Some Virginia officials want to reform telecom taxes. Good idea. To get that much-needed job done they are considering “leveling the playing field” by imposing the exact same tax on all new forms of communications and information services. Bad idea.
Articles by Adam Thierer 
Senior Fellow in Technology & Innovation at the R Street Institute in Washington, DC. Formerly a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, President of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
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Google + Amazon = World Media Domination and then Rise of the Machines Techno-Totalitarianism … or so claims this video. But you have to admit that this is very well done. Look at the little details too… like when they flash the Google identify card up on the screen and the guy’s name on the card is Winston Smith… a la Orwell’s “1984.”
Like a lot of other Americans, I once had a big beef with the U.S. cable industry. Limited channel capacity and poor quality service were the primary reasons for my discontent. I remember the cable system my family subscribed to in the mid-1980s. It was like a Third World government operation at times. And I think we only had about 20 channels.
Jokes about “the cable guy” were common for a long time, of course. This made it easy for DBS providers like DirecTV and EchoStar to come in and pick off a lot of customers like me throughout the 1990s. By 1996, I had two satellite dishes on my roof and three DirecTV set-top boxes throughout my house. I thought I’d never talk to “the cable guy” again.
Wow, check this out. Ed Felten of the “Freedom to Tinker” blog has written a new P2P program called “Tiny P2P” that is made up of just 15 lines of code! And no single line has more than 80 characters. How in the world is the industry gunna stop this one?
Seriously, think about this. Regardless of what you think of the music and movie industry lawsuits against P2P providers, there’s a very good chance they will all succeed. Napster and Aimster were already taken down via contributory liability lawsuits and the Supreme Court is set to hear the Grokster case soon. The Supreme Court will almost certainly reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision and hold Grokster liable for contributory copyright infringement. Again, I’m not making a case one way or the other, I’m just saying that it’s highly likely there will be 5 votes on the Court to hold Grokster liable.
OK, assuming that happens, what’s next? Well, I guess the industry can sue E-Donkey and the handfull of other big P2P players that remain out there, but at some point the market evolves to the point were everyone is just using freeware like Felton’s “Tiny P2P” code. What then? I guess the industry could go after Ed, but what’s the point. The cat is out of the bag and many more imitators will follow. Pretty soon there will just be no one left to sue.
So what’s the industry going to do then? Who knows. In my opinion, they should just stick to suing individuals for direct infringement and concentrate on creating new business reponses to this rapidly evolving marketplace. Because at some point very soon, “The Matrix” that is the World Wide Web will be all around them and P2P will be so ingrained in it that there will be no way to use the law to stop it. Felton’s “Tiny P2P” shows us that this day may be upon us already.
The state of Illinois wants to regulate the sale of video games to minors. I have written about this issue elsewhere, but in general, the problem with measures such as these is that it requires someone in government to define what constitutes “violent” or “sexually explicit” games. Thus, there will certainly be an element of censorship involved here.
Previous enactments such as this have already been tested in the courts and found to be unconstitutional. But without getting into the legal issues, I think the real question here is whether government or parents should be primarily responsible for what children watch or play. I grew up playing hundreds of video games on several different platforms (starting with Atari 2600 back in the late 70s). And I am now am a parent myself of two small children, one of which has already started playing some interactive computer games. As with anything else in this world, the answer here lies in moderation and parental guidance. When my kids are confronted by troubling themes or images, I will talk to them about it just as my parents talked to me. I will explain the difference between fantasy and reality. In some cases I might restrict their access to some of these games, or prohibit them from being in my house altogether. And, most of all, I will encourage my kids to do something more with their free time than sit on their butts in front of the television all day! I’ll give them good books, read to them, take them to the park, throw a ball with them, etc., etc.,…
Regardless, this is my business and the business of the millions of other parents out there–not the government. Quit telling me how to raise my children and quit acting as if I’m not capable enough to do this job myself. And shame on any parent out there who is lazy and runs to the government asking them to play the role of surrogate parent for them. If you just hand you kid $50 bucks and let them go buy any game they want and then let them play it without any supervision whatsover, then that’s your own damn problem. That video game console didn’t just walk into your house uninvited after all. Someone had to shell out the $200 bucks to put it there.
Greg Aharonian, Editor/Publisher of the Internet Patent News Service–and one of America’s leading intellectual property experts–has just filed a major lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of software copyrights. In his complaint to the U.S. District Court’s Northern California Circuit, Aharonian details the adverse impact of vague software copyright laws and decisions.
This is an important development worth monitoring very closely. I encourage you to take a close look at the complaint here. Also, you can keep track of further developments on this case on Greg’s excellent webpage here.
Stay tuned, much more to come on this. This has all the makings of a historic intellectual property case.
P.S. I edited a book a few years ago ( CopyFights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age) that included several essays debating the merits of software and business method patents. If you’re interested, click here.
The puritans over at the Parents Television Council are at it again. They have issued a new report entitled “Basic Cable Awash in Raunch” which documents what they believe to be immoral language or behavior on basic cable. They want the government to start regulating “indecency” on basic cable, or at least force cable operators to just sell subscribers they few stations they want.
I’ve addressed the problems with such “a la carte” regulatory schemes elsewhere, so I won’t discuss that again. Rather, I want to specifically address the question of whether the government has any business regulating cable television, a subscription-based service. The PTC thinks so, of course, arguing that: “Children are watching these programs and are being exposed to content that is far more explicit and potentially far more damaging than what they are seeing on broadcast television.”
But why are they letting their children watch these programs if they find them so offensive? Oh, wait, I get it… They’re saying OTHER PEOPLE’S children might be watching these shows, and for God’s sake–and they do mean GOD’S SAKE–we can’t possible let other people’s kids watch these shows, right? We have to make these decisions for all the stupid parents out there who might not understand the ungodly nature of this programming. Parents are just stupid, stupid, stupid! They’re not doing their job! The Almighty State must do their job for them and censor basic cable!
Congress Daily (subscription-only site) is reporting that the Rev. Jerry Falwell and other television evangelists are opposing “a la carte” regulation (per-channel pricing) for cable and satellite television networks. Falwell, president of the Old Time Gospel Hour, said, “Though well-intentioned, the fact is that a la carte would threaten the very existence of religious broadcasting and the vital ministry conducted over the television airwaves.” The statement was released by the Faith and Family Broadcasting Coalition.
I always knew God was on our side when it comes to multichannel video regulation. From my old Catholic school days, I think I remember something in Deuteronomy that said, “The LORD your God goeth before you, he shall fight for you, and he shall strike down any wicked attempts by Cesar to tinker with channel tiering or pricing on cable or satellite video systems.”
Amen! Praise be the maker. God hates cable regulation.
(For a more serious treatment of this issue, see this. In the meantime, you regulators out there should go read your Bible. I’ve heard there’s some language in the New Testement about the evils of taxing the Internet.)
If you want to know just how screwed up America’s universal service system is, take a look at this excellent report in today’s USA Today.
Author Paul Davidson documents some of the waste and abuse associated with the system and highlights just a few of the rural carriers that milk the system for all it’s worth.
Troubling times could lie ahead for free speech and the First Amendment in the wake of Tuesday’s election. With so many political analysts saying that “values” played a major role in getting Bush re-elected and giving the GOP more seats in Congress, I think there’s a good chance that the pro-censorship crowd will come knocking asking for a payoff. Various Christian conservative and “pro-family” groups will lobby for increased indecency / obscenity enforcement efforts. Here’s how that might play out by branch of government:
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