000 people paying multi-thousand dollar fines for something he didn't do, then it isn't his problem.

This makes me wonder. Is freedom dead in the United States? In the future, is some other country going to have to come and rescue us from our human rights-abusing government like we rescued Iraq? Are our leaders so stupid and clueless that they don't see they are pushing us down the exact same path that led those other countries into the position of needing to be rescued? Based on what I've seen, our leaders really are that stupid. Or perhaps they are so overcome with their own lust for power and control that they don't see the parallels between their behavior and the early days of those regimes. That, in itself, is a bad sign for the future.

So what can we do about the steady decline of our freedoms in this nation? Well, you could write your representatives in the capitol, but to be honest, I think we are so far past those power-crazed morons listening to their constituents that it would do no good at all. They are paid far more by the people doing the spying than they are by us (in one way or another).

I personally think a better approach is to spread the word about what is going on to everyone you know. Educating and inspiring the masses is our only hope. Then, we can simply vote these jerks out of power when the opportunity arises. Just make sure we replace them with people who still listen. I guess this assumes that they haven't already rigged the voting process. *sigh*

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, MPAA, PRO IP, RIAA

As if the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 wasn't a bad enough blow to the Fair Use rights of consumers, the clueless old farts in Congress are taking another stab at killing every remnant of consumer rights. After massive lobbying by the RIAA and the MPAA (among others), the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PRO IP Act) has passed the House Judiciary Committee. Oh joy.

On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with making penalties stronger against folks who pirate content, right? They're criminals. So why should the rest of us law-abiding citizens be worried about it? There are two major problems I see.

One is that the actual act of "violation" is open to much interpretation by the copyright holders. This means they can claim violation in cases where Fair Use should allow content duplication. The RIAA and others already abuse the existing laws to harass thousands of innocent people into paying multi-thousand dollar fines just to avoid court battles. Do you think they will hesitate for one second to abuse this new law? Not likely.

The other problem with this new law comes in the lack of consideration as to HOW the violation occurred. As this law stands, an innocent individual can have their equipment seized and be put in jail simply because a guy sitting in a car across the street with a laptop used their wireless network to download illegal content. When deciding if you are a suspect, they only look at your IP address, which really means the IP address of the wireless router attached to your cable or DSL modem. Anyone who can access that router can make it look like you violated the law. In fact, there are lots of ways a criminal can make it look like you were the one who downloaded the illegal content. One of the most popular is called "IP spoofing" and the real pirates all know about how to use it. So this law will not catch all of the pirates, but it will destroy the lives of a lot of innocent individuals.

There are, in fact, many other situations where innocent individuals could have their lives ruined by the idiots like the RIAA who will abuse this law. What if somebody staying at your house uses your computer? What if one of your children downloads something without even knowing it is copyrighted? What if you download something that is listed as non-copyrighted by a web site and that web site was lying or ill-informed? Sure these things might be able to be proven AFTER the arrest and seizure of your equipment, but your life is still ruined.

The reality is that the copyright holders will mostly use the THREAT of imprisonment to force you to pay them large fines regardless of whether you are actually guilty. This makes me wonder what happened to "innocent until proven guilty?" It seems that Congress has eliminated that concept at every possible opportunity.

In fact, it seems to me that Congress is owned by the special interests who are pushing this law. What makes me think this? Those special interests have a documented history of abusing the law to harass innocent individuals, and yet Congress keeps giving them more power. Congress is showing complete disregard for the rights of consumers, because they have not included provisions protecting individuals from abuse or even provisions for damages when these laws are abused and ruin an individual's life.

In my opinion, Congress has become nothing but a collection of technologically-clueless individuals who pander to the highest bidder, rather than protecting the rights of their citizens. I'd love to see them replaced with a bunch of regular folks with a lot more common sense. This country would be a much better place.

Meanwhile, watch your backs because it looks like the RIAA, MPAA, and others like them are going to have even more powers to ruin the lives of their once-loyal customers.

Labels: Congress, DMCA, EFF, Fair Use, MPAA, PRO IP, RIAA