DMCA Comes to Canada

A good friend of mine turned me on to this: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2419/125/ , and the Globe’s coverage.

Merry Christmas, George W. Bush. This year, the Conservative government is giving you the hopes and dreams of thousands of local workers, innovators and educators, gift wrapped in what could potentially be the most repressive and backwards piece of ‘intellectual property’ legislation in the western world. If this passes, anyone living north of 49 and the Great Lakes will essentially need permission from US companies to do… basically anything with their digital gadgets or electronic information. No modifications, no backups, no fair use, no sharing, no removing spy software companies like Sony put on your computer and devices behind your back, no exceptions for educational purposes, and it looks like we can kiss any hopes of the penny-pinchers in Ottawa eliminating that copyright tariff goodbye. Information stands on the brink of total and complete commodification in Canada.

This is “if” the bill passes, of course. But the Bloc and NDP can’t defeat a bill on their own (assuming they would be unanimously opposed to this), and if anyone believes the Liberals will step up on this issue, I have a tower in Toronto to sell them. Given their cowardly, opportunistic behaviour of late, it would have to be a very critical bill for Dion and his people to crawl out from under their beds and risk an election. Since they’re the ones who authored C-60, the last attempt to curtail our digital rights, that’s unlikely.

What can we the people do? People are saying sign petitions, write a letter to your MP and the industry minister, the usual fare, but let’s be realistic. The best case scenario is you’ll get a patronizing response from some secretary that insults your intelligence about how your local member of parliament is seriously considering your half-baked opinion on this not-really-that-complex issue. If you’ve got one of the few good, publicly-engaged MPs, they might even read your letter and be momentarily impressed that you came down from your drug-induced high long enough to string together an entire coherent statement.

I’m not so cynical as to say lobbying your MP never works, but we should not rely on the very same people who are making this problem to fix it. We must rely on ourselves and like-minded individuals who want to defend the free flow of information. Go to IsoHunt and the Pirate Bay and download whatever you can get your hands on. Actively share and distribute software. Learn how to use Linux and get away from Microsoft, who is complicit in all of this. Rent movies and make copies. Save old but still usable hardware and software that was made before “copyright protection” measures were implemented in new technology. If you’re a student and have access to downloadable academic materials (such as through JSTOR), download them, save them, and offer them to fellow students, professors, or school teachers who will be seriously affected by this. Show them while they’re trying to bulldoze this into law that we aren’t going to take it… and if it does become law, keep on showing them.

Resist.

Boot Camp Death Update

After reading the previous post, it’s quite clear that I became rather impassioned by the story of Martin Lee Anderson’s murder at the hands of seven guards and one nurse at the Bay County boot camp. In case anyone believes I judged the system (and concept) of justice too harshly:

Staff in boot camp case walk free

Eight defendants have been acquitted of manslaughter in the case of a teenager who died after being punched and kicked at a Florida boot camp.

Speaking after the not guilty verdict, the family’s lawyer told journalists: “You kill a dog, you go to jail – you kill a little black boy and nothing happens.”

Boot Camp Guards Kill Teen

A fourteen-year-old parole violator was beaten to death by his boot camp guards in 2006 – story from BBC.

Charles Helms said Martin Lee Anderson could have avoided being hit if he had “walked, got up, finished the run”.

The youth collapsed while running laps on his first day at the Bay County camp for juvenile offenders in 2006.

He was beaten by guards for 30 minutes and made to inhale ammonia, and died in hospital a day later.Certainly this is an extreme and deplorable case, but isn’t it at least somewhat indicative of the attitudes society has toward the convicted?  Ted Koppel recently appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” to promote a new documentary which investigates the practice of “warehousing” prisoners in California – confining them to cramped, filthy conditions because the state’s prison system is full to capacity.  Certainly, prisoners do not deserve deluxe accommodations with gourmet meals and a premium-package satellite TV, but there is no justification for treating anyone like an animal in an enlightened society.

The reality of modern society is that our view of justice isn’t much more than revenge dressed up to appear more noble than it really is.  We do what we do with those who break the law not to remove killers, thieves, rapists, and other dangerous individuals from society for the sake of everyone’s safety.  Rather, we do it because, as a society, we feel a deep-seated disdain for our criminals (regardless of their crime) that can lead to forgetting their humanity, tolerance for cruelty – or worse yet, naked misanthropy.

The case of Martin Lee Anderson is the logical end result of this concept of justice.

Just time for a quickie this morning: Fair Use Worth More Than Copyright to Economy.

ISOhunt Blocks US Access to Trackers

This Monday, popular P2P file-sharing website ISOhunt closed its trackers to computers in the United States in an effort to protect their American users from malicious surveillance and attacks by organizations such as the MPAA and RIAA. This action against the freedom and privacy of Americans by corporate cartels is supported by the federal government through increasingly draconian enforcement of copyright law, whose purpose is to stifle free competition and commodify information. Commenting on the issue in ISOhunt’s discussion forum, user Omega50 raises a critical point: ” I am sure the MPAA will be happy, due to the fact they are involved with a torrent site themselves. My guess is they hope that you guys will eventually pay them for the right to help them to spread their wares, for a cost! [...] The MPAA keeps saying that P2P is immoral and can only be used for illegal sharing… so how is their use of the same technology condoned, if the only use of bittorrent is for illegal file sharing?” Follow the first link to read the rest of the discussion.

Meanwhile, internet service providers across the United States are cracking down on file sharing, either by greatly reducing transfer speeds when users are using file sharing programs, or disconnecting them altogether (statements made by several acquaintances in the United States). So why is Washington and its financiers so up in arms over file sharing? An independent study contracted by CRIA (RIAA’s Canadian counterpart) revealed that file sharing had only a minor impact on reduced sales. Similar studies conducted in other parts of the world either reached the same conclusion, or demonstrated that sales had actually gone up.

The real problem with all this P2P business, from the perspective of these corporate associations, is that it levels the playing field. Until this point, music was sold in stores with a physical limit of shelf space. Retailers had to think carefully about what to keep in stock; they needed to guarantee the product would sell well. Corporate labels like Sony, Columbia, EMI and others (who together comprise groups like RIAA) acted as an assurance that there would be demand for an album by advertising, producing music videos for MTV, getting songs played on the radio, etc. Of course, in return they gouged the musicians that signed on with them. P2P file sharing opened consumers to a new kind of store, one where the “shelf space” is theoretically unlimited and options aren’t confined to big label music. This allows a garage band from Flin Flon to compete with bazillion-dollar megastars like Britney Spears on a relatively equal footing – and after decades of having an absolute stranglehold on the market, corporate labels hadn’t felt the need to make sure they were putting out quality music. Now that competition in the music market is based on how good musicians are, rather than how much financial backing they have, the corporate recording industry is at a significant disadvantage.

So the issue isn’t really whether albums are selling, it’s the fact that consumers aren’t buying their albums. Do they fight back against this trend by restructuring their business model and improving the quality of their product in the spirit of free competition, a virtue which capitalists constantly pay lip service to? No, they get the state to intervene and use/condone spying, coercion and intimidation to crush the competition as capitalists cheer them on (with a few notable exceptions among US libertarians).

ISOhunt used this opportunity to call on the people of the United States to end their silence on copyright issues, placing the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of the common people whose apathy allows things like this to happen. Rightly so. Let’s hope this is a wakeup call to our American companions to reassert their rights and freedoms.

Agrofuels – Bad Medicine?

Agrofuels are touted as the silver bullet to cure global warming, energy woes, and a host of socio-political problems from Latin America to the Middle East. Automobiles are running on partial-ethanol fuels, farmers are converting their land to the production of sustainable energy, and millions worldwide are cheering for this “cleaner, greener” alternative to petroleum. But are agrofuels really the panacea we’re looking for?

Alarm bells should have started when ethanol fuel gained unlikely proponents in US president George W. Bush, his brother Jeb, Canadian PM Stephen Harper, and a slew of multinational oil companies. Government officials and corporate heads have come under tremendous pressure in the past couple years to appear “Earth friendly”, and it turns out agrofuels are the perfect way to do so without denting profit margins (and consequently, without actually being Earth friendly either). Grain, a charity that works on behalf of poor farmers in developing countries, attacked agrofuels this summer as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

What’s wrong with agrofuels? They’re environmentally friendly, right? Grain, backed up by a UN study on the subject, argues that using agrofuel does not significantly reduce emissions – certainly not enough to outweigh the environmental cost of deforestation needed to clear fertile land for agrofuel production. Beyond environmental concerns, though, agrofuels create social complications too. For one, prices for staple foods are skyrocketing in markets where agrofuels are produced, due to the reduced supply of some products (wheat) as farmland is switched over to fuel crop production (corn, sugar). The accepted capitalist theory of value is that a good or service is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it; now, poor families who want to put food on their table have to compete with those who want to burn it in their cars, and it’s a very one-sided contest. We see it in Canada – just this summer, the price of flour jumped up 25% in one day.

When we consider how this energy is produced, agrofuels take on an even darker tone. Think about this: petroleum fuel is extracted by highly trained, specialized individuals working in a dangerous environment, and oil companies pay hand over fist for them. Some day soon, these companies will have the option of trading expensive oil engineers for farmers in developing countries who, through IMF agreements and trade treaties, they can pay peanuts to provide them with energy to sell to the world. Or they could hire militant groups in Africa to round up slave labour and not pay them at all. A July article in Socialist Worker Online reveals that this is beginning to happen already: “The expansion of monocrops that are used as the base for agrifuels is being carried out by paramilitary groups. They assassinate “campesino” small farmers or drive them off their land to allow the corporations to take them over.” The image of agrofuel production presented to us is that of poor and simple farmers lifted from poverty by this new market for their crops. The reality is that poor farmers are getting poorer, dispossessed, and killed.

As citizens of the world, our hearts are in the right place by wanting to clean up our planet. Let’s do it right. Let’s make sure that in dealing with pollution, we don’t pollute ourselves.

The Conservative Party’s Fight Against Corruption!

Two posts in one morning, nice. Actually, this one is (relatively) fresh, and I just couldn’t pass it up. Via Blogging a Dead Horse and Terrace Daily: it seems “Canada’s New Government” is finding this whole “democracy” thing to be a bit of a pain in the rear, so the federal government that promised us action is taking action!

By appointing Houston, British Columbia mayor and future federal representative candidate Sharon Smith as Skeena-Bulkley Valley’s “special liaison” to the government. Finally, the residents of Skeena-Bulkley Valley have someone to come to when they have concerns with the federal government – one might even say a voice for their region in Ottawa. Wait, there’s something… it’s scratching at the back of my head… something about grade 10 civics class…

Oh, that’s right, Skeena-Bulkley Valley already has a go-between for residents to raise their concerns with the feds. He’s called a Member of Parliament. He was elected first in 2004, and re-elected in 2006, to go to Ottawa and represent the voters of Skeena-Bulkley in the House of Commons, and his name is Nathan Cullen. Only problem is, as Mr. Cullen’s website clearly shows, those dolts from Skeena-Bulkley elected a New Democrat. Seeing that this injustice cannot stand, MP Dick Harris (Cariboo-Prince George) swung into action, stating, “Having an MP from the fourth party in the House just doesn’t cut it when it comes to actually getting things done for the folks in Skeena-Bulkley Valley. Sharon Smith with her direct government contact will ensure that things DO get done.” So the concerns of Skeena-Bulkley Valley are important to the government, they just won’t listen to them if they come from a member of another party. But don’t look at it as party politics and election gamesmanship trumping regular people’s lives and communities, look at it as just another example of the New Government bringing democracy back to the “folks”.

Another cute statement from Harris underscores the primacy of partisanship over real issues: “…I know the constituents of Skeena-Bulkley Valley will derive a huge benefit from having direct contact with government, something that they have not had since 2004.” Prior to the ‘04 election, Skeena-Bulkley Valley was a Conservative seat, and the Conservatives were not even in government, so by “direct contact with government” Harris can only mean “direct contact with the Conservative Party”. Thankfully, after being left out in the rain for 3 years, Harris and Smith have brought Skeena-Bulkley Valley under the Conservative Party’s umbrella once again. And they didn’t even need an election to do it.

Civil Society Rebels Against Military Rule in Bangladesh

BBC’s article on recent developments in Bangladesh.

There are many photographs that stand out in our collective consciousness as iconic of the extraordinary situations in which they were taken. While this image certainly won’t reach the status of the taking of Berlin, the National Geographic Girl, or Kim Phuc’s Vietnam Napalm, I think it will be remembered for a long time in Bangladesh, no matter how hard the military is trying to destroy it. All the rifles in the world can intimidate people into line (or kill the uncooperative ones), but not even bullets can silence the mind. It’s fitting, then, that the leaders of the uprising against military rule in Bangladesh are university students who have had enough of the restrictions put on free expression.

Now the military is bullying the paper that published the photograph, and they’re trying to track down the student to add to their growing list of “mysteriously disappeared” academics, activists, journalists, police officials and politicians. Guess they didn’t get the message.

Rogue Thought?

Hello everyones, welcome to “Rogue Thought”!

I started this blog mostly because topics of a more serious nature were creeping into my Livejournal account with increasing frequency. I want to keep that one more light-hearted and focused on things like video games, movies, music, anime, etc., but I also felt the itch to write down my musings on deeper subjects that my LJ friends don’t necessarily want to bore themselves with. So, here we are!

The inspiration for the title “Rogue Thought” comes from a quote by Emma Goldman, who said “The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.” Absolute terms that I don’t generally subscribe to myself, but I like it anyway. Of course, the statement applies to more than just the ‘political arena’. In all aspects of society, you either do what you’re told by judges, politicians, priests, parents, bosses, or teachers, toe the line obediently… or you’re a rogue. A criminal. A nuisance. You ask questions. Personally, I like being a rogue. I’m one of those people who never grew out of that habit four-year-olds have of asking questions. Many of the answers I’ve arrived at so far in my short life are radical, some are certainly unpopular as far as social norms go. They may not be the right answers for everyone, but then, I’m not one of you. I’m one of me.

So read if you like, don’t if you don’t, and if you happen to be a fellow rogue, feel free to share some of your own troublesome thinking!