[free-sklyarov] Compromise? Balance?
Jon O .
jono at microshaft.org
Sat Jul 28 12:20:08 PDT 2001
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.
> >
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