[free-sklyarov] Compromise? Balance?

[Jon O .]

Eric:

Can I publish this here:

www.anti-dmca.org/intro.html

???

This is very good and I think the public could identify.

Also, you *all* should consider signing up for the Technical Enigneering mail list:
http://lists.anti-dmca.org/mailman/listinfo/IT_union

We are just discussing the scope and role of this type of organization. 
This is a new type of Organization where those who create, retain. See the 
archives for more info.


Thanks,
Jon

On 28-Jul-2001, Eric C. Grimm wrote:
> 
> In response to remarks of John O. (reprinted below):
> 
> I may be simplifying things a little more than necessary, but from an 
> historical perspective, I've been thinking along these lines (which I invite 
> you to consider) -- 
> 
> In the past -- actually, for hundreds of years -- most people toiled on land. 
> For the most part, that land belonged to somebody else.  The owners of land 
> belonged to a different class and lived different lives than those who toiled 
> on land.
> 
> In time, with the rise of a merchant class, the emergence of democratic 
> institutions -- and most importantly, following (sometimes violent) 
> revolutions in politics, publishing and thought, the medieval system was 
> replaced.
> 
> Sometime later, with the advent of the industrial revolution, most people 
> came to toil upon and with machinery and capital -- the means of production.  
> The means of production belonged to somebody else.  The owners of the means 
> of production belonged to a different class and lived different lives than 
> those who toiled upon the means of production.
> 
> By the time the Twentieth Century arrived, widespread revolution by labor was 
> considered a real threat and a matter of concern not only in Europe, but here 
> in the United States as well.  And there certainly were good reasons in all 
> industrial countries throughout the Twentieth Century (or at least up until 
> the mid-1990s) to make sure that reforms remained in place that resulted in a 
> more democratic distribution of output than might exist in the absence of 
> such reforms.   At least comparing 1980 with 1880, ownership of capital 
> certianly was more widespread, as was wealth and general welfare in 
> industrial countries.
> 
> In the last two decades -- and particularly so in the last half-decade -- we 
> have been embarking upon what has come to be known as the "information 
> revolution."   Today, the majority of workers in advanced economies have come 
> to be what is known as "knowledge workers."  Interestingly, "knowledge 
> workers" are not organized in the same way as their industrial counterparts 
> and -- while some particularly specialized knowlege workers can earn 
> remarkably good livings for themselves (e.g., imagine how much Bruce Keller, 
> the lawyer who argued the Tasini case before the Supreme Court on behalf of 
> content industries, makes  (and, BTW, for several years now, Keller and his 
> law partners have been waging a very elegant and subtle campaign to make 
> copyrights and trademarks seem more "property-like" in the minds of 
> legislators, the public, and judges, through such devices as financing the 
> patriotic restoration of the Statue of Liberty through the recognition of 
> special licensing rights, or granting the Olympics special super-trademark 
> rights)) so long as those "sepcial" knowlege workers cater and pledge loyalty 
> to certain political agendas -- knowledge workers on the whole live much less 
> secure lives than did industrial workers in the 1950s and 1960s.   
> 
> Observing the trends as the "information revolution" accelerates, I cannot 
> help but ask:  Is history repeating itself?
> 
> At least to me, it seems clear enough that very aggressive and well-financed 
> moves are afoot and have been for some time to create classes of "information 
> haves" and "information have-nots" -- by which I do not mean the so-called 
> "digital divide" of information access, which separates the middle class from 
> the poor, but rather a class division between "information haves" who can 
> charge rent, and "information have-nots" who must pay rent.   
> 
> Are we racing toward a world populated with a large proletariat of 
> "information serfs," ruled by a small over-class of "information royalty," 
> who are assisted in their hegemony by an intermediate class of knowledge-rule 
> enforcers who pledge fealty to the ruling class -- or are we already there? 
> 
> Eric Grimm
> 
> On Saturday 28 July 2001 13:32, Jon O . wrote:
> 
> > On 28-Jul-2001, James S. Huggins (Free Sklyarov) wrote:
> > > It also says:
> > > "As far as I know there have been very few complaints from intellectual
> > > property holders," Coble, the chief sponsor of the DMCA, said in an
> > > interview Tuesday.
> > >
> > > No duh!!!
> >
> > Notice that the IP holders are now the corporations, not the people...
> >
> > They are attempting to obtain and control our knowledge. That is why
> > "First Rights" on publishing are vanishing fast.
> >