All Things Microsoft > Microsoft as a Company
A defence to a form of the TCPA?
lazygamer:
Wow, yep you are a redneck Spork.
I can tell because of how pro-american you are.
sporkme:
im not sure that 750 ml is considered a fifth here
i believe a fifth is a fifth of a US gallon
the bottle looks about the same size as a 750ml bottle
usually there are half-pints, pints, fifths, liters, half gallons, and gallons
i wish we could switch to the metric system in the US
beltorak0:
I agree that some of the ideas in the articles are misgiuded. Taking the net back from the corporations should be our first priority. M$, RIAA, Doubleclick, you name it. One of the important themes in the articles is preventing a corporation like M$ from securing both the content and the means of trafficking the content. I don't think this is sufficient, especially given the level of power and disregard for US laws that M$ has. Not to mention the complacency that M$ has engineered in the computer using body (people accepting crappy software as just another fact of life).
Shutting off the EU into a form of the TCPA would be a mistake; one of the greatest things about the net is its ability to unify a group of people across the world. The flow of information would be stiffled.
The constitution doesn't have anything over the TCPA; can you seriously believe that the US founding fathers ever dreamed of such things as time-shifting entertainment? If they wanted to hear a song, they would have to find a preformer. People are trying to use the 1st ammendment to defend a great many things that it is really unsuited for. It is time for a few new additions to our great US constitution. We've done it before. It was designed for it.
As the articles stated, there is a disfunctional view of laws in the US; US citizens expect any new law to come out to strip us further of power and freedom. I think it is well past time to change our thinking. We, as concerned citizens of the governed body, need to take an active part in legislation to ensure that our freedoms are preserved. There is someone who is doing that now: US Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA). see his page at http://www.house.gov/boucher/welcome.htm . follow the 'Legislative Information' and 'Internet and Technolgy Initiatives' links for information about what he is for. You can also take a look at the following register articles:
http://www.theregus.com/content/archive/25540.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23587.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/20839.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13553.html
If everyone expresses thier concern about TCPA, DMCA, CDBTPA, and UCITA, who knows what could happen? we might get a few laws that are actually of the people, for the people, and by the people. who knows?
-t.
sporkme:
im no good with politicians
the dirty (clinton) corporations built the internet
now they exploit it
if people are too stupid to notice or don't care, it's simply a (minor) poverty of the human condition. if we want them to care WE have to reach them
US government control alone is not the answer
also...
if the US controls the net many (not all) euros will accuse us of being totalitarian and fight us (read: iraq)
if the US does nothing, we will be accused of being
isolationist and not caring about world issues. (read: kyoto treaty)
damned if ya do, danmed if ya dont
beltorak0:
clinton corporations started the net? I thought it started in circa 69 with ARPAnet.... despite Al Gore's claim to have invented the whole thing.... As for the WWW; it was started by Tim Berners-Lee, an Englishman, and made availible to the world in 91.
it is the EU that he was considering taking the isolationist stance (either you comply with our version of tcpa, or you won't do anything with any of our servers).
reaching the masses (which will require education) will take time. great things start with the acts of a single man. How would recent US history look if Dr. Martin Luther King waited for his first 100,000 followers before speaking out about racial injustice?
Politicians are corrupt, granted, but shouldn't we try to take a hand in writing laws before someone else (read RIAA, Microsoft, et al) writes them to trample our rights?
-t.
[ August 28, 2002: Message edited by: beltorak0 ]
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