R-E-S-P-E-C-T Means Nothing To Me
Published June 16th, 2011 | 
The other day I was reading this story about debt collectors. Basically, debt collectors are whining because they don’t get any respect. I was as bemused by this as the reporter who wrote the article seemed to be. Having had my own run-ins with debt collectors I’m not sympathetic to their plight. I recall one woman saying to me over the phone while I was still battling cancer that she “didn’t care [if I] fucking died.” Yes, debt collectors will lie, threaten, scold, berate, humiliate you. They will call your friends and relatives at home and at work. They don’t care about you or whether you even owe the debt legitimately since all you are to them is a name in a file somewhere. And they depict debtors as lazy good-for-nothing deadbeats who are trying to skip-out on paying a legitimate debt rather than unfortunate individuals who have simply fallen on hard times. While fat cats can skip town on bad investments in Branson real estate and investment bankers can blow there wads on junk investments, collect a big payday from the government as a reward for fucking up the economy that helped drive those small debtors into debt in the first place, it makes me scream when some bottom-feeding scumbag tries present themselves as a victim. Guess what? Their attempts to go on a "charm offensive" will fail.
Censoring the Search Engines
Published May 11th, 2011 |
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act? Huh? Yes, this is the current name of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) bill that sprung from Congressional hearings on the subject a short time ago. Basically, it’s a bill that, should it become law, will make it legal to ban certain sites the government decides is dangerous like torrent and warez sites. Essentially, under this law, search engines would be required to block these sites from showing up in search results.
I’m firmly against this bill. Not because I have <3 for Internet pirates, but because I think this bill sets an unhealthy precedent and goes against everything America and the Internet are supposed to be about.
When I mentioned this topic before, I said outright that the federal government has the right and responsibility to go after Internet pirates and prosecute them provided they have evidence of wrongdoing. What the government shouldn’t have the right to do is prevent Internet users from searching for any web sites even if those site promote illegal activity or unsavory ideas nor should the government have the right to monitor your search activity online.
What? Are we children, America? Should we be told what web sites we can and cannot view? Should Congress be given that much power over our lives? Hell no!
And really, there is no wholesale Insurance against intellectual property theft; any pirate who has the means to hack, steal and redistribute software and other types of intellectual property can probably figure out a way around the ban anyway, so who does this bill hurt? Average Internet users. But saying it’s okay to block one type of website, they creating the possibility of newer laws that can ban any web site the government doesn’t like.
Gremlins in the Garden
Published April 15th, 2011 | I was watching Bill Maher last night on HBO and went to bed thinking about our crappy government. The sideshow over planned parenthood and the pointless, ineffectual wrangling over reducing the national debt, etc. It’s enough to make a man scream. It’s like a bad neighbor waking you up every night with ridiculous outdoor lighting and loud music. They are out to make our lives and troublesome and inconvenient as possible while those bastards in the wealthier neighborhoods sleep sound.
Take the recent action over Google Books, for example. Judge Dennis Chin, after months of silence, finally issued his ruling in the Justice Department lawsuit over the previous settlement with the Author’s Guild. The fact that Google Books satisfies a public good (something that Chin, himself, acknowledged) seems to be less important to the government than protecting “orphan works” whose copyright no one is claiming. I’m telling you, people, there are gremlins in the garden shining their floodlights and playing Justin Beiber at 4 o’clock in the morning. As I’ve stated before, the issue of orphan works is a bullshit issue intended to put on a sideshow to keep small time authors fearful of big bad Google so they can’t see that this is really about protecting Rupert Murdoch and Disney. Whatever concerns authors or the Justice Department may have over copyright infringement can be addressed by simply change the Google books scanning project to an opt-in agreement instead of opt-out. Yes, this would slow the project down some, but it wouldn’t stop it in its tracks. Just don’t give me this bullshit about orphan works! These are creations that would’ve been in the public domain a long time ago had the Congress not decided to extend copyright protection well beyond what our founding fathers intended to begin with. And why did Congress do it? To protect the likes of Murdock and Disney. Because why the fuck would an author who’s been dead several decades need copyright protection? So their great grand kids don’t have to work? WTF?! So Disney can sue a video game designer who creates a character wearing a Mickey Mouse cartoon?
As a matter of principle, I’d certainly prefer Google do opt-in instead of opt-out, but even without that, Google has acted responsibly in this matter and is doing something monumental that will benefit authors and library and, more importantly, the public at large. So Chin’s decision, while thoughtful, is dead wrong.
