Why is the Government Stifling Technology?

From Azoz Front Page: http://www.azoz.com

Now that the mainstream media has finally begun to ask the questions that they should have asked three years ago, when the Napster case was in court and the RIAA, in the person of Hilary Rosen, began its endless stream of false testimony to the public and Congress, it is time to move on to the issue of why this debacle has been allowed to go on so long.

Did the government step in to save the elevator operators when people discovered they could push button 1 or 2 by themselves? Did the Senate conduct hearings when assembly lines put factory workers out of jobs? Did Congress pass special laws to prevent telephones from replacing telegraph operators because they had a special skill?

No, but they did their best to protect Enron and are doing the same to give the RIAA and Microsoft complete domination over marketplaces of the entire free world.

Why is the government stifling technology? Why have falsehoods and lies been allowed to prevail over technology and the truth?

For the same reason that our country's educational system is intentionally being downgraded, unfunded and allowed to produce new citizens with only a smattering of the knowledge that used to be required. Because the government does not want us to be informed; it does not want the public to be able to share information or data without their intervention.

Microsoft has been chosen for our national security because their software is designed to allow outside intrusion into a user's computer. They designed it for themselves years ago, when they first asked permission to "reach into" your computer. There was no asking for the ability, just the permission. The ability was part of the design, which is the very reason that each and every computer virus which threatens the world economy (if we were to believe the hype) involves a flaw in the Microsoft operating system.

Entertainment is a smoke screen. No one in government OR the recording industry believes for a minute that any of this debate has anything to do with the rights of the artist, the ethical payment of royalties, copyright laws or the Constitution. If so, the recording industry would have been outlawed decades ago, as it is the most unethical business in the country and was built on the backs of the artists, who still are not even treated with the same human benefits (health care, i.e.) provided by any other corporate entity.

What this is about is governments desire to clamp down on technology because the public is better at it. Teenagers can hack into AT&T but the U.S. Copyright Office does not understand computer basics, based on their own testimony in DMCA hearings.

The RIAA and Microsoft, both the subject of several antitrust suits already, have been allowed their position of power in order to assess exactly how ignorant the American public is of what is really going on, how long we will tolerate it and to what extreme it can be taken before the public rebels against it. The recording industry, being not the brightest bulb in the box, was still able to push their agenda for three years before anyone of significance or influence questioned them. Even now, their "statistics" are quoted as if they mean something, when the most cursory examination of them reveals a complete lack of meaningful information, a conscious intent to twist the facts and the extent to which they have misled the public.

Sharing copyrighted material is NOT a crime. It's the library.

Microsoft's domination of government has lasted much, much longer. They are not as stupid as the record industry. They are more insidious. They have put XBoxes into the hands of every member of the military, who now issues training "games" for the XBox with the assumption that everyone "already has them." Businesses have long thought it was a good idea for everyone to be on the same platform to make it easier to share data, the very thing the peer-to-peer controversy is trying to stop.

What businesses have failed to notice, even in light of the national fraud that was planned decades in advance and known as the "Y2K bug", is that when one company owns the complete market and especially when that one company's is such a security hazard as Microsoft's, is that one person can introduce a self-propagating virus, worm, whatever, and shut down your entire business, corporation, market sector or the government of the country.

Suing a 12-year-old for listening to music was just the beginning. It's going to get much, much worse. By the time anyone comes out of their drug and alcohol induced comas long enough to recognize it, you'll already be prisoners. Your rights are eroding at an accelerated pace, disguised as Homeland Security, the Patriot Act and other warm and fuzzy titles hiding the institution of a 21st century tyrannical rule that shifts "leaders" every 4 years as a facade, propped up to allow the deception to continue.

We refuse to drill for oil in our own country, careful to avoid disturbing the habitat of the caribou in Alaska. Yet we go to other parts of the world and kill humans for oil.

Those who speak out against killing are condemned by the government. Those who strike out against 12-year-olds and facillitated by the government, who now seeks to protect them from the wrath of the public by instituting a state solution to an outdated industry, at the expense of the public.

This is not how a free market works. Our market is not free. If this is allowed to continue, it will never be free again. Neither will we.

george z, you sure got it right and unfortunately it seems like its going to get worse before it gets better. This shift to the right in politics scares me, with these puppet like politicians, ie gw & arnold, kind of reminds me of the nixon years !!! 10/4 flbgbt

George,
Glad to see you back, if u make plans to visit la, look me up.

I hope Generation Y can do a better job for this world than Gen X'ers can.

Sorry but most Gen-Xr's are the most spoiled, pessismistic, lazy, and most apathetic group Ive been ashamed to be a part of. The revolutionist baby boomers shouldve kept us in check when we were growing up.

Maybe there's hope yet.

Indiewarrior. haha. maybe you're right however we were the generation of liberal rebellion as well. Many of my generation (the later half) became yuppies as well. We had our selfish streak, maybe that's where the Gen X'rs got it. Each generation has it's own problems and issues. History does repeat itself and you don't have to be conservitive to be a puppet. any extremist, right or left can easily fall into that trap.

The market has not been free for a long time. And it's not about music. The government supports the corporate interest by default. Unless an abundant ammount of pressure is applied from the public to counter the corporate interest, then government will always serve the corporate interest.

For that is the beauty that is capitalism.

Great article as usual from George Z!

The incestous relationship between government and big business has been going on in America since this country began. George Washinton, Jefferson, Franklin, these weren't poor country boys. Most of them were Freemasons, and fairly well off. Sure, Washington had hard times at Valley Forge, but most of these guys were landowners, and though most were not true royalty, they were nouveau aristocracy of the new country. When Dwight D. Eisenhower left office as president, he warned the citizens to be wary of the "military-industrial complex". That warning should be broadened to the multinational military-governmental-corporate complex. Just give this a thought. In England, they are passing a law to give a possible two year prison term for kids who download. Their reason? To get in synch with the "European Directive"
and the DMCA was a move to get us in synch with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) guidelines.

Does anyone REALLY think all this crap with the RIAA is just so they can sue a few hundred people in court, and get three grand here and there? Think about it this way. The toadies like BayTSP, charge a healthy price to go do bounty hunting on Kazaa. Then, you have some poor schlepp going to the clerk of the court to file subpoenas, and you have someone contacting these ISPs, and then, you have all the lawyers. These lawyers I bet charge about 100 per hour.
Now, how much of 3 grand do you think gets burned up by putting money in all these pockets?

These guys have plenty of money, and the sales have been dropping, but not at such a rate (I don't think) , that will justify what they have to know, is like the kiss of death to their association.

Call me paranoid or nuts if you will,
but greater plans are afoot than just a few old men trying to make a feable grasp to protect an outdated business model.

Sweden, Germany are passing criminal statutes against file trading. Finland is instituting rules to track kids under 15 against their knowledge using cell phones. And the beat goes on....

The Bill of Rights was a great document.

Too bad but if a business can be protected by its rights and not a citizen then capitalism is yet another tyranny.

And the last thing I knew, it wasn't my responsibility to simply hand out money to a big business corporation and lose freedom in the process...

Anyone else reminded of the 50s and the MacArthur scares right now?

The more you read about national and international developments like the institution of RFID tracker devices and the like ...the more you see that what George is saying is both extremely important, and very, very true.
Thanks again for getting a very important message out George!

To Congress: Pack your bags, your coming home.

Campaign for your choice and vote them out!

Out the door in 2004!

George,

You hit the nail on the head.

Although we live in a "democratic" society, we haven't lived in a democracy for a very long time. Sure, we have the bill of rights. But those rights are dissipating beneath our very feet.

First we have the President. The pinnacle of every rich white man's dream. Power and control.
They became rich by either 2 ways.
1) They were born into it.
2) They are greedy and self righteous with a control problem.

Second, we have the corporation. Who, for the most part, is ran by rich white men. (I'm not gender biased, just noticing the facts).

The saying always goes "Birds of a feather, flock together."

Politicians wouldn't be on the hill, if it wasn't for the corporation. What a vicious circle this is?

Rich white man runs for congress. Corporation A, gives rich white man a "bonus check" if rich white man pushes for certain bills. Since rich white man running for congress is greedy, he accepts. He is rich because he was greedy. Always looking after #1.
Then we have the media, who is owned by Corporation A. Corporation A brainwashes the American Public into voting for rich white man through the media.

Rather simple concept. Ever played Monopoly?

You're too radical dude...your whole "we kill foreigeners for oil" comment really turned me off from the whole piece.

Are you after copyright reform, anarchism, or just radical left wing "we hate rich people" propaganda? I just couldn't tell.

I can't speak for georgez, buy my post was to draw the correlation between rich people, greed, power and politics. It is a vicious circle. I don't hate rich people, but I hate their practices. People in power only got there 1 way, by stepping on the people below them.

I agree that we should not limit technological development for the benefit of certain industries. And we certainly should not do away with P2P.

But I do have a question: If folks were allowed to legally share ALL copyrighted music on P2P (even music which was recently created) would there be much of an incentive for artists and labels to produce high quality recorded music?

I wouldn't think there would be since there would not be much money to be made.

If, however, copyright terms were for a reasonable period, then there could be a lot of public domain music which could legally shared & replicated on P2P (artists who want exposure but cannot get on the top radio stations should also be allowed to have their songs shared on P2P as well). For new music, there should still be the option of keeping it off P2P for a while so that creators and labels have a good incentive to produce good quality studio recordings. Under this system, if you want new music, you might have to pay for it. But prices would not be super high since it would have to compete with 'free' music which has entered the public domain.

Well my opinion on the baby boomers is that they were the MOST brainwashed generation ever.

Think about this. THey were "allowed" to have their woodstock festival where they were bombarded by peace and love themes for days, all the while being pumped full of psychadelic drugs?

I have a hard time believing that the government had no idea what was up.

Now who is in control? The hippies! My dad was one. He left our home when I was a baby and never paid a dime in child support. I was poor to the core and yet as a generation xer ( yeah the hippies named us x to try to wipe us out of their polluted minds forever) I am nailed to the wall on my support and I am even back with my ex but cannot afford a lawyer to stop the support for now. I even lost my job to outsourcing and make 7 dollars less on the hour. Funny, they never automatically reduced the support.

It was all fine and dandy for them hippies but us xers must pay our share, why because the hippies will be retiring soon and we must make sure they have social security. After all they took care of us?

Not all people from that era were like this; however, I am sure there are a great many.

They were not revolutionaries at all. They were probably manufactured to allow the changes that are rapidly happening in our world today.

As a generation x person. I can tell you that I am a very hard worker. I think our generation has been hit coming and going by the hippies. That is why it appears as though we have nothing. We dont. We are being screwed continually by the hippies and are PISSED.

Yeah bulkeraser I totally agree. There is a plan quitely being executed bit by bit behind the scenes as to not raise too many red flags in the minds of the people too soon.

I believe we are being headed into a world government, religion, and economic cashless society.

A little at a time so we won't see it until it is too late. World trade is the first step.

Did you vote for a WTO world trade org or an ICC international criminal court?

I didn't. Not very democratic is it?

Just wait until the ICC prosecutes citizens for not abiding by the world religion that IS being established.

The hippies didn't hurt us, the hippies that turned into yuppies did. The hippies are running organizations like moveon.org, amnesty international and greenpeace and are fighting for people like us. They are the baby-boomers that didn't lose their way in the eighties and succumb to greed. They kept their values. I think any movement over time will lose great numbers of people when faced with the day to day realities of life, they will do whatever they can to survive and prosper, even putting aside the values they once held dear. Those who stick to their ideals are fewer in number, but as they get older and wiser are able to apply their real world knowledge to their cause, to great success, look at moveon.org, which was founded by hippies at ben and jerry's. Don't blame the hippies, man!

Have a super day!!!

Paul

Hey people I hate to break it to some of you but not all baby boomers became hippies in the 60's and the 70's. Not all baby boomer became yuppies in the 80's. It's not wise to make generalizations like that.
My father graduated from high school in 1964. What did he do when he graduated he joined the military and went to fight in Vietnam. Why? Not because for some high ideal of defeating
Communism in Vietnam. Not because he was brainwashed to be patriotic. He did it because he would be able to help college get paid for. Because he knew later on he would want a family and the only way he felt he could support them was with a college eduaction. Through decades of working his ass off he was able to get a good paying job and have two sons getting ready to graduate college. I am a generation X-er and I have worked my ass off to get through college. Why? because I was influenced by my father who was a baby boomer. Also I know dozens of people who are generation X-ers who have also worked their asses off to make something of themselves. One final thing the generation X-ers aren't in control of the country yet. The baby boomers are still running the country.

GeorgeZ, you've got some twisted paranoid logic there. Kind of scary dude. Not convincing at all.

bnpayne, I was trying to avoid generalizations, I think what I tried to say was that of the baby boomers that had become hippies, many became yuppies in the 80's, and thusly became part of the problem. Those who stayed the course and remained hippies have taken their successes in business and their personal idealism to the next level, using the internet to bring people together around various causes.

Every social movement, or popular one, has a core group of people that believe in what they're doing and others who get swept up in the moment and then fall away from it for various reasons. Time weeds out the slackers from the true believers.

b1, I don't think george's logic is paranoid at all, I think it's alarmist, but there's nothing he's saying that can't be backed up factually.

Have a great day!

OT What's a 1987 person called?(generation ?)

It is the radical "New World Order" elites plotting these disenfranchisement-and-enslavement schemes who are the twisted paranoiacs here. Their entire aim is to reduce our quality of life, our standard of living, indeed OUR ENTIRE SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION, to the level of a Third World banana republic, parallel to the outsourcing of jobs to the same countries whose level we're being "reduced" to. Their idea of "control" is synonymous with one-party tyrannies that are so prevalent in certain parts of the world. And as I've always said, those who sanction these abuses of power by the RIAA-Microsoft-MPAA axis of evil on the one hand, and then lecture countries such as China and Cuba on human rights on the other, are sanctimonious hypocrites who have NO BUSINESS speaking out on human-rights issues, however atrocious the actions of the Butchers of Beijing and the Castro regime may be. If we descend to their level, then we have no right to spotlight their flaws under any circumstances.

And it doesn't matter if the people supporting these sinister schemes call themselves "Republicrat" or "Democan" (although quite a few, such as the MPAA's alter-kocker Jack Valenti, are avowed radical left-wingers), they're all part of this clique that seeks to radically tear down the rules that guided our society the last two centuries and remake this country into a "closed" society a la many a totalitarian dictatorship. Some of the people plotting this coup (sorry about that, but that's what it amounts to) are the same ones seeking to rip the crosses off war memorials, ban any acknowledgement of God from our life, outlaw the Pledge of Allegiance, ban smoking in any and all places, invalidate elections, primaries and (in the recent California situation) recalls if the outcome is not to their liking, ban any speech that isn't "politically correct," and many other examples too numerous to mention. (Although the ACLU's challenge to the RIAA's descent of our "legal" system to the level of the kangaroo courts in many a tyranny is something of a reminder that even a broken watch tells the correct time twice a day.) I've noticed that some of those who support the RIAA-MPAA crypto-socialist agenda are also avowed fans of dictators ranging from Castro to the recently-deposed Saddam Hussein. What does that say?

Get a grip guys. Start spouting this stuff at an RIAA senate hearing and you'll be asked to go sit in your crazy box and face the wall - you will not be taken seriously, whether any of this stuff is true or not. Keep it relevant.

...and focused.

Let's see if I can address all the critics...

I said we kill humans for oil, but spare caribou. Is this not true?

I don't believe that anyone can deny that the recording industry has been pushing their own agenda within government for decades.

Y2K -- No one knew that the year 2000 was going to happen back in 1984? They waited until 1999 to think about the fact that by saving a couple of bytes and only storing two digits for the year was someday not going to be enough?

XBoxes -- That one is from CNN. One college professor from Wisconsin complained about the content of the games the military was using, but no one mentioned the fact that it assumed every member of the military had an X-Box.

Paranoid? I don't think so. Paranoia implies fear and this doesn't frighten me. It angers me.

The fact is that the majority is losing rights for the profit of a select few. I have nothing against rich people, per se. I'm more interested in ethics.

What about aliens. You forgot to mention you were abducted and anal probed!

I think your first one there was more like spare the caribou but kill saddam because he's a complete tosser! (US oil imports only around 14% these days compared to 40% in the 70's)

Y2K - man, someone would of had to've been damn crafty to have thought of this in 1970. That's nonsense.

Sure our rights are being eroded, I agree with you there, but what's with all the other stuff?

*US oil imports from the middle east only 14%...etc

Okay. Aliens wrote the DMCA.

Microsoft didn't avoid fixing the two-digit date problem. It was a total surprise when a new century came.