[rogue_ronin]

Originally Posted by Requiem

I am not really sure what you are trying to accomplish with your "milk crate" preaching, mixed with underhanded personal attacks on people who are trying to have a civilized conversation about an issue that involves us all. But usually when I see people preaching, I just ignore them, because that, my misguided friend, is MY right.

I'm trying to radicalize you. And there's nothing 'underhanded' about my 'attacks' on you. I'm calling you an enabler, straight-out. There is nothing 'uncivilized' about my contribution to the conversation. You just don't like it.

And if it involves us all, how is it that I don't count as part of the 'all'? The answer of course, is that when you live in the mushy middle, you fear and instinctively exclude someone who doesn't pat you on the head.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Sony is not trying to make us supporters of a new Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere, and Apple is not trying to turn everyone into hippies. So, "commercial reasons" are not particularly political -- unless you adhere to the point of view that your choice of soap is also a "political act." It's technically accurate but rarely a useful position. And it's bupkis compared to overt totalitarian control of information.

Never claimed either was, please point to the reference. (And of course, now you attempt to mock and provide straw men in an unnecessary attempt to marginalize me. I'm quite at the margins already.)

Really, Sony and Apple? Both are shining examples of attempting to ignore and eliminate openness.

And it is not 'bupkis', of course -- the main reason being that people being controlled overtly are aware of that control. It's much more insidious to be a member of a class of people that truly have power to affect others, and to use it to benefit only themselves while inculcating a set of values that breed ignorance, learned helplessness, and passivity.

Yeah, whatever. In some cases it can be difficult to knock out a market leader, in other cases it's a snap. Yesterday MySpace was the big dog, today it's Facebook, tomorrow it's Twitter. Google barely existed 20 years ago, and today they're a major force in the exchange of information and a major threat to Microsoft's OS monopoly. For all any of us knows, Sony or Apple could be gone in 10 years.

I know that you can't understand, but I'll try again. It doesn't matter what particular large company is in charge of any particular industry segment at any particular time. The mindset and class of people that form these companies will always prey on the rest of us. They can't help it -- their values are primarily those of profit and loss. Other values are abandoned, bit by bit, as individual members of these companies whittle away, trying to climb the sociopathic ladder of success. And they have disproportionate power to affect policy and behavior.

I.e. I don't see much of an indication, let alone definitive proof, that the whole world will be run by Buy n' Large by 2030.

That's largely because you've accepted the values that will enable them to do so. And, of course, it already is. The current worldwide economic downturn is a direct result of mostly US corporate ideology made into policy.

Oh, so you get to invoke vague doomsday scenarios of utter "corporate control" of content, but it's improper to point out the drastic nature of actual, existing and current methods of political control of content, in order to inject some perspective into the discussion? Nice.

Because, of course, DRM and the mindset that it grows from are largely corporate. You want to talk about the imperial impulse, mixed with pride, arrogance, nationalism, racism, the profit-motive and the resultant corporate propoganda which led to at least a million dead Iraqis? From a people that largely think they're exceptional? I don't, it won't add anything -- it'll just degenerate to name-calling. Glass houses, friend.

1) We're discussing DRM, not the validity of copyright laws. These situations have nothing to do with DRM

.

We're talking about both. They interrelate, and they've been the topic since long before you decided that you were the defender of corporate power.

2) Didn't you laud the value of copyright a few paragraphs ago? Either you like it or you don't, which is it?

Again: I like copyright that serves artists, I don't like cultural appropriation via continued copyright extension and rent-seeking. Try, just try to recognize the distinction.

3) The situations you cited have nothing to do with monopolistic practices. Even a small company can hold and enforce the rights to a well-known artwork.

The size part is true, as far as it goes. But, as a class, it still keeps control of culture in the realm of business and corporations for far too long. That's the problem. You think a small company that holds a copyright is going to revert it to the artist? Or will it be likely to sell it to some larger company at some future point? Remember, corporations above a certain size live for a very long time.

Sorry, not seeing much evidence of this -- other than the actions of totalitarian regimes. If anything, it's easier today than in the past to produce and distribute content without the backing of a large corporate entity, government and/or wealthy patron.

It's a hell of a lot easier to close someone down, too. Heard of the DMCA? Attempts to tier internet access? Or if you want to go outside the US, how about the efforts in France to shut down peoples internet access based on nothing more than a corporate accusation of infringement? Western democracies, right? It'll just keep getting worse, you know -- it's part of the psychology. Totalitarian regimes don't always grow from Russian Revolutions.

(That's just access related: as an example of how content is squelched by large corporations, how about the recent deal between GE and FOX that kept criticism of GE's mismanagement and thievery in Iraq off of FOX for quid pro quo regarding criticism of Bill O'Reilly? This is what happens -- and if it can happen in journalism, the supposed Fourth Estate, what do you think happens in smaller cases every day? It's a messed-up set of values that would kill us all for "success".)

As much as people squeal about DRM and limited formats, almost every portable device I've seen allows at least one open format (if not several). Rights holders may be focusing on halting the illegal distribution of their content, but don't care much (if at all) about those who choose to release it for free.

Sure, there are channels. But they're not the primary feeds of the people who control the content, are they? Look at the front page of MR, right now, about how Amazon forced Mobi off the Cybook, because it won't allow other methods of DRM on a device that uses Mobipocket. They're competing to be the distribution channel, and whoever comes out on top, you think they're gonna stop with that? Naive.

And I'm squealing, am I? You realize that I'm trying to play fair with you, attempting to call you on mushy thinking and internalized propaganda, right? I have tried to be explicit in my criticisms. I've questioned your values, but I haven't reduced you to a pig. You ought to consider the values you hold that allow you to do that.

Again, yet more evidence that radicalism is not exactly the key to rational thought.

Rational thought is the key to radicalism, however. Mushy, middle-path followers of their social superiors are pretty good at spouting catch-phrases about competition and success, though, much better than radicals. Who aren't really radicals, really, but who have had their values vilified by the powerful and driven outside the circle of acceptable debate.

The truly radical ideas are the ones that have devalued our democracy and our culture with the corrosive effect of commoditized thinking.

Emusic and Amazon's music downloads have always been MP3's, i.e. no DRM. Apple is making a push to selling music without DRM. The companies you're terrified of are doing exactly what you want, namely ditching DRM, and you're still afraid?

Yup, it's not just DRM. It's the marshalling of distribution streams by large retailers.

I mean, really. What are you looking for, a world where no one charges for digital content?

No. It's always money, isn't it?

The abandonment of all copyright?

No. Said so repeatedly, but you gotta keep setting up that strawman.

Or perhaps there a magic number of retailers that would satisfy you? 10? 15? 30? 100? If the market doesn't support the number of retailers you like, who has to pay to support their existence?

Maybe there is a magic number, have to cast some bones to see. I'm a magical thinker, see, devoted to wishful thinking and trusting in higher powers.

But for now, I'm sure that it isn't 3. Or 1. I'll accept 100, that's a good place to start. No one should pay to support their existence, but no one should pay one of them to drive the others out of existence. As always, arguments in this area devolve to money, and who pays. Freedom is always about the freedom to do business to the commoditized thinker.

Or, what's your alternative to the capitalist approach -- government distribution of content, perhaps? Or perhaps governments should subsidize any and every retailer and distributor of digital content?

Ooh, the communist boogie man, the evil government boogie man. Typical right-wing dog-whistling. Have I said capitalism needs to be eliminated? I haven't. But for the mushy, any consideration of limits on the rich and powerful is taken as an all-out desire to ban making money.

I'd settle for a limit on the size of corporations, elimination of all monopolies and monopolistic practices, and support for the arts and artists, in general. Because art doesn't fit neatly into the business frame, and it shouldn't be forced to.

And will eliminating DRM even make much of a dent in the formation of a monopoly? Apple's music sales are now increasingly eschewing DRM, yet the iTunes store, iPod and iPhone are still the big dogs....

Probably not. But the elimination of making it a crime to eliminate DRM might help. The elimination of perpetual copyright extension might help. The elimination of copyright holding by companies might help. A general prohibition on monopolistic behavior, and enforcement of it might help. Lots of possibilities. All of them anathema to the unbridled pursuit of profit, though, so unlikely to appeal to the mushy.

Your ideas seem rather hysterical and poorly thought out. Have fun winning people over to your position. :P

Another right-wing tactic: call someone hysterical, feminizing them when you think they're male. The obverse is calling a women strident, or shrill, making them un-feminine. Typical.

I've called you mushy, middle-of-the-road and subservient to your social superiors. But the real crux of my disappointment in you is that you won't even address what I'm talking about, you keep making the discussion about capitalism, or piracy, dropping into absolutism about my positions where I am not absolute.

Of course I am. Guess what? The requirement to pay for a sample has obviously not even remotely slowed down the practice.

Oh, yes it has. But not so much by artists signed by corporations that already control those copyrights. Who then control the copyrights on the secondary artist. Don't mistake that for grassroots use of music sampling.

Most of the examples I cited indicate that copyright does not seem to have done much to hinder the production of cultural products, and it certainly hasn't stopped artists from being influenced by their contemporaries. Read an interview with any artist in the last 20 years, and they will list their recent influences ad nauseum.

Influence is not use of older cultural material.

Man, do you even read what you write?

And you're massively ignoring the trends that are working to the contrary: e.g. open standards, market and cultural fragmentation, a proliferation in media outlets, easy distribution, radical drops in the cost of media production, rejections by artists of large publishers, and of course ignoring the plentiful evidence that belies your position.

Maybe I am. Probably because none of that has anything to do with infection with DRM, the criminalization of its removal, the use of corporate power to vacuum up cultural content, and the restrictions on use of cultural content by artists. Some of what you list are reactions to corporate overreach, but they have little power to undo the damage already done.

They are all good things, but largely stand separate from the massive center of the discussion. In fact, I would argue that all those things are an impetus for the growth of the sort of behavior that we're seeing in corporations and their political allies.

You're welcome to believe that the sky is falling, but I see no evidence for it.

That's because you're always looking down at the feet of your master.

I can play the insult game, too.

m a r