Crosbie Fitch 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Supreme Court Agrees To See Whether Or Not AT&T Has 'Personal Privacy' Rights

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2010 @ 11:52am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No shame

    Sorry Ed, I thought your comment was very good. Perhaps I should have said so.

    I was just adding to it - not contradicting. I was just curious as to whether you (or others) knew the etymology of 'privilege'. I expect you do know it, but just wondered.

    Read my comment again as if intoned by someone wholeheartedly agreeing with you, but finding little to add except a trivial note about the terminology and its corruption. :)

  • On the post: Supreme Court Agrees To See Whether Or Not AT&T Has 'Personal Privacy' Rights

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2010 @ 10:55am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: No shame

    You know that 'privilege' comes from 'private'+'legislation' don't you? :)

    Lawyers call them 'rights' (short for legislatively granted 'rights') - in the hope people confuse them with rights (natural/human/moral).

    It's probably best to call them instruments of injustice to make their iniquity a little more obvious.

  • On the post: Supreme Court Agrees To See Whether Or Not AT&T Has 'Personal Privacy' Rights

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2010 @ 08:15am

    Re: Re: No shame

    Eh? Why on earth does dissolving the legal entity of 'corporation' prevent free enterprise, or the ability of an association to pool & share its revenue?

  • On the post: Supreme Court Agrees To See Whether Or Not AT&T Has 'Personal Privacy' Rights

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2010 @ 06:56am

    No shame

    Being legislatively created entities, inhuman, immortal, corporations can have neither shame nor embarrassment in pretending a claim to natural rights that can only be possessed by living creatures.

    The sooner the artifice of corporation as psychopathic person (fiducially obliged to put share price above all) is dissolved and disintegrated into 'association of mortals' the better for mankind and the planet (qv Union Carbide, BP et al).

  • On the post: Tim Berners-Lee Comes Out Against COICA Censorship Bill; Shouldn't You?

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2010 @ 08:41am

    Sounds fancy, but it's ethically flawed

    Why don't we translate it into more familiar terms?

    "No person shall be deprived of their freedom of speech without due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty"

    And then we can deduce that:

    "A person may be deprived of their freedom of speech given due process of law, with the presumption of innocence until found guilty"

    And we could reconcile that with the US 1st amendment:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    So here we have TBL suggesting that as long as due process occurs, it's perfectly fine for governments to make laws requiring their citizens to be disconnected from the Internet.

    Anyone who endorses TBL's proposition is therefore supporting (consenting in principle to) laws that disconnect them.

    Pretty tragic if you ask me.

  • On the post: 'Pre-Settlement' Shakedown By ACS:Law Doesn't Seem Quite So Profitable

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2010 @ 02:30pm

    Re: ACS:Law

    You should certainly have no compunction about making and sharing your own copies and derivatives of published works, but it would be churlish to refuse to pay artists to produce and publish more.

    Is there no artist you would pay even a dollar to if they produced a new work in exchange? No favourite musicians or novelists? No bugs in software you'd pay a small amount to have fixed?

    I don't think there's anything wrong in paying artists to produce new works.

    The wrong is either in being forced to pay (levy) or in being denied your cultural liberty (to grant a monopoly).

  • On the post: 'Pre-Settlement' Shakedown By ACS:Law Doesn't Seem Quite So Profitable

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2010 @ 01:55pm

    Money Extorted

    That should be "Money Extorted", not 'Money Recovered'.

    And how much on average has been squeezed out of the fundamentally innocent individual for their act of cultural liberty, that may or may not have actually been infringing?

  • On the post: More People Thinking About Smart Copyright Reform

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2010 @ 08:32am

    Re: Good news

    Sticking your fingers into the obvious leaks in the dam of corruption will only reveal the leaks that aren't yet obvious. You will run out of fingers.

  • On the post: More People Thinking About Smart Copyright Reform

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2010 @ 05:53am

    Re:

    It seems we shall now have the spectacle of copyright reformists making total asses of themselves.

    I'd say it was the dimmest minds in copyright that were all starting to converge on the need to fix copyright law, not the 'brightest'.

    You don't fix an instrument of injustice. You abolish it.

  • On the post: More People Thinking About Smart Copyright Reform

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 27 Sep, 2010 @ 05:05am

    Re: Well, I'll pass on reading it then.

    Yes indeed.

    Copyright is, and has always been, a turd.

    So don't polish it, abolish it!

  • On the post: My Challenge To Jim Urie Of Universal Music: Instead Of 'Drowning Out' Those You Disagree With, Let's Come Up With Solutions

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2010 @ 03:24am

    Re: Re:

    It works fine for the church and religion. After all, not only do they put voices from supernatural beings above evidence, they invented the idea of monopolies on works of literature and iconography. They would have patented it too, if there'd been a patent office thousands of years ago.

    If you are a devout believer in copyright then its holy sanctity is a matter of faith, not evidence.

    It's probably going to take more than imprisoning cinema goers who point their iPhone at the cinema screen (Emmanuel Nimley) to stir up the public into revolt. Perhaps something like burning randomly selected villagers at the stake or sending anyone in possession of unlicensed copies/content off to the IP inquisition for 're-education'. Then, the public might just start wondering if copyright is really written on one of Moses' tablets.

    Websites critical of copyright and patent will have been censored long before we get to that point of course.

  • On the post: Could Cutting People Off From The Internet Be Dangerous?

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2010 @ 12:55pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    This is why the copyright cartel got a law passed to imprison any member of a cinema audience who pointed an iPhone at the screen.

    It lets them set the precedent for imprisonment as an appropriate penalty for infringement.

    Disconnection upon suspicion is thus getting off lightly - even if the entire household suffers.

    "Of course I support copyright and penalties for infringers, but" is simply a modern translation of "Of course I am a devout Catholic and believer in God's appointment of our church as his divine messengers, but"

    Start worrying when 'information retrieval' (torture) and 'permanent disconnection' (death penalty) re-appear on the statute books. Julian Assange might be a little more in touch with such prospects.

  • On the post: Could Cutting People Off From The Internet Be Dangerous?

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2010 @ 11:49am

    Re: One question...

    They've thought of this. They will simply suggest you purchase a license-paid internet connection with a 'share-all-you-want' deal on it at 1Mbps.

    Disconnection is simply the draconian bargaining chip to compromise with.

    2010) Disconnect the entire household!
    2011) Ok, all ISPs should provide both an unlicensed connection 10M @ $10/month and a licensed connection 1M @ $20/month. People suspected of infringing are disqualified from the unlicensed connection for a year.
    2013) Hey, why don't we cut the admin and discontinue unlicensed connections? It'll save so much bother.
    2014) The Internet is taxed. 50% to government. 49% to publishing corporations, collection societies, etc. 1% to popular independent artists.
    2015) A radio based darknet arises...

  • On the post: Could Cutting People Off From The Internet Be Dangerous?

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 22 Sep, 2010 @ 10:54am

    Consider Salem

    The story of the Salem witch trials should give people a clue what happens when you legislate severe consequences for no more than accusation.

    Even if you require the accusation that someone is a witch must be signed by the accuser in triplicate and specify three separate 'reasonable' grounds for suspicion, you still end up with a farce (and injustice).

    It's also as much a farce as witchcraft in another respect, because copyright infringement is just as much an offence by a natural being against a supernatural power as witchcraft is.

    Sharing music offends the god given power of a musician's record label to prevent anyone copying it or performing it without their permission.

    They didn't have this power until Queen Anne granted it to them, and even then it was an approximation of the supernatural power some people claimed existed (perpetually).

    It is only today that people are recognising that copyright is magical nonsense, and that the power to prevent others copying one's music naturally ends at the front door. Once you let your music hit the street, it's everywhere, promiscuous, pervasive, global - if it's any good...

    Expect '3 strikes' excommunications in abundance until the politicians, legislators and witch-finders general also end up disconnected.

  • On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2010 @ 11:57pm

    Re: Re: So much for...

    Twelfth commandment, my son:

    XII. THOU SHALT SCRIBE AND SHARE MY WORD, YET THOU MUST NOT SCRIBE, NOR SHARE AMONG A GATHERING, THE WORD OR GRAVING OF THY NEIGHBOUR WITHOUT HIS LEAVE, WHILST HIS BLOOD LAST.

  • On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2010 @ 09:52am

    Re: who IS the rights holder?

    Upholding the truth of IOUs (contracts, agreements, exchanges, etc.) is not a matter of belief, but of natural law and natural right. If you give someone a loaf of bread for safe keeping, and then ask for it back, and the recipient says "What loaf?", you will disabuse them of any notion that the loaf was a figment of your imagination sustained only by your faith in its existence.

    Thus if money is in exchange for a commodity (gold in place of bread) then it is not a matter of belief. However, as you no doubt recognise, money does become a matter of consensual belief when it is no longer guaranteed to be exchangeable for a specific amount of a commodity, but has nominal value only, as is the normal practice today.

    Where things get really spooky is with copyright.

    That authors have a supernatural ability to prevent their work being copied or performed anywhere in the world is a matter of belief. That authors should have such supernatural power, and that all states the world over should thus lend the author their superhuman power to approximate it, is more a matter of religion than self-evidence. The church being the multinational publishing corporations (shepherding their flock of authors - who get shafted when no-one's looking).

    This is why the faithful, even unobserved in the privacy and secrecy of their own homes, still hesitate before copying one of their CDs onto their MP3 player. They have been indoctrinated since birth to believe the publishing corporations' holy scripture that this is wrong, a theft from the starving artist.

    And yet, the folklore upon which Disney's 'IP' is largely based was produced with free and full cultural exchange prior to copyright's establishment in the 18th century. The development of mankind's folklore stretches across ice ages. Copyright is a flash in the pan over the storyteller's camp fire. So, would you prefer our natural right to copy and improve each other's stories restored, or would you jealously cherish Queen Anne's grant of a transferable privilege to sue anyone who copies or improves your stories? Bear in mind that the privilege of copyright is the suspension of the natural right to copy from all.

  • On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2010 @ 09:03am

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "All laws are just a group concensus and the group has decided."

    Not at all. There are natural laws that arise in nature, that a civilised/harmonious society tends toward protecting (at common law and by constitution), and then there are crown/state granted privileges - instruments of injustice.

    Respect for privilege may be a matter of consensus.

    Are all men created equal? Or is it a matter of consensus? If the consensus decides that those of a particular skin colour or religion are no better than animals, what then?

    If the consensus decides that infringement of a state granted monopoly warrants putting infringers in jail, what then?

    HOW MANY PEOPLE BANKRUPTED, FINED, DISCONNECTED, IMPRISONED, OR CENSORED, DOES IT TAKE?

    At some point you've got to shift paradigms and recognise that it is the privilege that is wrong, and the infringers who are the wronged - irrespective of consensus.

    The right to copy is natural. It's suspension by Queen Anne in 1710 is unnatural.

    Don't let people try to persuade you that slaves are naturally inferior, nor that those in possession of a commercial privilege are naturally superior. It's a lie.

    Copyright and patent suspend your liberty. Take it back.

  • On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2010 @ 06:04am

    Re: Re: Re:

    It comes down to those who believe in supernatural power vs those who require evidence. I'd expect more coherent morals from the latter, than those biased to expand the power of their church.

  • On the post: Richard Dawkins Points Fan To The Pirate Bay To See His Latest Documentary

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 21 Sep, 2010 @ 05:58am

    Re: Re:

    The derogation of mankind's cultural liberty by Queen Anne's Statute of 1709 (copyright) is only effective because so many people suspend disbelief in it.

    If people stop believing they don't have the cultural liberty to share and build upon published works, then the 18th century privilege to the contrary vanishes in a puff of smoke (albeit with a few families bankrupted and cinema goers imprisoned along the way).

    Copyright is already vanishing before our eyes, as many file-sharers will attest.

    When it comes to a battle between immortal publishing corporations and mankind, fighting over the right to copy vs the exclusive privilege, my money's on the mortals.

    Who do you think are the good guys?

  • On the post: When You Realize That Copyright Law Violates Free Speech Rights, You Begin To Recognize The Problems…

    Crosbie Fitch ( profile ), 17 Sep, 2010 @ 06:50am

    Re: Re: Re:

    I'm discussing the distinction between prohibiting the communication of certain works 'because they violate natural rights' vs 'because they infringe commercial privileges'.

    There's nothing about destruction there.

    Everyone has the natural liberty to share and build upon mankind's culture, and that includes telling each other's stories and improving or extending them. This happened with folk tales prior to copyright and when copyright's abolished it will happen again.

    Only unscrupulous lawyers will say that given a large enough budget to obtain clearance and procure necessary 'rights' (aka license to have their own liberty back) people can continue to feel at liberty extend each other's stories even under the increasingly draconian copyright regime.

    Wealthy people perhaps... with consequently wealthy lawyers.

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