A Thief Until Proven…
Yesterday, WalMart wouldn’t let me in. I had my computer, which was in a backpack, so I must be a thief. I can’t leave my computer in the car because it’s a Jeep: even if I lock it, someone can reach in and take it; even if I put the top on, all someone has to do is pull a zipper and they can get to my computer.
This is a growing trend. It has become okay in our society for people to treat honest people as thieves, before they’ve thieved, before they’ve been tried, before they’ve been found guilty.
It has become okay in our society to disregard the first 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 to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Making the rounds of the writing community is a petition to protect copyright. The letter sounds great. The intent sounds great. It’s making the rounds quickly because we all want to protect against piracy. But if you dig deeper into their site, the Copyright Alliance are proponents of internet regulation.
Internet regulation means that the United States government can put “nanny controls” on every U.S. citizen and decide what is and what is not good for them. The most common justification for unconstitutional telephone tapping regulating the internet by Bush by the government is terrorism child pornography.
For us writers, the fear we’re fed to motivate us to give up our freedom of the press is piracy, losing royalties, etc.
Fear has been used too long to take away our freedoms. I don’t know what is happening to our country, but every time I turn around, the people and the government seems to have forgotten the first amendment.
There are already laws which prohibit people from posting your work on the internet and giving it out for free. If the publishers found it more profitable to protect copyright, they would file charges. You could sue. Unless it’s in a different country, you can even have the site taken down by contacting their host provider, something that is not difficult at all.
We’ve seen how regulation of the internet in Iran and China work. We all duly act appalled, but somehow we campaign for regulation of the internet in the United States because the politicians just keep yelling “child pornography!” and “piracy!”
No.
“Regulation” of free press is not okay. It’s a contradiction in terms.
If you read child pornography sites, you will be trapped. They can track ISPs. They can prosecute you. When you break a law, you should be caught.
BUT, this is not martial law. In this country, locking people up BEFORE they commit a crime, just to be sure they don’t commit a crime, is not okay. Yes, it is harder to wait for people to break the law and then try them before putting them behind bars, but that does not mean that the alternative, putting them behind bars before trial, is okay.
In this country, you cannot treat people like thieves before they thieve.
“Wherever there is a loophole in the existing laws protecting traditional American liberties, the opponents of these freedoms try to squeeze in. Whenever legislators create the slightest opening to allow some kind of censorship, the censors will be born and will march again.” ~Mieczyslaw Maneli
Please don’t sign this letter. Yes, artists need to band together to protect copyright, but the regulation of the internet is not the answer. How many artists’ works have been censored against? Artists NEED freedom of expression, and censorship—which is what internet regulation is—is not the answer.
And may I remind that internet regulation is often packaged with anti-p0rn? Do you think a computer program can tell the difference between romantica, erotica and pr0n, which use the same words? What about nudes in photography? Sculpture? How quickly can internet regulation turn against us?
Fast. As long as it takes to sign a bill.
30 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Natasha Fondren is an eBook developer, writer, and classical pianist. After a fifteen-year piano teaching career, she moved to Arizona and built a book design business. She enjoys the lizards and desert heat in Arizona with her Border Collie, Padfoot, and her cat, Dixie Doodle.
Yes I refuse to go along with the idea that we’re all guilty until proven innocent because that somehow makes us “safe.” Well if you accept that reasoning you’re not safe, you’re a slave. I remember Mary refused to hand over her handbag at the local WalMart once and we just left.
The whole frenzy over Internet porn is just an excuse to try to control the Internet and thus diminish people’s freedom. Porn is just the excuse, and as if it’s necessary *bad* anyway. Even the child porn thing is an excuse. The biggest proponents of regulation don’t give a rat’s ass about children. They want to control people’s lives and they’ll use their supposed concern about kids to do so.
Also, I really don’t care about Internet piracy. Was it Cory Doctorow who said it’s kind of a tax on the very successful? I doubt that piracy costs anyone a living. Freedom to speak is more important than freedom to make as much money as possible anyway.
I should have walked out at the local WalMart, I should have! And I meant never to go back, except today I had to get water and the Aldi didn’t carry it. I would’ve had to drive 50 minutes round trip. But I swear that’s the LAST TIME, lol!
I am not at all happy how quickly we are losing our freedoms. No one seems to be noticing. It’s been driving me crazy. We Americans are too complacent!
Cory’s only correct so far as the situation applies to writers who have books available in both paper and electronic formats. The vast majority of the reading audience still prefers paper books, so yes, a lot of people will read the free (whether given away by the writer or publisher, or illegally downloaded) e-book, then if they like it they’ll buy a paper copy.
Those of us who are only published electronically are hosed, though. With no paper edition available, the e-book is all there is, and once someone’s stolen a copy, it takes some staunch moral fortitude on the thief’s part to then pay money for a legal copy which gives them nothing they don’t already have. Needless to say, this happens only rarely. :/
Angie
Angie, I disagree. People pay for convenience, and I think we only have to look at iTunes and Amazon music to know that people DO pay for it. The majority of readers don’t know they can get books illegally and have no idea where to find them.
But it’s not “readers” who are the issue. It’s e-book readers, specifically, and I’m intensely skeptical about how many e-book readers (people who, on the average, are far more savvy about and comfortable on the internet than the general population of “all readers”) there might be who are completely unaware of pirated copies floating around.
And word is spreading about where to go and how to get them. It used to be that only a tiny handful of people up- or downloaded illegal software, on local pirate BBSs where you had to know the owner or be vouched for by one of the current members. And if you didn’t live nearby, you had to pay toll charges when you phoned in, and while you downloaded the pirated software with your 300 baud modem, which is a heck of a deterrent in itself.
Nowadays, the pirate sites are huge, and you can find them with a couple of Google clicks. Twenty years from now, who knows?
I don’t think we’ll ever get to a point (at least not in my lifetime) where 100% of e-book readers are stealing rather than buying. Maybe not even 50%, although that one’s iffy. But I know plenty of people — perfectly nice, honest people, people I think of as friends — who have no problem with burning a movie or a whole TV series onto disk to give to their friends and acquaintances and anyone else who wanders by. And if you call them on it, they indignantly justify it by saying they’re “helping” the producer/director/whomever increase their audience.
Well, yeah, that’s true so far as it goes. But how many of those people then turn around and buy legal copies? Some, sure. How about the rest? I also know plenty of folks who justify taking those illegal copies and never replacing them with legal ones by complaining about how poor they are, how they have to save their money for things they can’t “borrow” from friends, or can’t “find” on the internet.
Funny, there are a lot of things I can’t afford either. I save for them, or do without.
But these are nice, normal people, except when it comes to “sharing” their favorite electronic media, or acquiring something the can’t or don’t want to pay for.
As e-books become more popular, there’ll be a larger and larger group of people who have incentive to “find” free e-books. In the case where there are also paper versions of those books available, then it might well work out as Cory says, and free e-books will drive hardcopy sales. Where there aren’t hardcopy editions, though, you’re purely at the mercy of whatever moral fiber the pirates have, and most of them have damn little.
Angie
Natasha, I feel like you’re talking to me! I put up a blog with that letter campaign link. I never thought of it, but we already have laws against copyright violations.
LOL about the Bush comments. No disagreement here.
But I have to disagree with Eric about Internet piracy being a tax on the very successful. A lot of books are pirated, even books of debut authors who felt lucky to get 5K for their booka. Even ebook writers who might make maybe a few hundred $$.
No, no, no, no, no! I’m not talking to you in particular AT ALL! You know me better than that! (Er, I hope!) No, it’s been making the rounds so much, and the letter is written so that we don’t really know they’re talking about internet regulation. It’s misleading, so I had to speak up!
Unfortunately it appears that old curse has come true for us. “May you live in interesting times.” We are.
That’s the truth, Charles. That’s the truth!
Hmm…I’m going to have to reign you in here, I think.
By which I mean, I don’t disagree with you completely, but neither do I think you’re exactly approaching these topics in the right way either…
First off, your analogy between Walmart and internet regulation is just weak. And next to that, Walmart does, as a private business, have every right to bar you from walking through their stores with a bag. While this does indeed mean they are treating you like a thief, nothing bars them from doing so.
From there you launch into a discussion of the First Amendment, which at first had me thinking you thought you had a First Amendment right to walk through Walmart with a bag, which would’ve driven me up the wall. But instead you were talking about internet regulation——certainly a worthy topic.
“Internet regulation means that the United States government can put ‘nanny controls’ on every U.S. citizen and decide what is and what is not good for them.” I’d love to see your source for this, ’cause it strikes me as BS. The U.S. government has no interest in TRULY, ACTIVELY policing its citizens. Obviously the PATRIOT Act and warantless wiretapping were an infringement of a host of civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, but the idea that they were legitimately moves toward monitoring each citizen is just laughable. HOWEVER, it’s still naturally important we put a stop to it now, and I certainly agree with the saying-with-all-sorts-of-wordings attributed to Ben Franklin about trading freedom for security being a dumb move. Very dumb.
My biggest problem with the danger you associate with internet regulation, though, is that while you’re focused on that, you’re missing the REAL threat. When we lose Net Neutrality, the danger we face is not having our piracy and pornography usage monitored, but rather having companies control our access to their sites and their competitors’. This, you see, has its basis not in 1984, but in a far more potent force: $$$$$$$$$$
Be afraid of TIME Warner trying to slow down the speed at which you reach sites they don’t operate, not of the government blocking Twitter so you can’t organize protests against it. Because you’re right——we don’t live in Iran or China. The enemy here is Big Scary Multinational Corporations, not the government.
Hurm…I feel like I made some clear points here, but I have the nagging feel that I didn’t address a large portion of your concerns. I’ll wait for your response to see what I missed.
Must you force me to make a clear argument, LOL? The WalMart thing was a pervasive attitude that we treat honest people as thieves, whether it be backpacks in WalMart, DRM, or regulating the internet.
WalMart has every right to refuse my business, true. I only pointed it out as another example of the way our society has changed since Bush, where we treat people as guilty before they even do something.
I AM afraid of Time Warner, but, theoretically, we can take our business elsewhere. With the government? We can’t.
Unfortunately, this very alliance was testifying just last week for internet regulation by the government. There does seem to be a fair amount of interest in it, and Biden, in particular, is BIG in favor of it. I figure if they are discussing it in Congress and the lobbyists are in on it, it’s time for me to start fretting. Biden is even in favor of regulating against porn, which concerns me, because people draw that line in all different places.
“Theoretically.”
Not quite the same as “realistically.”
Even putting aside the fact that there are already only a handful on companies that provide access to the internet (and thus if all started regulating, you’d really have no place to turn), there are also areas of the countries where there is only one option, only one company to provide you service. (Kinda like the pockets of the country where the only health care is through Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance…)
On a more interesting note, I find it fascinating that at the same time you’re fretting about internet regulation by the government, the big news today was that the FCC plans to propose net neutrality rules on Monday: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=8617795
Or is the government’s moving to make the internet neutral a kind of regulation in its own right, a first step toward what you fear? Now, wouldn’t THAT be wild?! (If there were an emoticon for a positively inscrutable face, I’d insert it here.)
Oh wonderful news, Joey! I don’t doubt they can move in two different directions at once. One conservative, one liberal, LOL…
PS: So Joey, can you see why non-fiction is hard for me? Why I must do draft after draft for my essays, LOL?
Yes, I do see, and agree. Non-fiction=annoying. Although being able to formulate a cohesive argument is probably a more practical skill than being able to write fiction OR poetry, “LOL” (i.e., I’m not laughing).
LOL, Joey! True!
Natasha, I totally agree about the shirt toward guilty until you show otherwise–and in some places store guards can tazer you if you’re too insistent on making your point. Substitute “lead-filled rubber hose” for tazer and the shocking nature of the shift hits home. It’s techtonic.
Assumption of guilt is a lot easier for low level fuctionaries to administer than assumption of innocence “but we think you did it;” they don’t have to make a judgement, they just throw you out. It also makes life easier for the guys at the top; they can feel free to move more aggressively on “enforcement” measures (even illegal ones) if it’s okay to pre-assume guilt.
Freedoms like ours are tough to maintain and erode at a fasteer and faster pace when there is no pushback. Cats in the house keep the rat at bay. If he sticks his head out and there are no cats, or the cats are intimidated by the new dog, the rat will openly rifling your breadbox and stare you down if you yell at him. Rep. Joe Wilson broke a behavior taboo that’s existed in Congress since before the Civil War, but there were only trivial consequences. So look for more shouts of “liar, liar!” soon in the hallowed halls. Why not? He got away with it.
(I’m sorry, I forgot to put “Confucius say:…” on the head of this paragraph.)
um…that’s “shift” not shirt. Although come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea for a T-shirt:
“I’M GUILTY…until proven innocent.”
LOL, Bill! But I can’t find where I wrote shift or shirt, LOL! That must be my problem, LOL!
LOVE that t-shirt, LOL!
I have to point out that it is standard procedure to lock people up before the trial. When someone’s arrested, if they can’t pay bail or no bail is set, they stay locked up until the trial. I approve, actually; better than having to go chase people down over and over and over. [wry smile]
Maybe what you meant was that it’s bad to lock people up without trial, not before trial? Which would imply just keeping them locked up and never having a trial, as opposed to keeping them in jail (preventing them from fleeing town, or the state, or the country) before their scheduled trial?
Your statement about being able to take your business elsewhere is also kind of ironic, given that you went back to WalMart shortly after they insulted you badly enough that you blogged about it. I think that’s the answer to your statement about choice, though — sure, we can always take our business elsewhere, but will we? If some big company is the closest, the cheapest, the most convenient, will we really inconvenience ourselves by driving that extra hour, or paying those higher prices, or forgoing our favorite brand? Unfortunately, the answer is usually no, at least in the long-term. A company with a lot of advantages over its competitors can get away with a lot of crap, and they know it.
That all said [grin/duck] I do agree with you in essence. I remember when a supposed child protection organization dedicated to stamping out child porn and child predators online — which turned out to be one woman with a web site — caused a huge ruckus on LiveJournal. They shut down communities and booted off individual users basically on this woman’s say-so, in a frenzy of panicked action because the woman had written to their advertisers accusing LJ of providing a haven for pedophiles. [eyeroll] Out of the hundreds of cancelled accounts, I heard of only three or four which belonged to people who’d actually been arguing in favor of “child love” or whatever. For the rest, it was all garbage — they shut down a literary community (for fans of Nabokov’s Lolita) and a fashion community (for people into Japanese Loli fashions) and even a community for survivors of sexual abuse. Wow, way to serve your customers, LJ!
They’d ignored this woman’s griping for months, but when she threatened their bottom line by going to their advertisers, they caved completely, frantically, and to a ridiculous extent. So yeah, I absolutely agree that all the “OMG Pedos!!” hysteria does far more harm than good. And like Joey, the Ben Franklin quote (the version I have is, “Those who would give up a little liberty in exchange for a little security will lose both and deserve neither”) is one of my favorites. [sigh]
I’ve certainly been ripped off by internet pirates, but I’m not at all in favor of any kind of organized government regulation of the internet to combat it. That’s burning down your house to get rid of a roach — ridiculous overkill.
Angie
Yes, I meant without.
And I will take my business elsewhere. The only reason I went to WalMart this time is because I had friends coming over, Aldi didn’t sell water, and I didn’t have the time to drive the extra half hour. I’m certain I will, though, given that I love Meijer and it’s not WalMart. 
I love that Ben Franklin quote, too!
Okay, this is too much, Natasha. You want me to think before I’ve had coffee?
LOL, Rick!
Great post Natasha. I haven’t read the petition, and while I agree the government should put controls on SOME things, they shouldn’t contradict our amendments. Particularly numero uno.
Here they make you check your bag at a counter before entering stores. I don’t know if I’d leave my laptop with them, but I’ve left groceries, etc.
The petition is great, Melanie. It says NOTHING about what their plans are. It basically says, “piracy sucks; we’re banding together; let’s stamp this out.”
What they DON’T say (and the reason for my rant) is the methods they propose, which is very misleading. So all these people are signing for internet regulation, and they don’t even know it.
I would’ve been happy to leave my bag, but she was like, “You can leave it behind her counter. She’ll be around there.” “Around” didn’t work, particularly because the “behind” bit was really to the side and opened up to the most-trafficked bit of the store without protection. If they would’ve promised to watch it, that would’ve been one thing.
I’m mostly concerned that the kooky religious extremists are setting the tone for this country. “Child Pornography” is a buzz word that makes everyone go insane. Of course, child pornography is horrible and wrong. Duh. It doesn’t necessarily follow that the internet must be regulated. Shooting people is wrong, too, but we haven’t taken guns off the street because we have a right to bear arms.
They are, Robin. That’s what I fear, too. It’s crazy. People are using fear to pass freedom-restricting bills, and that’s just wrong. I wish the American people would not be so easily swayed.
The problem with the piracy of ebooks, Natasha, is that there are so many sites popping up on the internet. And its not just ebooks now. Its very simple to scan an entire written book and post it as an ebook. I belong to a group that looks for these pirates and you’d be amazed on how many there are. Not only are small name authors targets, but the best-sellers as well. Its the whole mind-set of “Oh, writers are all rich. They won’t miss a few bucks.” Wrong. As Edie mentioned, if your only income is from the sale of your books and you only clear a couple of thousand dollars, those few hundreds make a huge difference.
I haven’t read the bill so I cannot weigh in with regard to how it refers to child pornagraphy, but I do know that a lot of authors do issue a “cease and desist” letter to these pirate sites, get their books removed, only to find them again posted within hours. No matter how its packaged, this is thievery. Plain and simple.
I am 100% with you on the problem of piracy. It is a problem that I 100% agree needs to be solved.
My problem with this site is that they are misleading in that letter, and they actually are a proponent of regulating the internet. Piracy, p0rn, and child p0rn are the number one reasons proponents cite for regulation of the internet. In this case, “regulation” is just another name for “censorship.”
To put it in perspective, all your erotica author friends would be in danger of getting their sites blocked because they use the same trigger words as p0rn. Hopefully the government will not be successful in this.
Regulating the internet is the exact same thing as the government stepping in and telling libraries what books they can buy and telling bookstores what books they can sell. It’s censorship, pure and simple.
I just want to add, I am in no way debating whether or not piracy is a problem. You’re missing the issue, LOL. The issue is whether or not the government should use pornography and piracy as the reasons to put nanny controls on all internet access, just like Iran and China do.