“Digital Denial” by Braydon Fuller
MPAA supported legislation previously known as “PROTECT IP” has been updated. Ars Technica has recently published an article titled, “House Takes Senates Bad Internet Censorship Bill and Makes it Worse”, and Tech Dirt reports, “Protect IP renamed E-PARASITES Act would create the Great Firewall of America”.
In an argument in support of the legislation that would require ISPs to censor specific websites under the pretext that they are in violation of copyright infringement:
The motion picture and television industry is responsible for over 30,000 jobs in Colorado, 17,000 jobs in Maryland and 22,000 jobs in Arizona. Foreign rogue websites pose a threat to each one of these jobs by profiting from the sale of stolen content and draining our economy of billions of dollars annually. The PROTECT IP Act will help to deter, prevent and root out websites that harm thousands of honest workers. MPAA Blog – Protect IP Support Strengthens
Our economy is in recession, signs of this have been the real-estate and bank drama that has been the prime source for the Occupy protests happening across the U.S. and in other parts of the world. However, I have not to see the direct examples of it from my lens of the immediate surrounding. There even seems to be a worker shortage or lack of vitality in agriculture. In my own work, I’m turning down many job opportunities. Some because I’m busy, and others because of user ethics. I refuse to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement that includes software in its terms to not be disclosed. This is because software is different than any other work because it has source code that can be completely hidden from users — forever. Imagine if your government did not tell you the rules of our system and arrested us because we broke the rules. It would be an injustice. This is what is going on with the software industry that most of what Americans recognize as software development companies. If your business is dependent upon software, how are the rules of a computing system any less important than the rules of a government? Information is vital to business.
This is the reason I am starting the post-software movement that says, “It is better to use no software than to use proprietary software.” It is an art movement and an Internet campaign to draw attention away from software while not looking away. What would the world be like if the people who currently were using proprietary systems were to suddenly not have access to a personal computer running proprietary software. The only way, from a web development point of view, to develop a site that would reach the most number of people would be to develop for Android. It is likely the most popular and accessible free software system, even though it does also include proprietary portions, though the web browser source code is available and able for people to modify and redistribute. Google is smart in their recent purchase of Motorola, because they realize they need to get more into hardware. They are also a smart company because they use their free software releases, Chrome and Android, as advertisement to their bread and butter. I refuse to work for Google, or to entertain the possibility, because those services are based on proprietary Google-only software, in support of the Google-nation. Apply the same principle to real physical hardware products, and you have an elegant solution that is not in violation of user ethics. Computers are here to be help us, not to control us.
So MPAA you’re right to think about peoples jobs of honest workers, however are the 2 million American jobs that are supported by the film and television industry, as you quote, more important than 1.5 billion Internet users freedom of speech? Certainly we can produce films without the MPAA and to do so independently in support of millions of American small and large businesses.
Would the proposed bill even have a significant affect to end copyright infringement when DNS lookups can be delegated to the web browser or to user controlled routers, such as a plugin for Firefox. It’s time we bite the bullet, computers are hugely important because sharing is fundamental to society. I support the Occupy protest movement to keep overt private interests, such as this, out of our government, we are the 99 percent.
©2011, Braydon Fuller. This post is available for use under an Attribution-NoDerivs license.