Political Humor

It has come to my attention that CNN, the Communist News Network, has issued a copyright infringement claim against the Founding Bloggers, who posted a video of Susan Roesgen badgering and arguing with Chicago Tax Tea Party Protesters. Jim Treacher brought it to my attention.

The first part, you will recognize. The second part, you may not. You see Roesgen arguing with a woman that is confronting her for not interviewing the regular people attending the rally. Roesgen responds with bewilderment that attendees are not protesting Obama, or even the Democrats, but Republicans as well.

Now, beyond that, this has really touched a nerve, because I am against copyright. Period. I don’t see copyright as a valid law. Back in the days of printing presses, you had to own a medallion that indicated that you were approved by the Crown to own a printing press. This way, they could keep an eye on those who were allowed to own the means of distribution of information, and prevent the mass creation of subversive materials.

Copyright was invented as a limitation on free speech. Today, we see an example of CNN using copyright for what? To limit free speech. Copyright is wrong. Plain and simple. I find the idea of “Intellectual Property” to be complete and utter bullshit. What is the premise of “Intellectual Property?” It’s that someone owns, not a physical item, not a physical plot of land, not a physical structure, but that they OWN an idea. How the fuck can you own an idea?

You can own a means of production of an idea. You can own a physical replicant of certain ideas, like books and dvds. You can own a means of distribution of an idea. But you cannot own the idea itself. But that is why copyright exists. It exists to say that MY means of production is the only legitimate one. MY means of distribution is the only legitimate one. MY physical replica is the only legitimate one?

Why?

You may have bought into arguments that the producer of that “Intellectual Property” needs to earn a living, and that by “Stealing” their work, you are taking their income. Bullshit. Business is more than just products. It’s also marketing and distribution.

In order to have a successful and thriving business, you need to be good at all of these parts. You can make the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, you will fail. You can make crap, with no real world value to anyone, but if it is marketed right, you get elected to public office. Isn’t that right, President Obama?

Another form of “Intellectual Property” is patents. Patents allegedly protect someone who invents something from having their idea “stolen” from someone else. What patents really do is stifle technological growth. They were an okay idea when we wanted to inspire people to take up and develop technology, and wanted to offer an incentive. We are now to a place where technology is no longer being advanced by patents, but is being hindered instead.

Imagine if the producers of technology were able to look at the designs of competing firms and say, “I know how to make that better.” Instead, we demand that they come up with their designs in spite of their competition. In fact, they better not come up with anything even close, because that is how patents work. Even if you were to accidentally create something similar to someone else, too bad. They’re “protected” from your design improvement. We demand that every technology company reinvent the wheel with each advancement, rather than competing in the marketplace.

Who does intellectual property really protect? They protect the big, slow, backward, stupid, failed corporations that are too big, slow, backward, and stupid to compete in the marketplace. You know these businesses. They are the very same ones on the receiving end of the extortion payment that was being protested in Chicago. The very same bailout recipients that our Socialist government rewarded for their failure. They are protected by our Powermad politicians, using their laws, designed to control people, to reward the failure of businesses at our expense.

Then, when the wonder of the Internet allows the actual FREE and unfettered distribution of information, out comes this unjust law. Cease and desist! You’re embarrassing us, and this simply won’t do. To the degree that CNN’s footage has been used, It has already been aired!

They already used it. They already got paid by advertisers who had spots during that segment. They have lost nothing, except the control of the audience.

And that is the real issue here. It’s control. If you control the distribution of information, you control the audience of that information. If you can keep them ignorant of subversive ideas, they may not think them on their own. Alternately, they may not realize how many others are thinking those things. They may not know how many are there with them. These things are dangerous to those who rule by fear. Those who rule by fear tend to do so because they rule IN fear. In fear of losing their grip on power. So they want to control who has access to what.

This site does not seek to limit it’s distribution. That is why we operate under a license that allows you to modify, adapt, or build upon, for commercial or non-commercial use. All we ask for in return is attribution. That is why we allow you to subscribe to email updates, or your RSS aggregator, and give you the FULL feed. It’s more important to be distributed than to control the means of distribution. You don’t even need to visit the site. You can get your email update, and be done without missing a thing.

Someone who really understands the Internet would understand that traffic is actually a cost. If you’re not seeing that, it’s because you are not getting as much traffic as you are paying to allow for. Get a little more, and you will see that web traffic costs money. If you understand marketing, you know that it is good to be a ubiquitous brand. Demanding people visit the actual site is bad on both counts.

What is the most sold book ever? It’s the Bible. Who holds the copyright to it? No one. It is more important to distribute the ideas inside than it is to make a profit from it. Yet, every publisher is able to make a killing selling it. You can get it for free on the internet. Yet people continue to pay to own a copy, and it continues to be a best seller. No one is sitting there thinking, “Wait, what’s this book you’re talking about?” Everyone knows about it, because it’s not “protected” by a copyright, and publishers compete in the marketplace for sales.

About one third of visitors to this site use the Firefox web browser. Most of the rest use Internet Explorer, and the majority of them use it because it’s just there, on their computer when they buy it. They don’t think to change it, or don’t meet a convincing enough argument to change it. Maybe they are even afraid of their computer to such a degree that they fear changing their browser. But the point isn’t why people won’t use Firefox. It’s why do a full ONE THIRD of the market share use it?

Those one third will tell you it’s better. One feature they will point to is all the customizations that are available. The reason there is such a high availability of features is that Firefox is Open Source. This means anyone can make any copy or any improvement at any time for any reason. They just need to attribute the source code.

This should challenge you to ask a few questions, such as, how is Firefox even a business model if they don’t “protect” their “intellectual property?” Why aren’t there two gazillion thriving knockoffs? There may be two gazillion knockoffs, but they are not thriving. Why? Because they know how to compete on the finished product, it’s marketing, and it’s distribution. So far, they have won. In fact, they are so competitive, they have stolen one third of Microsoft’s market share. That’s one third of the market share of the biggest software company in the world. Could they have done this if they were “protecting” their “intellectual property?” I doubt it.

Firefox is winning because they have competed in the marketplace, and have done so successfully. Yet we don’t ask everyone to do this. We exempt some. More often than not, those we exempt are the big, slow, backward, stupid, failed corporations. Like CNN.

What do you think?

Also on this topic: CNN Using BS Copyright Argument to Bump Video