Maybe all I need here is a good hug. Ideally, one that will last years.
But I must get it together. We’re under attack. Market forces should be making entertainment industry conglomerates less relevant these days. But why accept the market, when you have the influence and – despite all the protests of enormous theoretical losses – the wealth to get laws passed?
Laws that could make you richer than ever.
It is my view that, under the guise of desperately needing protection, the entertainment industry is trying to pull off an outrageous power-grab. What big businesses know better than anyone is that the secret of success is not making the best product, but controlling the marketplace. They know the Internet is their only future marketplace. They want it.
SOPA and PIPA, their US bills, have been pushed back for now, but there’s a new threat looming from an intergovernmental treaty called ACTA. Ostensibly to control the trade in counterfeit goods (including, it should be noted, generic medicines), it actually concerns all types of intellectual property – suggesting that governments (or their industry sponsors) wish us to think of copying a song or video as “counterfeiting” now – a serious crime of intentional deceit.
Among ACTA’s many negative effects, it appears that it would make your Internet service provider (ISP) liable for any illegal online activities, forcing them to monitor you. That is not different from requiring the postmistress to read your mail and report anything suspicious she finds, and I don’t think it’s acceptable in democracy.
If Big Entertainment gets its wish, the Internet will eventually cease to be a way for people to freely communicate with one another, becoming instead just a secure channel it can use to deliver its goods to us. And to keep us monitored, of course.
Related articles
- Stopping The ACTA Juggernaut (eff.org)
- The Global Assault on The Internet – With SOPA/PIPA shelved it’s ACTA we need to worry about! (toodamnez.wordpress.com)
- ACTA Will Be SOPA/PIPA Alternative (platopress.com)
- SOPA and PIPA Shelved But Is ACTA Unstoppable? (i-programmer.info)
- SOPA, ACTA and the end of the Internet (shawnmwilson.com)
- [censored] (i.doubt.it)