Retaking the Future
Control freaks tightening their grip on the Internet (Dan Gillmor)
"Here's the bad news:
The idea that cyberspace would or could remain a zone of utter freedom may have been impossible, or at least naive. Now, however, we are risking the opposite -- an assertion of harsh and innovation-stifling rules by a few who fear the future.
The Net, once so promising, is being carved up by governments and corporations for control and exploitation. Intellectual property -- a term that deserves execution -- is turning into one of the most brazen land grabs, if the metaphor must be used, of all time.
Now, the good news:
Maybe we, the people, can do something about it. Maybe we, with the help of our peers, savvy technologists and, yes, government (law), can retake the future."
Oops, thought I had turned upstreaming off, instead here is a quote inciting all concerned to "retake the future" without any pointers or resources to help one fight the good fight. Unfortunately the demands of the real world are such that I gotta go, but I will post some links and pointers in the next day or so: I don't want to get sensationalistic about this, but they really are trying to close off the open-ended, flexible, and peer to peer nature of the internet, and replace it with a carefully controlled environment designed to sell more product, to maximize profit whatever the social cost. The powers that be are running scared, afraid of losing control, afraid of losing any more market/mind share, and they are attacking on many fronts, trying to topple what we are so joyously building. Currently under attack for example, are internet radio and file sharing networks. Microsoft has announced the Palladium operating system that will incorporate Digital Rights Management onto a chip on the motherboard (and eventually right into the CPU), effectively stealing control of how we use our computer. They say it's for our own good, that it will protect us from viruses and spam, but basically they're saying "Hey, you can trust us, we're from Microsoft."
Don't get me started. The war is on. The natives are restless, and massa's up in de big house trying to figure out what to do. "Why, they won't even watch commercials on TV anymore. These madmen must be stopped!" We are upsetting the divine order of things and taking our own entertainment into our own hands, talking to each other, banding together and teaching each other new tricks, new ways to relate to each other. And we're cutting the middlemen out of the picture, and they're bleeding red ink. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.
We have a little time to get educated on what's at stake, but not too much. We need to get busy, get organized, and take action, or we will lose what we hold dear. They'd like to castrate the internet, turn it into another mental wasteland like TV and radio and print media (by and large, though there are exceptions to all the preceding). Those of us that know, that grok what a groovy little medium this internet thingy can be when we really get her humming, know how much we stand to lose even before it really gets started...
10:08:03 PM 
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