The year 2004 is not only the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s close-shave decision affirming consumers’ fair use rights (which have been hanging, in the words of one radio talk-show host, like a loose tooth ever since) with respect to the Sony Betamax, and the 50th anniversary of the Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education striking down “separate but equal” educational facilities, but also the 100th anniversary of the planting of the seeds of a particularly destructive ideology that in turn would plant the seeds of one of the worst instances of mass murder of the 20th century. But first, a thought . . .

Let’s fast-forward a hundred years or so into the future. Let’s say that (provided we still have any freedoms left) an enterprising writer put out a book detailing a laundry list of potentially beneficial consumer technology that was never developed or put to market; the systematic diminution of quality of life, standard of living and individual freedom; the rise of accountable-to-no-one-style, out-of-control tyranny; and the development of a full-blown human rights crisis, with explosions in prison rates, Prohibition–style measures and circumventions, and so on — all due to the one-two punch of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 [this writer can even think of a title for such a book: From Freedom To Bondage (or, Overthrowing The Digital Revolution):  The RIAA / MPAA Hijacking of Copyright Law, War Against Consumers and New Technology, and Bloodless Coup Against Fair Use] . . . just as Edwin Black, in his recent book, War Against The Weak:  Eugenics and America’s Campaign To Create A Master Race, thought of the tens of thousands of people who were never born, and marriages that were never started or consummated, all because of a particularly poisonous ideology that existed throughout the early part of the 20th century, as he was writing his book.

The scary part has to do with the fact that the eugenics movement was not created by some toothless redneck trailer-park trash, the kind you would see today as part of the white-supremacist movement — although such people were among those targeted by the eugenicists, as we will see further in this paragraph — but by “respected” scientists and so-called “bright minds” of the day, with backing from some of the wealthiest elements of American society at the time (i.e. the Carnegie Foundation). The people subjected to this practice — vasectomies for men, tubal ligation for women — sound almost like a carbon copy of the groups now being targeted by the RIAA’s callous, heartless “sue-’em-all” vendetta — the poor, the weak, the vulnerable, and so forth. But the eugenics movement also had the “feeble-minded,” people with criminal records, the disabled, the mentally ill, “moral degenerates,” drug addicts and alcoholics, and certain ethnic and minority groups in their sights. (Question: If the kind of technology in place today were around in the 1930’s, would “illegal” Internet downloaders, peer-to-peer users and file-sharers have been among that list? And in a related matter, would those ISP lists already handed on a silver platter to the RIAA have been then passed on to the eugenicists?) Their view was that if such people were allowed to have children, then their children would grow up with same or similar traits. Their other, more insidious goal was to create a master race based on the Nordic/Aryan ideal.

The state of Indiana was the first to enact pro-eugenics legislation in 1907. By the mid-1930’s an additional 34 states had similar such laws on the books, with three states in particular — California, Virginia and North Carolina — actually acting on such laws to the fullest. Eugenics was also sanctioned by the Supreme Court (in the Buck v. Bell case in 1927, which was as outrageous and detrimental in its time as their decision in Eldred v. Ashcroft stands to be in our time). By the time this practice ended in this country around the 1970’s, some 60,000 men and women were forcibly sterilized; their goal was to subject 14 million Americans to this procedure, but they did not have the kind of data collection that the Nazis in Germany had (see Mr. Black’s prior book, IBM and the Holocaust) — or, for that matter, the kind of info that the RIAA has today on John and Jill Q. Public thanks to their perpetual fishing expeditions and inquisitions.

This writer will not go into any more detail as to how this destructive practice wormed its way into Nazi Germany and how there it ultimately led to the Holocaust, than has been discussed at length in books such as Mr. Black’s and various articles over the years. But I will give a partial laundry list of those in America who backed the practice, people who have been referred to in history books as “progressive” thinkers: President Woodrow Wilson; Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes; and Margaret Sanger, founder of what is today Planned Parenthood and a staunch proponent of eugenics. These people, in this writer’s humble opinion, were to their age what the likes of such pro-RIAA stooges like Orrin Hatch, Lamar Smith, Darrell Issa and Mary Bono are today: über-advocates of very bad laws which have or had disastrous consequences for our society. And just as today the American public hasn’t exactly risen up demanding more fascistic, fundamentalist copyright laws designed to drive us technologically to the 19th century or before, neither did Americans in the early 20th century advocate sterilizing, institutionalizing or dehumanizing their fellow man (or woman). All these policies – past and present – were created by arrogant elitists suffused with this “we-know-what’s-best-for-everybody” attitude, and didn’t give a rat’s tuchis about what the average person on the street thought.

But the eugenics movement’s legacy, unfortunately, is anything but dead. Today, as we speak, there are scientists going down a similar road. Only their goal isn’t “racial purity,” but strictly for maximized profit$$$. To this end, these people — who call their work “newgenics,” as if that makes any difference — have even patented human DNA and other genes, so that one day we could all be sued under copyright and patent laws because our genetic makeup somehow infringes on their patents — and targeted accordingly.

And besides the issues raised above, there’s something else to think about. With respect to Hollywood’s ongoing war against consumers and new technology, there has been a nefarious progression of their tactics. Back in the days of the Sony Betamax battle, it had already been put on the market, and so Jack Valenti and his stooges sought to strangle the newfangled thinguhmybob in the crib. A few short years later, Digital Audio Tape (DAT) was on the verge of becoming a new viable consumer medium — but the recording industry put a stop to that, and so what we had at that time was similiar to a partial birth abortion; one could say that DAT, in its development, was in its third trimester when the industry stepped in. Now, with the prospect of FTAA and more radical, rigid, straitjacketed copyright legislation pending on the world stage, with the multinational entertainment-media complex demanding veto power on any and all new digital-based technology, we may be reaching a stage analogous to eugenic sterilization.

Something to think about . . .

So I suppose Carey Sue is our Kahn? Or maybe Hack is seeing as he's lived longer. We'll say Carey Sue is the muscle of Kahn and Hack is the brains of Kahn. They're pretty much on the verge of controlling 3/4 of the world's copyright laws much as Kahn controlled 3/4 of the world's surface in the Star Trek universe. Maybe then they'll resort to squabbling amongst themselves and end up being banished from the planet, just like Kahn was.

wow,interesting slant !!!10/4 flbgbt

I like that WB...one of the articles I wish I had written!
Great work!

Amazing analysis. Thats why I say Godwins Law is suspended here. How can you analyze current events otherwise. Nothing is off the table.

Good call WB. The eugenics issue is is alive and kickin'. The neo-cons funded the incendiary classic of the genre: The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

This book is almost first of its kind. The shot that heralded the coming of fundamentalist flat world science envisioned by the neocons. Race is destiny!

This book is noteworthy for the fact that the authors and publishers went straight to the public bypassing any scientific peer review at all. It wants to prove that genetics canont be overcome and one's race determines the limit of ones' intelligence or potential education.

Just as the radical ideologues in the RIAA have been desperate these last few years to prove their allegations of a causal relationship between P2P file-sharing and the drop in CD sales these last few years. Which underscores the points raised here.

Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.

I wonder if these people even take in to account the advances in backup technology the last few years.......i know that i back up all my frequently played audio cd's and play them instead of the originals.

I have two sets of cd collections......the master sets which i treat like gold(there's a reason why they call a cd case a "Jewl case") and the backups......which i am not out $10~20.00 if they get scratched,broken,or lost.

Maybe....just maybe......there are actually more people in the world that are using backup technology and saving their investments in music by not treating the media it is stored on like a disposable napkin or coffee table coaster.

I guess it's easier for them to accuse the consumers of stealing rather than admit that technology and the consumers awareness of how to use it has finally brought the people to the realization that you save tons of money if you archive your music and make use of cheaper"disposable" recording media to use on a daily basis.

I'm sure this has brought the music industry to the realization that they can no longer depend on the continued sales of a single title to the same consumer over and over again due to the planned obsolescence of the media it is stored on.

How many of you have a paper grocery sack of purchaced cassette tapes in your closet that you just cant seem to throw away even though some of the tapes have been ruined by being too close to a magnetic field or are stretched and wound so tight that the tape wont rewind?

I'm sure that CD burners have taken a big chunk of money from the music industry but i dont hear them shouting THIEF! at them....they are the makers of the hardware used by every one of the people that they are laying the blame on.

If anyone is to blame for the drop in the music industry's profit margin it is theirselves........The music industry needs to learn how to budget their money just like the rest of us do.