Lessig's Challenge: Are You Up To It? 350
Eloquence writes "At the 2002 Open Source Conference, law professor and cyberactivist Larry Lessig, last prominently featured here because of the Eldred case, asked some poignant questions: 'How many people have given to [the] EFF more money than they have given to their local telecom to give them shitty DSL service? How many people have given more money to [the] EFF than they give each year to support the monopoly--to support the other side?' Luke Francl has interpreted these questions as a challenge, and decided to chronicle both his donations to good causes and his less voluntary payments to 'the media oligarchy' on this page: Lessig's Challenge. This is a good idea if others imitate it: If these pages become interlinked with each other, not only can they motivate us and let us track our progress, they may also help us to keep each other up to date about 'good causes' -- there's more than the EFF, after all. With Harry Potter in theatres and Lord of the Rings before us, should 'nerds' also be thinking about supporting those who fight for our rights to, say, play DVDs on an open-source OS?"
Exploding Dog? (Score:5, Interesting)
He bought a print of a small artist and counted that? He donated to a radio station and counted that? I buy lots of things from small companies. But small companies don't lobby. They don't actively undo the damage that giving to your local telecom does. That's why Lessig mentioned the EFF.
I mean, I'm a hypocrite by posting this I guess, since I have never given to the EFF, but if I just get to count purchasing things from small companies/artists, I'll clobber my telecom bill every month, guaranteed.
Re:Exploding Dog? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, assuming you spend a fixed amount of money per month on entertainment, each dollar given to independent sources of entertainment is a dollar not given to the media conglomerates.
In this way we work to take down the media cartel and put up a friendlier system in its place.
Re:Exploding Dog? (Score:3, Interesting)
"because most of us couldn't go without movies/music forever"
Well from time to time, I become an idealist. I think that the "couldn't" above really should be "choose not to". There are several notable (but false) exceptions:
- "I have kids that I can't keep from watching teletubbies/power rangers/etc as well as buy them associated toys"
I can imagine that childrens' influence (whining) can be quite prolific, if they whined "Come ON pops... I WANT to take crack", I can't imagine you would succumb very easily.
- "I have to as part of my job because I am in the entertainment industry"
I guess this is somewhat legitimate, though it seems to me that your choice of careers is indeed a "choice" and if you are characterizing this career with "Cartel" maybe you have chosen the wrong career.
- "Every time I drive to work, I see billboards pitching the latest and greatest stuff to me. I can't avoid seeing these"
But you can avoid buying them.
- "Every time I turn on the TV, I see ads pitching the latest and greatest stuff to me. I can't avoid seeing these"
But you can avoid buying them. And I guess it should be somewhat obvious, but you can avoid watching TV [tvturnoff.org]
- "But what about the MS-tax?"
While somewhat difficult to avoid, it is possible through Dell [slashdot.org] and Walmart [walmart.com] to name some major ones.
While I agree with wunderhorn1's assessment of the intent of the lessig challenge, Giving matching funds given to the "bad guys" and giving them to the "good guys" is a good start, it results in the "good guys" with a net income much smaller than the "bad guys" (based on the number of software-conscious people)Re:Exploding Dog? (Score:3, Insightful)
So yes, exploding dog does count.
The problem with this, though... (Score:5, Interesting)
While regular folks and even a lot of techies realize that not paying their DSL/cable modem/satellite Internet bills is going to get their service cut off, the same cannot be said for the EFF. Yes, I totally agree that there may very well come a day where we cannot do anything due to companies strong-arming governments to pass legislation to reduce what we can do with the Internet, but unless and until the majority of folks get this message and understand its severity and urgency, Lessig's challenge will be unsuccessful.
I would also like to point out that many people take issue at some of the causes that the EFF fights. Please don't let one or two court challenges that the EFF helps with deter you from becoming a member if you already haven't. The fact is that the majority of the EFF's aid is of critical importance to my and your free speech rights and they need every cent of help we can offer.
Donate despite objecting? Nope. (Score:4, Insightful)
I won't give money to support an organization that makes such awful decisions and is unwilling to listen to reasonable arguments.
If you're like me, pick your fights more specifically -- donate to individual legal funds, find smaller, more issue-oriented causes.
-- q
Re: Counter-Challenge to Prof. Lessig (Score:5, Interesting)
Professor, I understand that you urge people to donate to the EFF an amount equal to what they spend on products from the MPAA, RIAA, and other cartels pushing for abusive laws and DRM schemes to further their Mafia-like control over information and culture. But the EFF has demonstrated that it will spend donations, not only for that purpose, but also on unconscionable lobbying against well-respected legislative and community tools to control spammers -- the hands-down worst abusers in the internet culture. I have read your book "The Future of Ideas" and was impressed by what you had to say. But I cannot for the life of me imagine how the ubiquitous spamming of unwilling net users could be regarded as a positive component of the "digital commons" you described.
So this is my challenge to you, Dr. Lessing:
Respond to this post with a persuasive defense of the EFF's pro-spam lobbying, which convinces me that my freedom as an internet user is enhanced by forcing me to continue being bombarded with emails for porn, fraud, and garbage products. If you persuade me, I will immediately donate $500 (the estimated amount I spent this year on cartel-controlled media) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Not just nerds should fight, but all people (Score:5, Insightful)
This needs to start with us, every day. With our secretaries, our neighbors, our grandmothers, everyone in every way. Word of mouth is powerful. But it can't just stop there, and I fear that it won't be enough in the end. With digital tv and DVD Audio just around the corner, and more severe copyright controls, you can bet that this problem will be even worse, and this message will sadly be further quelled. Nevertheless, it all starts with us...
Re:Not just nerds should fight, but all people (Score:2)
Most of the people I know who aren't heavily into their computers only want to use use Word. They buy a computer with an XP Home license and Office on it already from a high street retailer who is ripping them off already.
If I were to ask most of them they wouldn't have a clue how much they were paying for their OS/App bundles.
Besides, there is no way I am going to get my Gran into a completely GPL environment 'cos is took me two months to teach her how to log in to her Windows machine . . .
post-rationalization? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:post-rationalization? (Score:2)
I agree somewhat. I have DSL, but it was because I got really sick of my dialup connection dropping, and my wife needed the internet to do work on her thesis. Of course, it wasn't tough to convince me to get it. :-) But I absolutely love having DSL, it would be really tough to give it up. I actually use the internet as a tool, as well as for fun. I don't go see movies all that often, unless there is something I really want to see. I can make that compromise.
However, this weekend I caved. I rented Attack of the Clones. Even though I am a big Star Wars fan, I refused to go see it in the theatre because of Episode I, and because of the bad reviews it got. It made me not want to see it. But there it was at Blockbuster, all shiny and pretty. What a lifeless piece of crap. Even going in, having read some reviews, I had hope that I could suffer through the bad parts for all the good parts I heard about. I had to fast forward through the gratuitous garbage love scenes, but even then I was disappointed at the wooden acting of the entire cast, the overdone computer generated effects, and the lack of a story. Even the Yoda fight scene was stupid, and I had heard that the movie was worth seeing just for that.
So I compromised my morals, I got burned, and I feel like a sucker. I am glad I didn't go see it in a theater though.
On another note, I haven't bought a new CD in a few years. I like going to used CD stores, or rediscovering music from the 300+ CDs in our current collection.
Re:post-rationalization? (Score:5, Insightful)
for many people a fast internet connection allows them to work from home, thus extending the life of their car and decreasing their oil consumption. So then you must decide whether it is more hurtful to support their telecom/cable company, or to support the auto and oil industries.
the world is full of tradeoffs, to pretend otherwise is foolish and naive.
1% vs 99% (Score:3, Informative)
Asking people to never support these riders EVER isn't a practical solution unless you plan to move up into the mountains and live as a hermit. The solution of making sure you give more money (votes) to the opposition than you do via incedental riders on your ticket prices, CD-R prices, and so on, is certainly sub-optimal. But it's the only practical way short of not being a participant in the modern marketplace at all.
Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:5, Interesting)
And lets be honest - it was RedHat's lobbying that reduced the effect of UCITA. The only thing that stopped the CBDTPA and that P2P protection bill was the noise made by people on discussion forums writing in protest.
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe its because they didnt have enough lobbying cash? You cant expect them to work miracles whilst being underfunded.
it was RedHat's lobbying that reduced the effect of UCITA
RedHat has money to do this good work. Perhaps people should buy a 7.3 box to say "thanks".
Either way, its a fascinating idea; match dollar for dollar the money you spen on the monopoly, on people trying to protect us from it.
An example of great thinking...
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just last week, a Slashdot poll showed that approximately 70-75% of you who responded took no action to fax or email Congress about issues like this.
Since you haven't spent any money with the EFF, I would say you *are* currently getting your money's worth.
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:2)
And that's to be expected. We are constantly told that Faxing and emails are useless. They do not carry any weight with the senators/congress people. They only respond to real, snail-mail letters and money.
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:5, Interesting)
I also think the EFF should have built a more weblog/community style website long ago. Their current site still looks very 1997-ish to me, without much potential for interaction. People aren't really given many incentives to visit eff.org regularly, which makes it less effective to issue calls for action. That's what they should spend money on. Projects like Indymedia, love them or hate them, need good software to run on, and this software would be developed faster with some help, while benefitting EFF's own site at the same time. And then they could also have spent money to fund interesting peer-to-peer-projects that are related to free speech.
Generally speaking, too few people at the EFF have a real clue about how to use the Internet to coordinate grassroots activity, and they are definitely not spending their money as effectively as they could. They're acting more like a traditional lobbying organization, with their impact more or less proportional to the amount of money behind them. The RIAA and MPAA, of course, will always be able to outspend them, so better strategies are needed.
I don't know any alternatives, though. I always thought Slashdot would be in the best position to organize effective grassroots protests (a real Slashdot effect, not just a server-related one), but the editors seem more concerned about movies and anime -- no offense intended.
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:2, Interesting)
We are each reading these comments and talking about how much more effective one or another course of action could be. What we need now is a trigger... a tipping point. Lessig asked very directly "What have you done?". But we can also ask what the EFF has done to apply to itself all that Lessig is rightly calling for.
Its very surprising and more than a little frustrating that the EFF, this organization that fights for free and dynamic tech, isnt using some of the most common and effective tools available to them.
I dont mind the Tinsel Town vid, but i do think the entire process could be done better. (more on that another time)
I have already written to the webmaster of the EFF asking why they didnt even have something as basic as a discussion list (and not just the announcement lists they currently have). I didnt get much of a response... (just told me to sign up for the announcments - which i had already done).
Im writting to Lessig instead right now.
If you want slashdot to be a breeding ground for change and not just comments, one way to start that would be to help persuade the EFF that it is well past time to make their site and their organization much more dynamic. Creative, issue-action, and other discussion lists would be a very good place to start.
Obviously writing emails to the EFF isnt much in the way of slashdot action and change, but its a small bit in that direction. Any suggestions for bigger ways in which a real slashdot effect can be encouraged would be much appreciated...
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have some sensible ideas about how to make the EFF a better organization. Have you considered donating some of your time to help them utilize the Internet more effectively?
Re:Do we get our money's worth with the EFF? (Score:2, Informative)
Are you really serious? You think the DMCA is easy to beat? EFF got Sklyarov [eff.org] out of jail, they just won the ICANN [eff.org] case. They are standing up for technology with their cases on P2P and PVR systems. They offered the first technical look at Pd. They are in all of the BPDG meetings standing up for you. All this and more on a tiny fraction of the budgets of the groups they are fighting, which is really what this challenge is all about.
Maybe you should take a look at what you are really getting for your money
What about actual work? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's better--working for an hour to remove works from the tyranny of copyright, or working in a "regular job" for an hour and donating the proceeds to EFF?
Re:What about actual work? (Score:4, Informative)
what exactly are you doing to remove works from the tyranny of copyright? if you are referring to transcribing, or prooring for project gutenberg then you are simply making those books more accessable. those books have already fallen out of the hands of the copyright holders.
the only ways i know of to legally get copyrighted works from the holders of the copyrighted material
is to
a) purchase the copyright,
b) wait for the copyright to expire,
c) work to change the law to make the copyright expire sooner
this isnt to say that working for projects like gutenberg is bad-i think it's great. just dont make it out to be something it's not, and it's not freeing works from the tyranny of copyright.
Re:What about actual work? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also about capability: Some people can only contribute money, others can only contribute code, others can do both. That's why it's so stupid to tell people who complain about open source to fix the problems they report -- some people can't code, but they may help by donating or by reporting problems. Everyone who doesn't have to spend most of their time struggling for survival (which is, unfortunately, true for a large part of the world population) can contribute to open source and open content.
Re:What about actual work? (Score:2)
This is an interesting post - because it mirrors a number of other fights throughout history. Although not a keen interest of mine, I remember watching a TV show on womens rights in the last century.
Basically, it came down to this; which did more for womens rights; the gals that stood at the picket lines (or whatever it was at that stage through the century) protesting and refusing to shave their armpits... or the women who got out into the workforce and started actually doing stuff to benefit society, in turn breaking down the barriers by moving into occupations like Medicine and Law where previously women had not played a role.
-- james
Not sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true (Score:2)
It shouldn't JUST be about money, but money always helps.
Registered Charity? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the EFF a charity?
Re:Registered Charity? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think the EFF is or would be able to register as a charity under either English or Scots law.
In the UK if you want to support Free Software there are a number of ways of doing so:
You could join the Association for Free Software (http://www.affs.org.uk/)
You can use the UK Free Software Network for your ISP - all profits from UKFSN are donated to fund Free Software projects and there is open accounting so you can verify this is true (another ISP called uklinux makes the same promise but the money never finds its way out of the pockets of the directors!).
You can support the UK Unix User Group, who do a lot to promote and support Open Source and Free Software in the UK.
You can support the Campaign for Digital Rights (http://ukcdr.org/) who are working hard to try and protect our rights to fair usage of our own property and the right to develop software under a Free Software license.
While you and I may feel that OSS and Free Software is beneficial to society at large I am not sure the Charities Commission would take the same view thus we're excluded from registering a Free Software charity in the UK.
Re:Registered Charity? (Score:2)
Giving away software could be considered foolish or a life style choice, helping people defend themselves in court is charitable.
Fortunatly, we don't neen that kind of support in the UK and Europe, but in a few months when the IP laws and EU/UK version of DMCA get through we will need the likes of the EFF.
Re:Registered Charity? (Score:2)
That's the wrong attitude. You should try and organize something like the EFF there BEFORE that comes to a vote, to try and make people aware of it, and how it's a bad thing.
Try being proactive, rather than reactive. It's easier to kill a bill from becoming law instead of killing the law, which (in the US, at least, not sure about European countries/EU) can only happen after it's used against someone.
I'm In Compliance (Score:3, Flamebait)
Well I have Cable but besides that I get good service. So that'd be $0 to a shitty ISP and $0 to the EFF.
How many people have given more money to [the] EFF than they give each year to support the monopoly--to support the other side?
Let's see, I haven't bought an MS product at retail value in a long time so again, $0 for MS and $0 for the EFF.
Do I win something now???
Re:I'm In Compliance (Score:4, Funny)
So, $50 to EFF, $0 to Microsoft. Yeah!
As for my cable company... When the EFF offers a 1.5 megabit connection in my neighborhood (for under $50/mo), You'll find me one of the first in line. Until then, I can only hug my knees, rock back and forth, and keep mumbling unconvincingly to myself "Ted Turner doesn't own Adelphia yet".
Internationality (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd happily make donations to the EFF if I knew that they'd act for issues I'm faced with too (I live in England).
The last time I checked, I couldn't find any information about whether they would do this (please correct me if I'm wrong).
Of course, the rest of the world (Europe especially) do seem intent on matching American laws, so making American law sane would indirectly affect me, but that seems a very roundabout way to make my money effective.
Agreed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Internationality (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Internationality (Score:2)
Re:Internationality (Score:2)
I have thought about donating to EFF. And I have thought aboht the very same thing you mentioned. That is why I think my money is better spent at EFFi (www.effi.org). Altrough I haven't yet donated any money *cough*...
Sorry to dissent (Score:3, Insightful)
If only.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I tried to make a donation... (Score:3, Funny)
I tried to make a donation to a good cause. But I could not find out where to send the money. I couldn't track anyone down at all. So I guess SPEWS will have to do without my money and we'll all still have to deal with a growing spam problem.
Asked the wrong question (Score:2, Interesting)
To ask how many people give to the EFF, you are asking, how many people give to the EFF from their disposable income. A person's disposable income is usually a lot smaller than the nominal income, from which the oligarchy "takes" the lion's share.
Now, there is some grey here. I would contend that some amount of music is a necessity for basic human life, especially living in the techno world that we live in. However, you do have some choice about where you get your music. As long as you have some choice, you should probably be selecting non-RIAA sources. But people also require some continuity; and if your business plays Debbie Gibson all day long (showing my age there...), then you're going to want to have some Debbie Gibson stuff at home, which is why the RIAA pays radio stations to play their music.
But when you think about it like that, you realize that America's freedom isn't all that great. In fact, in a lot of ways America is not free at all. It is an oligarchy, and its citizens are considered posessions.
Just something to think about. I don't advocate revolution. I advocate walking away. As Ken Hamblin, the Black Avenger says in the title to his book, "Find a Better Country!" It's not that hard to do.
Trick guestion (Score:3, Interesting)
No, because this way of taking it into action is absurd. If your point is to fight against the monopolies, then the answer is to give zero $ to monopolies and a penny for EFF. If you understand it like this, then the Lessig challenge makes sense...
Campaign Finance Reform (Score:4, Insightful)
We shouldn't have to pay as much for a just legal environment as we pay for goods and services. If the current legal environment is pay-to-play instead of a representative democracy (I believe it is), then shouldn't your lobbying contributions be going towards campaign finance reform?
The proposal that we must give as much to the EFF as we pay for goods and services seems like suggesting that it would be good financial policy to max out your credit cards and then put all of your disposable income into savings bonds instead of paying down the debt.
If the only course of action is to continue to play the game of having to buy laws; if fixing the process that makes the laws is not feasible, then it seems to me that it's already too late. It's time to forget reform and switch to either revolution or abandonment.
Lessig's question is flame-bait. (Score:2)
A more balanced question would be along the lines of "How much are you shoring up private interests with your money?". I'll just take a completely random guess that, say, 5% of what you spend on stuff is profit for the Big Guys. So, do you spend THAT much on countering what their money buys them?
On the other side: yes, the EFF does a hell of a lot for us. No, I don't think I can credit the EFF with any direct wins, but they can be credited with stopping some big problems. Having an effecitve oppostion is important in any democratic system. Since parties to not provide the correct context in the US, this is an effictive (if poor) backup.
Here's my question though: I do not live in the states. I'm a Canadian citizen living in the UK. I care deeply about information privacy and freedom issues in a worldwide sense. I know the US tends to drive some of these issues, but I really don't know: where should my money go for the most efficitive worldwide advocacy?
Re: Where the US Leads... (Score:2)
Show your support - quit arguing. (Score:5, Informative)
1)Send Me a bill
2)Credit Card
3)EGold/EDinar
4)Network for Good
5)PayPal
6)Stock
6-12 Months of Anonymizer Private Surfing is included with a minimum of $25 donation. Your gift is 100% tax-deductable.
A visit to the Action Center [eff.org] at the EFF would be useful as well. Do your part or watch your rights slip away! Direct others to help you in the fight.
Product (Score:2, Interesting)
If you want to help break the entertainment industry monopoly, just keeping your money out of their hands isn't enough - for every well-informed person who boycotts them, there are ten morons who are waiting with baited breath for the next XXX movie. We need to use our dollar votes against them.
That doesn't mean abstaining, and it doesn't mean giving away your money - it means supporting small, independent film studios and small, independent recording studios; it means that when you save thousands of dollars moving from MS software to free software, you donate some of your money back into the open source movement. Note that you're going to be getting higher quality entertainment and software anyway.
You can't just support organizations against these big evil corporations - you have to put your money into the alternatives.
negative contributions (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you a US Federal Government worker? (Score:2, Informative)
Yet another benefit (Score:2)
Don't forget about the ACLU (Score:2, Interesting)
Free Software Only Noble Cause? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most folks, admitedly not all, would reduce their contribution to other charities were they to donate to EFF.
Potential Best of Both Worlds: donate time to a charity helping them set up and manage (yes, long term) an accounting system that does not require sending a lot of money to Bill Gates.
'Just a thought, a mere wrinkle.
Mark
Re:Free Software Only Noble Cause? (Score:2)
Mark
Re:Free Software Only Noble Cause? (Score:2)
Guilt Trip (Score:2, Interesting)
I give money (and time) to charitable groups when I'm able to, and feel like it. I'm not required to give anything. If everyone gave money to every person/group that had a "worth while cause", then we'd all be flat broke. This is typical liberal bullshit.
Before you start flaming me for "not caring", let me say this: I *do* contribute to various groups. I contribute money, I contribute my time, I contribute my own belongings, and last but not least, I contribute my opinions and ideas.
Lessig does have a point, but there "evil groups" out there than just the telecom and entertainment industry. By owning and operating a car, you contribute to pollution, middle eastern oil barons (that's how osama bin laden got his money to train people to kill us, which is funny, since that's how GW made his money too), and at least a dozen other industries of ill repute. By living in a home with electricity, you once again contribute to pollution by way of traditional "dirty" power generating plants and nuclear generating plants which outputs nuclear waste material that remains hazardous for thousands of years. By buying that computer you contributed to substandard labor practices in china. By moving out of the city to be closer to nature you contribute to suburban sprawl further reducing natural habitats for endangered animals. For meat eaters, you contribute to wasteful practices in raising the animals, not to mention the slaughter. But even vegans aren't safe here: Hundreds of small animals are killed by farming equipment when processing crops. Let's not forget the substandard of living once again imposed on those poor chinese people when you eat your rice or cheap 10/$1 packages of ramen noodles. Think buying American helps? Your still contributing to some large corporation with interests only in greedy profit. But oh... let's boycot that greedy corporation you say? Great, now you've contributed to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people losing their jobs.
Re:Guilt Trip (Score:2)
Re:Guilt Trip (Score:2)
Isn't that communism?
EFF and the Combined Federal Campaign (Score:5, Informative)
It had never occured to me in the past that EFF might be on their big list but they are! So this year, my donation has gone to the EFF conveniently via payroll deduction and the CFC
For those of you wishing to do the same, the CFC code is 2229
Re:EFF and the Combined Federal Campaign (Score:3, Informative)
-Alison
For the many fence-sitters... (Score:4, Interesting)
Many of us would be, but either we don't program, don't have the time, or don't have the legal ability. So, stop sitting on the fence and do something. It doesn't have to be a ton. $500 USD is a lot to most people. $15 isn't. If you can give 500, do it... If you can give 15, then do that, and I can assure you that you have done more for something you beleive in than 90% of the other geeks you know. And that's something to be proud of.
Writing a check is sometimes more valuable than writing code.
My rule to live by: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Extremists are almost always idealistic in some way. In this case, we have MS at one side of an extreme and RMS at the other. MS wants all your money, RMS wants no one to have any. I'm much in thinking to the RMS way, but even he has spent his energy (and thus part of the money which has been given to him) in ways that I think are insane.
Lets take an example: The legal paperwork required to submit code to any Emacs related project. In principal, it's a good idea, but I strongly doubt that the energy to maintain that ideal is worth the end gain. I suspect that if it came to a trial, you'd find that they couldn't prove they had assignment rights for everyone that has submitted code. (In fact, the guidelines for accepting a patch is something like "well, if it has less than 6 lines of code changed then we can accept it without paperwork", which alone will cause problems). So, in the end I suspect this whole policy has actually just slowed down the progress of their coding force rather than really helped "get things done".
Any idealist is likely to actually impeed progress in some way. Certainly M$ is doing an excellent job shooting other people's feet, and we can all agree on that. But, I suggest that RMS is actually doing similar things some of the time as well.
So my rule of thumb: Don't support the idealists. I don't give M$ any money, and I'm not sure I want RMS to spend all my money barking up a tree just because he thinks a dog might some day be up there.
Ok, it's 6:00 and I haven't had any coffee yet. For the moderators out there: this really wasn't intended to be flamebait. I wonder if it'll hold.
Re:My rule to live by: (Score:2)
Re:My rule to live by: (Score:2)
Re:My rule to live by: (Score:3)
This is a lie.
Is this the same Lessig that... (Score:2)
Is this the same Lessig that is totally clueless about spam, and proposes silly ideas like this [cioinsight.com]?
Grammar Police (Score:2)
Do you also write "the NASA?" This same rule can be applied to correct references to "the UML."
Re:Grammar Internal Affairs (Score:3, Interesting)
I disgaree.
"NASA" is an acronym. EFF is not.
Pronounced like this:
"NASA", not "the N.A.S.A"
"the EFF", not "Efffff"
I'm In, who else? (Score:3, Interesting)
An email I just sent to Luke:
Hey Luke...I decided to take up Lessig's challenge as well. I am kicking it off by cancelling my AOL account, and I will donate the amount of money I would have spent on that account for one year to the EFF. That comes out to 19.95 x 12 = $293.40.
I'll give AOL a call, let them know why I'm cancelling the account and where the money will be going, and then post my notes on that call in my journal!
The web page for my slashdot journal is "A HREF="http://slashdot.org/~Locke!Erasmus/journal/" >here . Please do not list my email address, just the link to my slashdot journal.
Thanks!
No EFF donations from me (Score:2, Insightful)
Examples of this include John Gilmore's infamous toad.com mail server, Brad Templeton's boneheaded statements about spam as free speech and EFF's objections to anti-spam filtering.
It is time EFF to stop the support of this cancer of the net.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers
Got My Priorities All Wrong... (Score:2)
I'm a little more concerned about my freedom to choose, freedom of speech, and freedom (from) of religion under our current regime.
But I am probably just messed in the head.
--mandi
cost/benefit mismatch (Score:2, Interesting)
Rights (Score:4, Interesting)
This argument makes me ill. Arguably you have rights to play DVDs that you bought before the whole DVD brouhaha on an open-source OS. But now that it's clear what the license holders are demanding, I find it crazy to demand that you have a "right" to play, say, next-year's DVDs on a given OS.
To me, it's like smoking. ARGUABLY, tobacco companies should be liable for smoking-related deaths that happened due to smoking in an era when the health-risks of tobacco were not widely disseminated, and when people could plausibly have misinformed about them. But now that EVERYONE knows (and has known, for the last 2 decades or so) that cigarettes can cause a host of problems, I shed no tears for people who do fall ill due to their smoking now, and I don't think the tobacco companies should be liable for THESE deaths.
Similarly, I shed no tears for people who "demand" their "rights" to play the latest DVD on platform X. If you don't like the conditions that are being attached to a product - say the latest Star Wars DVD, or the latest Metallica CD - don't buy it, don't go to the theater, don't listen to their songs on the radio, and don't hype it on your website. That is the surest, best, and most honest way to get the MPAA, RIAA, etc. to listen to your demands.
Another anology: I might not like the terms of some GPL'ed product, thinking it "really" should be under a BSD license. Does that give me the RIGHT to use it under a BSD license ?
Support a competitor to telco's DSL (Score:4, Interesting)
The competitors to the telcos do lobby and the more customers they have the better. Please think about switching from the 'baby bells' to one of the upstarts eg. DirecTV or Speakeasy.
Some competitors offer great deals as well. For instance, bellsouth would charge me $120/month for a static IP, while a static IP is free with my DirecTV DSL service, and they don't mind me running any servers.
Of course I'm up for it! (Score:2)
So where do I sign up?
Do you even know what "rights" are? (Score:2)
Playing DVDs on an open source OS is not a right, in any sense of the word. Please don't cheapen the Constitution by equating that with, for example, the right to free speech.
Not Much Of A Challenge For Some (Score:2)
> money than they have given to their local telecom
> to give them shitty DSL service?
This is pretty easy to do when your local (independent) telco offers no DSL service, shitty or otherwise (not that I could afford it anyway).
Pitch for equal giving to FSF and EFF (Score:3, Insightful)
I strongly believe that the battles that are coming will require that FSF (where I work) and EFF both be as strong as possible. I pay $107.40 annually for my home Internet service (a cheap 56K dialup). I am today renewing my annual donation to EFF, increasing my usual amount from $65 to $107.40. I just yesterday pledged $120 to FSF for 2003. (Eben Moglen, BTW, recently gave substantially more than that [boston.com]). I hope that you will choose to support both organizations at the same level as your ISP charges (or split the amount of your annual ISP charges equally between FSF and EFF).
Sincerely,
Bradley M. Kuhn, Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
Lessig's Challenge: To My Doubters (Score:3, Informative)
Hi, I'm the guy who made the Lessig's Challenge website. I'd like to address some of the concerns which have been raised with the idea.
To my doubters: This isn't about a fundraising drive for the EFF (though I think you should join. Did you know the EFF only has 7,000 members? You can make your voice heard in the way the EFF operates if you join). It isn't about me buying cool stuff and writing it off as hurting the MPAA.
It's about supporting a different way to do things than the MPAA and RIAA. They want to lock up content and charge you every time you view it. They want to prevent you from viewing DVDs on Linux. And we help them do it. Every time you buy a CD, every time you go to a movie, you help them take away your freedom.
It's time to fight back. We can fight back not only by giving money to the EFF and the ACLU and the Free Software Foundation and Digital Consumer -- orgainizations which will fight against the media oligarchy -- but also by helping those artists and programmers who are outside the system. If they can make a living without turning to the RIAA or MPAA, the media oligarchy will not survive for long.
I'm not asking you to boycott these orgainizations entirely because it's not really plausable. Everyone likes to go see a movie now and then, everyone likes to listen to the radio or buy a few CDs. What I'm challenging you to do is to keep track of how much you're giving to the oligarchy (to take away your freedom) and counter that with a donation to people who will fight against that.
Here are a few suggestions:
The list goes on and on.
Re:Lessig's Challenge: To My Doubters (Score:3, Interesting)
Not everyone gets DSL from a monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:money (Score:5, Insightful)
OSS will lose its appeal the the mass if they end up having to pay for opensource software as well
There is the difference between having to pay and choosing to pay
Also of course if you are a programmer you could give something back to the community by helping develop OSS. If you're not you could help with ideas, bug reports, etc. And if you're a lazy unskilled idealist you could donate
Re:money (Score:5, Funny)
If you're a "lazy unskilled idealist" you probably have no money.
Re:money (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're a "lazy unskilled idealist" you probably have no money.
Unless Daddy left it to you. Where do you think most "foundation money" comes from? What got RMS so much attention? Foundation money.
And while I'm at it, why should I donate money to the EFF when I don't support every cause they believe in? What's their administrative overhead anyway?
If there were a defense fund for a particular case that I thought was important, and I had the money, I'd consider donating to that particular defense fund. I have no desire to join a broad "movement" that takes in far too many ideas with which I disagree.
In other words, Larry can take his challenge and stick it. What next? The Larry Lessig 700 Club?
Re:money (Score:2)
My latest statistics on this issue show that about 95% of people having to pay will pay, but a much smaller percentage of people choose to pay.
No kidding (Score:4, Funny)
Well, what kind of high speed access is EFF going to provide for me?
Re:Other side? (Score:2)
Ask yourself this, though. Does Microsoft think it's "all about total world domination for" Windows?
Re:Other side? (Score:5, Informative)
The DMCA will be implemented in different variants world-wide. This is a real issue: To play DVDs on Linux, you need to break the law, in America and soon elsewhere as well. That's why it's important to change the law instead of just passively ignoring what's going on and hoping that the problems will go away. If you do that, what's currently the case with DVDs will soon be the case with all commercial media, thereby defeating the whole point of open source.
Note that the copyright cartels have already successfully gone after people who distributed the DVD decryption software, and even those who linked to the tool that allows doing so. They love the additional control over content use that the DMCA gives them, and they'll fight to keep it and to extend it even further (which brings us to Microsoft's Palladium).
Re:Other side? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not true. To play DVDs on Linux FOR FREE, you need to break the law. There'd be nothing illegal against someone creating a closed-source DVD player that actually went through the trouble of licensing the DVD decoder, like every other software entity has to do.
If it was important enough to enough people who would drop $20 on it, you'd see a commercial Linux DVD player overnight.
Re:Other side? (Score:3, Insightful)
To say that it's illegal to play DVDs on Linux is untrue -- you just have to go through the same process every other company does and pay the DVD decoder license.
To your second point, yes, the product couldn't be freely distributed, but that a different issue! If it's important to you, why wouldn't you pay a company a couple bucks to develop it (and the DVD decoder license)? I don't see how it's that different from any of the good closed-source Linux packages that people see fit to pay for (admittedly there are few, but if this is something you really want, why not just pay for it?).
This is not a case of Linux being picked on; it's a case of Linux having to play by the rules of the rest of the world. If Linux users were willing to pay for it, they'd get it.
Re:Other side? (Score:4, Funny)
But, that's an interesting hair-trigger ya got there...
Re:Other side? (Score:2)
It's not users that come up with products; it's developers. OK, now that we are past your misuse of the word, let's move on to understanding why it is the majority of people buy Microsoft Windows. The answer to that is simple; that's what the PC comes with. The issue about whether Microsoft Windows is better or Linux is better or whatever is all moot. Clearly Microsoft itself knows that what it sells is crap, since they force PC makers to put Windows on every PC in exchange for the right to even put it on one. If in fact Windows was better, then they wouldn't need to do that, and they'd have the same share of the market based on actual choice (assuming the PC makers pass the choice on to the consumer).
Show me a store where you can walk in and buy any PC or laptop and have it with your choice of Microsoft Windows or a major distribution of Linux (e.g. Mandrake, Redhat, SuSE, or Xandros). Once you find it, now lets examine what choices people actually make. And to measure this more accurately, let's narrow it down to just those customers who have experience in using both systems. Keep tabs and see how many choose Windows and how many choose Linux. I think you'll be surprised that Linux, while not necessarily the winner, will give a damned good showing of around 40%.
But what about the rest of the people who buy computers? Well, they aren't really making a choice. They may stick with what they got on the PC. Or they may only have heard of Microsoft (remember, these are not geeks we are talking about, but just ordinary people like your grandmother). And some people simply don't know enough to make choices. If you want to know about what people do choose, then don't bother with these people who aren't even making choices.
You missed the point entirely. (Score:3, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with pricing, competition, or even the quality of your service. Donating money to the EFF isn't going to lead to the fall of capitalism and the beginnings of a socialist empire.
Rather, by not donating to the EFF and helping to fight some of their free-speech causes, you might find that all of your beloved competing Internet providers won't provide you with certain sites or materials that the government deems offensive that day. Imagine having six or seven Internet providers to choose from, their prices kept low by competition, only to not be able to surf a large majority of the Web that has been silenced by government regulators.
So I guess you'd be happy to choose Acme DSL and pay only $12/mo but only get to surf AOLTimeWarnerViacomCBSNYT's media sites and those sites that haven't been censored by the government. Worth it?
Re:Please (Score:5, Funny)
I believe you are confused.
Ducat [reference.com] n.
A piece of money.
vs.
Ducket [reference.com] n.
You can do what you please with your ducats, but please be careful with your duckets. Ducklings can break.
Re:All kinds of problems (Score:2)
http://www.eff.org/
Re:Geez, Louise (Score:2)
And this is not the right to copy Harry potter. This is about freedom. Freedom to use something I bought the way I bought it. Yes, If I buy a CD and then copy it and sell it, put me in jail... thats the law and it is correct. what is wrong is that I have paid 500 Rs(10 $$) for a CD and I cannot listen it on my PC, or I cannot listen it on my favorite car CD player. As for the madness of iraq ..... its a legacy bush inherited from his father and I dont think slashdotters can do anything
Re:Geez, Louise (Score:2)
What people can't complain both about both? Indeed most of the world has made it clear exactly what they think of Bush...
The US (and UK) havn't stopped attacking Iraq since 1991. There are also reports that Israel has sent commandos into Iraq recently.
Re:Geez, Louise (Score:2)
Congress is going to remain in session no matter what happens, and even the most violent war possible still will not take up all of their time. Which is to say, non-war laws will be passed as well, and those laws will be just as legally valid as any other.
The Content Cartel isn't going to take a break from lobbying Congress during the war, and if we do, then their laws will get passed without resistance. When the war is over, their laws will be hard to get off the books.
WARNING: Do not leave Congress unattended.
Re:Geez, Louise (Score:2)
Since there is not much in the way of actual evidence as to who was behind the attack it's a case of pick the conspiracy theory of your choice. The US government initially endorsed "OBL did it", but then tried to change to "SH did it".