What are you willing to give up?

Internet Radio is at risk due to CARP -- the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel. There's also a new bill being put forward before Congress that would make copying watermarks and holograms illegal.

Dallas News is issuing "cease and desist" orders against online sites for deep linking.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation -- the main watchdog against copyright abuses is working overtime just to keep up with all the attacks against free speech.

Personally, I splurged and bought myself a CD, which I can't afford, and then proceeded to find that I can't play it on my computer because it's one of the new copy-protected CDs.

Motion Picture Industry. Disney. The recording industry. AOL Time-Warner. Newspapers. Magazines. Cable. Sony. Television. Pieces of the creature we know as The Media Monster Machine.

And to fight this we've had a day of silence on Internet Radio, letter writing campaigns to congress, and discussions of a march on Washington.

I'm curious -- what would you be willing to give up to fight for a more balanced viewpoint in regards to copyright law implementation? What would you be willing to give up to send a message to The Media Monster Machine?

Would you be willing to give up movies? Including Spider Man? Star Wars? Would you be willing to give up Radio, traditional or Internet-based? How about TV, would you give up sports and movies and Six Feet Under or Buffy or Sex in the City? Would you be willing to not buy that new CD, DVD, or VHS? Would you cancel your newspaper and magazine subscriptions?

What would you be willing to give up?

When you consider that people actively fighting any of the copyright legislative abuses add up to less than 5% of the total population of the country, marches and letter writing won't have much of an impact on a congress whose main interest is in being re-elected to office.

However, when you consider that this same 5% of the population is made up of people representing a major purchasing power, particularly when it comes to cable, electronics, music, movies, and other items dependent on a larger than normal discretionary income matched by a larger than normal interest in entertainment and gadgets -- then you begin to see the shadows of a hammer strong enough to beat against the box the media industry is trying to create.

The question is, though -- what are you willing to give up?

Posted by Bb at May 07, 2002 09:47 PM