Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to I am not at my best today

"Mainstream media" is a buzzword.
ER — (archived)

So is "prying from cold dead hands", even when used in a jocular fashion as in this case.

The subtext of TB's post is essentially that a liberal institution (the MSM) is out to trample on our freedoms by interfering with the internet. Those damned lefties.

Actually, as you point out, I don't disagree with that assessment, and indeed, my opinions in this area ARE laissez-faire. But although I agree with TB's facts, I clash with his interpretation. My subtext is that when the conservative institution (a major publishing corporation) is challenged by an innovator, it resorts to government/regulatory tactics to squash its competition, rather than changing its business model or investing in new technologies. Those damned righties.

Copyright and patent law is designed to protect the owner, not the creator of a new idea, they are not the same. It favors the institution who can marshall the legal resources to vigorously defend that patent or implement some cosmetic modification in the product to get around it. This is harder in the case of written material, where the usual tactic is to force the writer (or musician) to sign away all his rights to his creation for a pittance or not get it published at all.

Writers and musicians are now moving their product through the internet, bypassing traditional media outlets and the recording industry, and these middleman companies are screaming bloody murder because they are losing their stranglehold on the creative process and are finding it harder to bully the artist.

I'm sure TB sees this as a victory of the entrepreneur over the collective. I prefer to see it as a triumph of labor over capital.

BTW, Frank, did you get my letter about installing text in my file gallery on .net? It worked fine for me before, now, I can't upload my text or even delete the gallery when that fails.

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