Dana Blankenhorn

Round Two of the Copyright Wars

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 13 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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I have been following the copyright wars since their inception, in 1997. I watched the passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, and the No Electronic Theft Act.

Both had a similar aim, to keep people from stealing making and re-selling copies of material subject to copyright, now that technology allowed for clean (or nearly clean) copies.

My sympathies here are purely with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and blogs like Boingboing, which hate these laws as attacks on freedom of speech, of association, and the free exchange of ideas.

Time Is Money And Money Is Time

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 12 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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All the talk about the price of content misses the point.

Content has a price, always. Whether you're reading content, listening to it, or watching it on a screen, the price is your time.

Time is the most valuable asset any of us have. Our time is limited. We must spend big hunks of it sleeping, eating, and traveling. We spend a third or more of our time making the money we need to sustain us.

What's left, the time available for content, is thus very precious.

I got a clue on this when I received an Amazon Kindle Fire for Christmas. I'd gotten Amazon Prime for the cheap shipping, thus I suddenly had access to all sorts of “free” content. Lots of TV shows I missed, lots of movies. Too many, it turns out. When I try to catch up on a series I thought I'd like, I find I'm taking time away from reading I could be doing.

The 1973 Game: The Year Of Going Too Far

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 11 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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There's a natural progression to a generation's historical arc.

A crisis for which current thought has no answer creates new stories from the old opposition, which overthrows the old older and is then validated by a new political coalition.

Until this point it's possible to see the failures of the past as emanating from some extremist fringe, some virus within the old order that, once eradicated, makes it viable again. But then the old mainstream goes too far, the new majority identifies the whole of that mainstream as anathema, and a new generation's politics are made solid, the way starch exploding in heated liquid creates a stable pudding.

I saw this a generation ago, in 1973. Liberals, desperate to gain the last possible advantage they could through court action (since courts are the branch of government that most resists change) handed down decisions like Roe vs. Wade. Roe was a great decision for women but, as even feminist lawyer (now justice) Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, it was a decision that held within it the seeds of a profound backlash, since it went beyond what legislators and voters were willing to do and enshrined abortion as a natural right.

The Real Enemy is England

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 10 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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The greatest threat to America now comes from England.

Strange to say but hear me out.

The banksters' lair is the roughly one square-mile of central London known as “The City.” The country has become entirely dependent on profits from The City. Without The City, London fails, England fails, the UK fails.

Cheap Corruption of the Tea Party

Like the Civil Rights marchers of a half century ago, the Tea Party came to Georgia politics determined to make a big difference, and to be better than the sleazy politicians who bent to every wind.

They're not. There has been plenty of corruption in African-American politics. Since I've lived in Atlanta I have seen my city's mayor convicted of it, watched a succession of city councilmen and school board members resign in shame over it. Even our sheriff shot his deputy, for the crime of running against said sheriff, and winning. 

To a degree today's Tea Party rising in Georgia is a reaction against all that. They see the Clayton school district lose its accreditation, the Atlanta schools mired in a cheating scandal, and the DeKalb Schools run so badly the board has to be replaced. They have a lot to be angry about, and figure they, from their exurban lairs, can run things better than those who live and vote in the affected areas can. Thus we have the spectacle of the state trying to take over the city's transit system, which local taxpayers pay for, and basically sell it off to private interests, believing that private is always better than public, and never mind Halliburton.

But what has been most surprising about this crowd is how easily they're corrupted. 

Graphene and the Nature of Change

Think of this as Volume 17, Number 9 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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Change can be slow, and change can be sudden.

Those who practice the theory of “oh noes,” the idea that it's all about to go pear-shaped, either see slow change that can't be undone, or a sudden change that others see as unlikely.

The people I meet on Seekingalpha.com, the ones who are certain that we're about to go into another Great Depression, believe in sudden change. Those who talk about climate change tend to see slow change that can't be undone.

But most of the time, disaster does not strike. And sudden change can be good as well as bad.

This is one of the great things about being a science reporter, the idea that someone, somewhere, might suddenly come up with a mighty idea, one that will drive out big problems at a stroke.