[free-sklyarov] Time of Adobe/EFF meeting?

Paul Gowder paul at paultopia.net
Sun Jul 22 15:00:04 PDT 2001


Seth, I must ask.  What tactics, as a political/community organizing/legal 
(I'm in the school that says the three are the same) matter, would justify 
the EFF's behavior?  The EFF has made concessions (monkeywrenching the 
protests, successfully in at least one case) from a position of weakness 
(having not yet shown any power with actual action) to negotiate with a 
party that does not have clear decisionmaking authority (because it's in 
the DOJ's hands right now).  I completely fail to see the thought or the 
wisdom behind EFF's doing this, and at the same time refusing to disclose 
their communications with the other side to their supporters, and their 
only real power base.  There's just no way to redeem that kind of 
behavior.  From which we can draw three possible conclusions.
1.  The EFF has something really underhanded going on, designed to free 
Sklyarov and/or overturn the DMCA, that is just too esoteric and brilliant 
for us lowly mortals to be able to comprehend.
2.  The EFF has some ulterior motive, and screw the DMCA/Sklyarov.
3.  The EFF is real dumb.

I'm leaning toward number three myself.  Though number two is also a 
possibility.  I'll go and re-read The Prince, see if Machiavelli has 
anything to say about the situation that would tend to point toward #1, but 
all signs say not.

         -Paul

At 03:42 PM 7/22/01, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
>         With regard to the conflict between the goals of
>Free Dmitri/Overturn DMCA, I don't think we have reached a point
>where there is much tension between them at all. That is, I
>don't believe anyone is thinking so deviously as to reason that we
>need a martyr and a test case, so sacrifice Dmitri's well-being
>by having him be in jail so that The Cause has a rallying-point
>to overturn the DMCA.
>
>         There are sometimes tensions such as this. I've seen
>them in less-extreme form. However, this specific issue is not
>that sort of problem of martyrs.
>
>         Rather, it is a question of optimal tactics.
>
>--
>Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at sethf.com  http://sethf.com
>http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html
>
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>free-sklyarov at zork.net
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--
	-Paul Gowder

"It's because they're stupid. That's why everyone does everything."
     - Homer Simpson

	<paul at paultopia.net>

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