Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

[Anatoly Volynets <av AT total-knowledge.com>]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, tom poe wrote:

: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_6/svensson/
: Pirates, Sharks and Moral Crusaders: societal controls in P2P networks
: by Jorgen S. Svensson and Frank Bannister
: 
: This paper is a very nice look at what the issues are, from the
: perspective of using the Internet to develop and enhance societal
: controls surrounding copyright governance.  I personally believe it is
: an excellent supportive document for such projects as the
: creativecommons.org and gnomoradio.org, archive.org, commoncontent.org,
: sharedsongs.org, webjay.com, radioaid.com, and SONG STORM sites, among
: others.
: 
: I especially liked what appears to be a well-referenced work by the
: authors in support of gnomoradio.org:
: "This means that governments and other interested parties might be
: better served to try to involve these users in helping to fight such
: problems. In cooperation with the developers of these programs — who
: also have a stake in blocking some offensive materials — they could try
: to make users more active and effective as agents of social control.

I want to address the very last line. It obviously implies that end users
have to exercise self-censorship in terms of use of copyrighted materials.
I consider copyright to be a killer of culture, thus any action to enforce
it is an analogy to homicide, any action of self-control in this regards
is an analogy to suicide.

I do participate in these suicidal actions out of fear. Doesn't make me 
feel good.

Anatoly Volynets
http://www.total-knowledge.com
http://www.culturedialogue.org