Wow, lots of great posts and some very
important topics today! Seraphielx, thank
you for all the hard work you are doing, and
it really helps us all for you to develop
the lists.
As to the Larry King show, first off,
please let me say how honored I am that so
many of you have thought of me as being an
appropriate spokesperson. I think that we
have little chance right now of getting on
LA King because he is on CNN, and due to
CNN's ties to some of the big 5, I think
they have gone out of their way to avoid any
mention of the boycott, or even that there
is a significant backlash to the actions of
the RIAA. I've been on TV several times, and
know a little bit about what the producers
of shows look for. With the pressure on them
not to allow equal voice to our side, at
least, right now, I think there is little
chance of us getting on Larry's show. We
happen to be living in turbulent times . I
just heard that a big car bomb went off in
Baghdad,Iraq blowing up a refinery or
something. The media is managing what
peoplea are thinking about by what they
report on.
I have been monitoring the letters to
the leaders section of congress.org, and
there are so many different issues that
people are writing on, that it makes it a
bit more difficult, however; we have been
keeping a steady amount of letters on our
issue going in, and we need to keep that up.
I have written to folks not in my state or
region, to some of the lesser known folks as
well as the more high profile
congresspeople. The lesser knowns don't get
as much mail as the big names, and a brief,
cordial and articulate e-mail to them, has a
better chance of getting their attention.
Remember, even a whisper can get attention
during moments of silence.
I also wanted to underscore some
excellent points by r0dr0ddy, who I must say
is doing a great job of giving some
direction to activities.
I agree 100 % that there is value in
stressing that the boycott is not just about
downloading files. Many of not most here,
are not uploading or downloading any RIAA
related material. This issue goes beyond
filesharing, and really, goes beyond just
the RIAA. The RIAA is just one organization
that has taken advantage of an Act that
should have never been passed in the first
place! Now, there probably are schools of
thought who would say that we need to focus
on the RIAA and not get into other issues,
for fear that this will splinter our
concentration of effort. As a citizen who
cherishes privacy a great deal, I believe
that the RIAA issue is only the tip of the
top of the iceberg. We are dealing with a
government which wants to spy on us in every
transaction and every communication, and
even, tries to turn our neighbors and the
cable installer into a cadre of snitches
(the TIPS program). For once, paranoia seems
like a reasonable response to the prevailing
conditions.
And, I predicted some time back that
this craziness would soon spread to other
countries. Thus, we really are involved in
an international problem. The seeds of the
DMCA of course came from WIPO (World
Intellectual Property Organization). Back in
1998, the EFF was fighting on our behalf to
prevent the WIPO Implementation Act.
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/19980604_eff-aclu_bliley.letter
And, I can guarantee each and every one
of you, that, left unopposed, the powers
which enabled the DMCA to become a governing
law over us, have far more draconian laws in
the wings. There is a creeping death that is
going on. It is like someone with a pair of
handcuffs is standing twenty feet away, and
every day is moving 6 inches closer to you
and you see them coming, but feel you are
powerless to do anything until finally, the
lock the cuffs on your wrist. To bring this
down to a school yard analogy which most of
us can relate to, the RIAA and the forces of
evil pushing even more evil actions toward
us, are like schoolyard bullies, and anyone
who has ever dealt with a bully can tell you
that they pick on targets that they think
are weak or marginalized. And, a curse
becomes a shove, a shove becomes a hit, and
so on, with them getting more bold and more
aggressive. That is why more people need to
wake up and oppose this before it is too
late.
Now, I want to go back a second to the
need for appropriate communications with the
media, once we get their ears. You want to
of course come off as being reasonable and
likeable (which should be easy for all of
us,
). Also, make it clear that piracy is
well defined under Title 18 of the USC and
file sharing is NOT piracy. Also, there was
a good question about them asking about
whether anyone who settles out of court is
admitting guilt. A good response is " Well,
I'm not an attorney, and don't know all the
facts of that case, so it would be improper
for me to speculate on this." To me, one of
the harder questions I asked was the one
about "Don't you think that a musician
should be paid for every copy of his work
that is made?"
That one is very tricky to answer.
Firstly, I think the owner of a CD should be
able to make a backup copy of that music CD
owing to the unique vulnerability of that
media to damage that renders it unplayable,
and it would be unfair to make the same
person buy two copies just to ensure he or
she has a playable copy. Furthermore, our
coalition is also concerned with the fact
that the musician and songwriter, seem to
get a relative trickle of the profits from
their own product, so we are more concerned
that the musicians are fairly compensated
for their work to begin with. Notice the
transition from the agenda of the
interviewer to being able to restate one of
our concerns?
Most of the time, when you are interviewed,
they are not going to have but a couple
minutes for the interview, so they are NOT
going to ask the same question again.
Now to the hacking question, which I
sense is getting to be more of a problem.
First to averageconsumer, since you are
using a router with NAT, most of the ports
are stealthed, but port 113, the Ident is
often not stealthed but closed. Being
closed, they will "see" you. I am fairly
certain the board is monitored by minions of
the RIAA. I urge folks to use a proxy to
visit the board. Port scanning, as has been
said before, is legal, however; hacking into
your computer is a violation of a subsection
of title 18 of the USC criminal code. It's
felony. Sending viruses out is also not a
legal enterprise. For those who are getting
virus emails like Hill875, please write to
the abuse@theservername.com (or net) and
make them aware of the activity. Sending
viruses out is a violation of every TOS of
every network I know of. It is not
surprising that this kind of thing is
happening. I do think, as Seraphielx is
doing, it is good to keep a log of hacking
and scanning IPs, and those who seem to be
excessively pinging our machines, need to be
addressed by contacting their providers. I
don't like to get too organizational, but
perhaps some of the more technically savvy
folks like seraphielx, can work together for
the best solutions. I think that seraph can
be reached at seraphielx@hotmail.com (she
listed that email in an earlier post). On
that note, and this is just a thought here
thrown out for consideration by everyone, I
have noticed that there are many folks here
who have special expertise in different
areas, and perhaps, if those who have a
particular talent in one area or another can
coordinate their efforts, we may have a more
effective effort. Again, just a thought.
But, continuing that thought, we could think
about forming various committees or groups
such as:
1)Congressional correspondence-i.e.
directing which members are the best to
write, and drafting letters that can be used
as samples for cut and paste for those whose
forte may not be in letter writing.
2) Technical- as previously mentioned,
keeping up with the latest technical online
stuff like PeerGuardian, evaulating the best
firewall software, or related matters.
3)Event producers/ independent music liason-
gdZiemann and schmoo (independentm) seem to
have a lot of expertise in thsi area, and
probably many others do as well.
4) Media - This would include folks who have
some talent for doing media related work,
media releases, contacting the media about
our issues, etc.
5) Legal updates - those folks who keep up
to date on various laws coming down the
pike, keeping us advised on the voting
records.
Now, even though I made the suggestion, I
have some reservations too, because all of
us have regular lives and we have precious
little time even to come online and post.
The only reason I made this kind of
suggestion was due to the fact that I
noticed that there are already folks like
seraphgielx, gdZiemann, et al, who are
already going out of their way, giving more
time and effort to this cause than they have
to (and I am not ignoring Jon Newton and
Bill Evans who already are acknowledged for
making this board possible, and all the
great posts by Jon (newjon) ). Any kind of
unofficial increase in organization would be
only for those people who WANT to do it that
way, and only for those who have the time
and inclination.
Geez, I really apologize for posting
such a long post, but there were various
issues I just wanted to give some input on,
and I imagine, others will want to add their
thoughts to as well.
Well, off to meet the Wizard, another
trip down the yellow brick road!
We will win folks, it is just going to be a
long, hard road. But, few things worth
accomplishing come easily.
Love, luck, prosperity, and freedom to us
all!
~code
Jon Newton
surfside6
Jefrystube
CodeWarrior
woodhead
gdZiemann
