Instead of the scheduled discussion, several hundred conference attendees were read the cease-and-desist letter, said Scott Milliken, an attendee. Attendees said they saw the case as a clear infringement on the First Amendment rights of the two students, and they contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor who specializes in copyright issues, seeking advice on what to do next.

Hey, that's me!

Decius added: "We live in a society in which we are increasingly dependent on this high-tech infrastructure which our lives are arranged around, and if we can't take these things apart and understand how they work, then I think we have a very serious threat to our freedom."

Hey, I know that guy, too!

Dolemite

The copyright cops strike again

] It has been stated by your office that this is "a bump in
] the road" between the RIAA and Michigan Tech, and that we
] will move on from here. It is unfortunate that you choose
] to trivialize the problem in this manner. It is not a
] bump in the road for Joe Nievelt or Michigan
] Technological University.
]
] Taking all of this into consideration, we realize the
] seriousness of the allegations against Mr. Nievelt and
] will cooperate fully in resolving this matter.

(Decius's Comments)

This is from a day ago, but I think its really important.

1. The RIAA must be laughing its ass off about this letter. He says "this is not a bump in the road" and then he agrees to cooperate fully. Obviously MTU is either unable or unwilling to create any real pain for the RIAA. I would have provided my legal department for the defense and stopped all the measures that I had taken on their behest.

2. The RIAA has no moral character. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. (People seem have forgotten much of this in the past few years, but trust is the basis of business, and strong moral character is a pre-requisite for trust.) These are not good people, do not trust them.

3. What the RIAA is sueing here are campus SEARCH ENGINES. They are not just for MP3s. They weren't built with MP3s in mind. These are for anyfile. There are lots and lots of non-infringing uses. With the proper legal defense, the RIAA will loose these cases. Much like Felton, they may have stepped on another grenade. (Without proper legal defense it will be ILLEGAL to run a search engine on a campus, which is an intolerable result, frankly.)

Michigan Tech Media Relations Story#95 - President Responds to RIAA Suit

] In the case of physical property, we take it for granted
] that the ownership right should have the potential of
] persisting as long as the physical object itself. In the
] case of an idea, however, we have chosen to strike a
] different balance in recognition of the chaos that could
] follow from having to trace back all the thoughts
] implicit in one's current undertaking and pay a royalty
] to the originator of each one. So rather than adopting
] that obviously principled but unworkable approach, we
] have chosen instead to follow the lead of British common
] law and place time limits on intellectual property
] rights.

I'm rerecommending this. I've read it now. Greenspan explains the changing nature of the situation just as I have in the past, and this talk offers itself as a good reference for such an explanation, as people usually don't want to take my word for it. :)

Intellectual Property is broken. You heard it here from the guy that runs the economy. So don't tell me I'm being silly.

Of course, Greenspans perspective on how to fix it is probably 180 degrees from mine.

FRB: Speech, Greenspan-Market economies--April 4, 2003

Hijexx wrote:

] I am so goddamn sick of people tying 9/11 to this
] ill-conceived conquest in the Middle East. The current
] leaders don't give a shit about our security. They still
] cooperate with terrorists and nations that fund them if it
] serves US interests.
]
] There is a strong case for showing the Bush administration's
] complicity in the 9/11 attacks. For example, look at our
] relationship with Pakistan. We turned a blind eye to their
] DIRECT FUNDING of Mohammed Atta. Any effective investigation
] of 9/11 has been shelved. More background:
]
] http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO111A.html
]
] There are still plenty of unanswered questions. Rather than
] actually investigate and try to root out the base of
] operations for the 9/11 terrorists, we're conquering Iraq.
] Figure that one out.

You're right. There's no question that there's blood on Washington's hands too. And the US will continue to use the 'stick and carrot' method of diplomacy around the world. But that doesn't change our agenda and certainly not our strategy. Even when the 'war' is 'over', there will still people that hate us (more even), but they will be at our disposal.

I think the article that Tom posted is dead on in terms of tactical cues, but it's too narrow in its scope. It's not just Al Qaeda we're at war with. It's any force that is opposed to the peace and security obtained from the US's perspective of being the singular superpower. So that includes any organization, not just states, that seek to disrupt or otherwise marginalize our power on the globe. The list of which, might end up being surprising.

So with that in mind, I don't think that the full motivation behind invading Iraq is necessarily to undermine Al Q. It's more a convenience factor for the US. It solves several objectives:

o Eliminate Saddam Hussein and his regime. For obvious reasons.
o Open up the most progressive Arabic state to be a friendly ally with the US/UK. This bodes well financially as well as politically.
o Utilize our new found democratic and liberated friend, Iraq, as the cultural, financial, political, and influential base to spread across the Arabic/Islamic world. This is essentially what the Soviets tried to do, but failed in that they never had the opportunity to truly control a government in this way.
o Utilize the display of our military force as an example of what might befall anyone else who we deem 'against us'.
o Give American's the second dose of 'we feel good about ourselves because we just kicked so much ass.' This will help the economy, spread some peace and security around the country, and boost the current administration's popularity numbers.

So I agree with the article that this is definitely a component of a much larger operation. The ultimate goal of this operation is to relatively squelch the power and inf... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: War. Still a Good Idea.

] However rhetorical it's become, the following is no less
] true: The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks forced the
] United States to change the way it responds to external
] threats. For a very long time, Americans were content to
] believe that this nation's sheer size and distance from
] global hot spots sheltered us from terrorism. In the face
] of a billion tons of ash and human carnage, it became
] clear that we're as vulnerable as anyone else.

this piece has definitely got me thinking in a slightly different direction.

War. Still a Good Idea.

] The recording industry is suing students at Michigan
] Technological and two other universities, saying they ran
] Napster-like file sharing systems on the schools'
] high-speed Internet networks.
]
] The lawsuit says Michigan Tech student Joseph Nievelt and
] three others ran systems offering more than 1 million
] copies of songs for illegal downloading.

Michigan Tech student sued by music industry over file sharing

Paul Berman writes for the New York Times Magazine on Sayyid Qutb.

This is an absolute must read.

The Philosopher of Islamic Terror

Some interesting statistics on wars from the Revolutionary War to the (first) Gulf War, on things such as:
- Percentage of population enrolled in the military
- Number of casualties (both absolute and percentage)
- Cost of the war (converted to 1990 dollars)
- Duration of war, average casualties/month, and so forth

Statistical Summary: America's Major Wars

Welcome to ProtestWarrior.com, a website created to help arm the liberty-loving Silent Majority with ammo -- ammo that strikes at the intellectual solar plexus of the Left.

Encouraged by our successful crashing of the February 16th San Francisco anti-war protest, we decided it was time for the Left to put down their megaphones, peel off their bumper stickers, and listen to the people who believe in the core values of this country. It's time to start making a little noise...

ProtestWarrior.com - fighting the left... doing it right

] An airline passenger who had two "No War with Iraq" signs
] in his suitcase says the federal security agent who
] opened his luggage inserted a note criticizing his
] "anti-American attitude."
]
] "I found it chilling and a little Orwellian to have
] received this message," said Seth Goldberg, 41, of
] Cranbury, New Jersey.
]
] Federal Transportation Security Administration officials
] are investigating.

CNN.com - Passenger finds 'chilling' note from bag handler - Mar. 16, 2003