Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:
"The good news is that you guys have managed to buy every major legislative body in the planet, but you know the problem is, the bad news is that you're up against a dedicated foe that is younger and smarter than you are and will be alive when you are dead, and has historical forces on its side, and is using its technological acumen very adeptly to ward off all your efforts of control and you're gonna lose that one.
The properties of the individuals involved don't mean a thing. The important thing is: we made of late an interesting technological advance that oversteps the narrow assumptions that govern capitalism. Capitalism is a *great* thing. I mean it. It saved us from the clutches of the clergy. It fostered science, it organized human productivity making us more productive than ever before. But capitalism has come to its limits. Capitalism is based on the assumption that things are costly to replicate, eg. that it costs money to replicate a bag of potatoes (you have to stuff some back into the earth, tend them, reap them out again, store them, sell them, etc.). OTOH the cost of replicating information is neglectible. This is new. Bits are flying thru the lighted fibers of the earth and arranging themselves on magnetic platters as of magic. The cost of the replication is epsilon compared to the benefits. Capitalism -- and the law system capitalism has engendered -- doesn't mix well with things that replicate for free. This is why we get attrition everyplace capitalism and information-driven technology get in touch. The whole idea of "property" is firmly rooted in the fact that property cannot easily be replicated. If I could replicate my car, what would I care if it gets stolen? What for would I need laws that protect my car from being stolen? Take it, be my guest. I'll just download a new one. One way out is to force old capitalistic rules onto new technology. Patents, Copyrights, Digital Restrictions Managements, etc. This keeps the status quo but in the long run stifles the productivity of the human race. Furthermore it wastes a lot of resources in attempting to prevent people from doing what they want to do, because it's natural for them to do, like giving a book to your best friend. More control, more police, more law-suits. The other way out is to free productivity. Great things already have been done beyond the horizon of capitalistic-organized production. GNU, Linux, Apache, Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, ... all these are best-of-class efforts, superior to anything capitalism has been able to do, done by people who *organized themselves* on the Net. We don't need capitalistic organizations in intellectual production any more. The Net is a superior way of organizing intellectual production. The Net is a more fertile environment for growing ideas than any corporate environment. And this is only the beginning. We are still a far way off realizing the full potential of the Net. As hosting costs will continue to drop all capitalistic-driven ventures like google, yahoo, itunes, myspace, etc. will be equalled and surpassed by free alternatives. This is no vision, this is just plain rational thinking. (Because its easier to give a book away than to sell it. Not only is the price better but you don't need DRM, shops, payments and all the other stuff capitalistic production shoves in the way of the users intention, which is to just get hold of a copy of the book.) "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." -- Woody Guthrie The Greatful Dead always allowed free taping of their concerts. Many other great artists give their stuff away. Music production will change. Music distribution will change. The investments necessary to keep the media circus of capitalistic music industry going in the face of free competition will eventually kill them off. Amen. -- Marcello Perathoner webmaster@gutenberg.org