Reply #16: I think we should have IP laws. [View All]

However, if you're going to argue that digital media falls under the same laws as print, broadcast, and nondigital recordings, please consider this:

Back in the 1980's in my area when I was a kid (SW Michigan) I remember my parents complaining about the telephone company. At the time, I think it was Michigan Bell. Specifically, they were upset about not being able to have more than one telephone in their house without paying for it. I seem to recall that the telephone company in their service area was forcing people who had their company as their local phone company (and guess what? It had made certain it was the only one in the 'local' calling area, and owned all the companies in the state beside that) to a) rent the phones they were going to use from the phone company and b) charged extra on the bill for each outlet in the home. These things were, from what I gather, not the only difficulties everyone had with the Bells, but I digress.

This was later declared illegal in court or somehow forcibly reversed and people were ever after able to have as many phones of as many types in their homes as they desired. I distinctly recall this entire episode from my childhood; in fact, I believe my mother still has one of those old black rental phones in her basement.

None of this is true for, to use a modern-day example, Microsoft. In fact, that has done exactly the opposite: once was the day you could install Windows 3.1 on your computers in your home (note the plural), and Microsoft was none the wiser; today, Windows XP must be a unique copy on each computer in one's home- regardless of whether they are networked and/or have internet access, or not. I personally find this to be an unacceptable intrusion; I should be able to install a paid copy of Microsoft Windows XP on each PC in my home.

They used to not prevent this, and now they do- the phone company used to prevent the same, and now, cannot. They are disallowed. Why is Microsoft treated differently? Because it's software, it's digital, it can be easily copied?

Like a phone line, right? Splice the signal, bing- a copy of the call, in real time. Can't have that, the phone company said, but the courts ruled against them. There are rumors Microsoft plans in the future to make Windows a service, that is, you'll pay a monthly license fee if you want to use it.

Imagine that, if you will: a monthly fee, for your PC. A bit like renting phones. And people who deride linux and filesharing and open source software for being free. It's insane, it's greed run amok, and it must stop, even if we have to bankrupt the litigators in the process.

I personally very much wish to see the RIAA dead, and gone, made a thing of the past, and forgotten- for good. It has begun to encroach upon things other than music, things that let people share things other than music, and now things that let people store things other than music. In every case, they end up wanting control, because for them, that equals profit.

When will we admit the truth, and begin to call it a cartel?