[nylug-talk] (no subject)

[NYLUG NYLUG]

<<That's why I asked. I respect the group and I am a big, though not very 
adept, fan of Linux and the Open Source movement. I am still taming my 
Mozilla, Mandrake, Invision Board Forums, Gallery, etc. but I love 
them.  I'm struggling daily to learn PHP and MySQL.>>>

As a beginner in the GNU/Linux system, your first become aclimmated to 
the freedom that the technology permits.  But as you become more expert
in working with an unencumbered system, the realities of the political
seperations between closed and free systems become more self-evident.
It's hard to percieve everything in one fell swoop.  It's likely that 
much of your previous experience with computer systems involved software
with flags, warnings and restrictions all over the place, and then you've
become conditioned to expect that this is how the world just works, and
that this is normal.  The reality, is that it is unique to software
and now it's creeping into music and other copyrighted works.  We can't
survive as a free society as I learned it to mean growing up with this
kind of restriction in every communication and piece of information,
and the envassion of private property as it is being supported by 
content holding companies.

The position of the content holders, especially those that have legal 
copyrights based on buying an accumulating original works of others
is extremely radical.  NY Fair Use, as I created her orginally, always
takes the position of being centralist to the extreme in a world of
extremest reacting irrationally to things they don't understand and fear.

Also, in regard to your comment about the abuse that artists and individuals
suffer at the hands of these same companies is not suprising.  To the
degree that copyright has a moral standing, which was and still is highly
debatable, the current regiments which are suffering an intolerable 
restraint of individual rights, is highly abussive to the public.  Individuals
and companies which abuse people usually do so all around.  They abuse the
public with the DMCA, and the arrest of children for song swapping, and
they abuse the artists and inventors by stealing their and forcing 
unfair contractual arraingments with their monopolistic powers and 
litigation tactics.  Hey - RCA stole telivision from the inventor!.



<<My intention in inviting discussion on copyright is constructive. The 
moment it becomes a flame war or there are ad hominem attacks, I'm out of 
it. But I see a potential danger in not understanding that their are 
reasonable copyright and content control issues that affect the livelihoods 
of creators who are not major conglomerates.>>>

There is no content control issue which doesn't shread the private property
rights of the citizen who owns the copy of information and media.

So we can discuss it, but no matter how it is sliced and diced, controlling
content media that is owned by someone in their home is an invasion of their
property without their agreement to a contract.  It is simply unethical.

Now when I say this, understand that I have recently been a HUGE VICTEM of
both copyright violation and trademark violation with all my work done
for NY Fair Use and NYLXS was and is still being violated by other parties
who wanted to steal the organization.  They, in fact, still are using my
name and my material in direct violation of my requests for them to stop
doing so.  They held up NYLXS for months and then harrassed every member of
the orgnaization.  

HOWEVER, when we finally relized we needed to get a lawyer involved, the
first thing the lawyer said was fine... this is an open and closed case based
on the evidence.  We'll sue them under the DMCA!!!  And I said... whoa..
I except that I have rights involved, but NYLXS and NY Fair Use is NOT
GOING TO USE THE DMCA to enforce those rights.  It over reaches and I will
not be part of that kind of abussive methodolgy...period.  

I doubt many people have been as violated as I have in this regard.  But
I will not be forced into an immoral action in response to someone elses
imorality, regardless of circumstances.

All DRM is theft, and the DMCA is exactly the legal framework for George
Orwells 1984.  I will not be a part of that....

DRM is Theft.  We are the Stakeholders. (quote me on it if you wish.  It is
an NYLXS trademark and copyrighted by me).


Ruben Safir
Sole Founder - NY Fair Use, NYLXS
http://fairuse.nylxs.com/