Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[Ram Samudrala <ram AT zen.compbio.washington.edu>]

A bit offtopic, but I recommend checking out Frank Zappa's Joe's
Garage. I quote:

   Based on the principle that if we were all crooks, we could at last
   be uniform to some degree in the eyes of THE LAW...  Once we had
   all broken some kind of law, we'd all be in the same big happy
   club.  ---Frank Zappa

   TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION was the greatest idea of its time and was
   vastly popular except with those people who didn't want to be
   crooks or outlaws.  So, of course, they had to be TRICKED INTO
   IT... which is one of the reasons why MUSIC was eventually made
   ILLEGAL.  ---Frank Zappa

 As John Perry Barlow wrote:

 "The greatest constraint on your future liberties may come not from
 government but from corporate legal departments laboring to protect 
 by force what can no longer be protected by practical efficiency or
 general social consent."  --John Perry Barlow, The Economy of Ideas

--Ram

Erik Sliman wrote:
>
>The problem with this theory (homemade computer that can "circumvent") is
>that they can felonize citizens for such activity.  It used to be in the
>1970s that a felon was thought of as murderer, rapist, bank robber, or high
>level violent criminal.   Does anyone remember those days?

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