Two things are on my mind, and tweeting about them just isn’t enough.
1. The new government Copyright Treaty. This article from Wired sums it up very well. The Obama administration has been so obsessively secretive about the drafting of this legislation, and the leaked memo shows why. It’s as if all the RIAA lawyers have teamed up with the Department of Justice to determine how much they can screw the internet companies. Now, I don’t advocate for piracy and copyright infringement, but give me a break. The treaty would require ISPs to actively employ policies to “combat the flow of unauthorized copyrighted material through their pipes”, and the implement a “graduated response program.” At issue here is the ability to remain in business. In case you didn’t know, piracy exists, and there is a ton of pirated material out there. Further, there is a large amount of infringing content that is unintended. So when you place the responsibility on the ISP to check all material flowing through their system, you are placing an undue burden on a company and will likely drive them out of business. Innovation, as usual in Government regulate, will be stifled, and we, the consumer, will be harmed. The problem here is that the RIAA spends more money that I can comprehend fighting to keep the world of technology status quo, rather than adopt new technologies that would lead to a larger revenue stream for them. And the US government gladly becomes their lackey because of the money they spend.
2. Net Neutrality has been in the news a lot quite recently. I won’t spend a lot of time here talking about it, but check out savetheinternet.com. John McCain has recently introduced legislation titled the “Internet Freedom Act”. Wow! Definitely can’t vote against freedom, right? Wrong! McCain has received more money than any other Congressman from the telecommunication industry. Just over $900k. His bill would take the regulation of the internet from the FCC and allow large telecommunication companies to deem what we, the consumer, should have access to. The problem here is that it isn’t in their, the large telecommunication companies, best interest to allow me to make calls of Skype (free) or have access to podcasts (free) or use the internet for gaming or bit torrent. Rather, they want to control which content I receive (theirs) and charge me if I want more. The internet has been the largest technological innovation and has had more impact on freedom and democracy that any technology I can think of. It is an open architecture that is agnostic to the type of content shared. People around the world can learn in a heartbeat what is happening in the news. Ideas are shared instantly. Learning and growth is fostered. But yet, our all-knowing government believes that we should allow the internet to be controlled by entities that have a vested interest in limiting our access to content. Seriously?!? Please visit savetheinternet.com and let your voice be heard. This is a fight we cannot let go, or all the innovation and flow of ideas will be negatively impacted.
