The RIAA has been paranoid about online piracy for the better part of a decade. During which they have schemed and sued, lobbied Congress, created advertising campaigns full of falicies, and spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). They persistantly ignore the fact that the advent of the original Napster saw unprecedented climbs in music sales after years of declining sales. Instead accusing Napster of stealing their money, while blindly ignoring the enormous value that music piracy involved. The more actions they take, the more the walls close in around them. While the internet and its many content pirates are not actually stealing sales away from musicians what it is doing is providing a new (and cheaper) way for artists to expose themselves to vast audiences around the world. This exposure and the new distribution methods it provides makes the RIAA, the middlemen, obsolete. Big record labels are now just an evil of the past that is in its terrible death-throes.

The new 3-strikes project from the RIAA is one of those last-ditch efforts to save themselves. They refuse to adapt and so now they expect others to hold up their business model. For that they look to politicians and ISPs. This is not surprising considering their track record. What is surprising is that the ISPs, whom have all the real leverage here, are working with the RIAA to help them with their project. The ISPs are not required by law, their only real motivation are the empty legal threats that the RIAA has been making. However despite not being required we are still seeing stories of multiple ISPs that are working with the RIAA to implement this program. This includes AT&T, Comcast, and Cox.

What I don’t get though is why? Why would these companies give into these demands? What are they getting out of it aside from a bunch of angry customers? These are all good questions. And while we continue to mull them over there is some good news on this front. For some time now Verizon has out and out refused to have anything to do with this and other related projects from the RIAA or the MPAA. Not only that, but now an Australian ISP is standing up and fighting for its customers. I see this as a good sign that there is a major pushback happening even on the corporate level. Though it does bring up fears that the record labels will just go crying to some politicians and make the cooperation legally required.

I would encourage everyone to contact their ISP and tell them that they will not agree to this. Tell them to just say no to greedy, self-serving record labels. Contact your local political representatives and protest these actions. Get your voice heard.

Related Stories:

• Austalian ISP Stands Up For Users In Court — Claims They’re Not Violating Copyright
• AT&T And Comcast’s Non-Denial Denial Of Three Strikes
• AT&T exec: ISP will never terminate service on RIAA’s word
• ISPs Testing RIAA’s 3 Strikes Program

-Pjerky

The researcher is Jay Keasling, a chemical engineer and a self-described idealist. His creation is genetically modified yeast microbes that turn sugars into artemisinin far quicker and more affordably than the previously used method, which involves extracting it from the sweet-wormwood plant. The drug, artemisinin, has a 90% cure rate of malaria. Usually when such a great new advancement happens in pharmaceuticals occurs the technology is immediately patented and then highly guarded by the creators of it. However, this situation is different because Mr. Keasling patented the drug and then worked with his university and the big pharmaceutical companies to make sure that no one, not even him, could profit from it. He wants and has ensured that his new production method will be used to produce the drug at a low cost and will be sold at cost to the poor.

I find it to be a relief to be able to occasionally write about altruistic men and women that use their talents to help others.

If you would like to read more, just follow this link: http://www.newsweek.com/id/176340

-Pjerky

Yes, that is right, a company used legal threats to shut down a FREE and Open Source software project that helped city emergency systems work more efficiently and help save lives. What is more appaling is the specific part of the system in question was a written document that listed questions that have links to related questions based on the selected response. It was a text document with hyperlinks. You know, those things that are the basis for the entire internet. The company that issued these threats is called “Priority Dispatch Corporation” and in their threat they simply said that it may violate one or more of their ten patents. They didn’t say which one, but when a group of programmers, working for free with no corporate backing at all, get threatened legally they don’t have a lot of options. So they closed up shop and deleted everything they had on it.

Now you might be thinking that this was probably a little dinky project that had no real impact on the community. Well you would be wrong. This software was put into use and people that found ways to improve upon it were able to easily do so and then contribute the improvements back to the community. This horrible abuse of the patent system has got to stop. I recommend everyone write to their senators and members of congress to voice your opinions on this matter. I would ask that this company be banned from supplying to any local, state, or federal agencies. I would also ask that they have any licenses pulled and to be investigated for anti-competitive practices and trying to run a monopoly. Then I would ask for government backing and funding of this open source project.

I am tired of seeing companies abuse patents and harm others just for their greed. It is time we take back the power from these greedy companies and stamp out those that would use the law to harm innocents.

Here are some related links…

• The open source project: http://openises.sourceforge.net/emd01.html
• The story I read about this on: http://techdirt.com/articles/20090308/0932074028.shtml
• An older article talking about the community benefits of this software: http://www.osnews.com/story/14492

Please write to your representatives and spread the word about these terrible abuses!

Sincerely,

Pjerky

Updated: Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Thanks to the extensive legwork of commenter Andy, we now have a link to the Cards 911 files that Priority Dispatch Corporation tried to get destroyed. I want everyone to download a copy of these files and distribute them far and wide. Let us make sure that the information doesn’t die. Let us make sure that Priority Dispatch fails to suppress open source EMS.

The files: http://mirror.optus.net/sourceforge/c/ca/cards911/

Good Luck!

Patents should only apply to inventions, products, and complex chemistry. It should not apply to concepts such as driving a car or one-click payment systems. It would be like me getting a patent on a handshake an trying to charge people every time they shook someones hand. I also think that if someone can prove that another person/organization came up with something that was patented before another party actually got the patent then the third party patent is automatically revoked.

The day will come (hopefully sooner rather than later) when then entire patent system is either scrapped and replaced or severely revamped. With the computing age at hand there is little room in our world for such an antiquated and harmful system. Unfortunately it is being propped up right now by politicians that are lining their pockets with proceeds from special interests groups. (Don’t try to fool yourself in thinking that the Democrats got rid of them. I doubt either party ever will.)

The story can be found here: http://techdirt.com/articles/20090302/0213413946.shtml

The original article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/business/20crop.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1235750706-X9QG7wWBH6TCugnMjM3kvA

Here is my response (also posted in the comments on TechDirt):

Now hold on just one minute Bubba. While I understand the talent aspect of your complaint I think your talk about those with the available money and resources is complete horse sh*t. First of all that is a VERY elitist attitude. Plenty of people with amazing ideas and inventions don’t have the money and resources to market their ideas so instead of letting them go to waste they freely spread their knowledge to others in hope that it improves things for all of humanity.

What you are talking about is hording knowledge because you have the money and resources to. Not only is that just wrong, but it is irresponsible. I have a question for you, who are you paying for the invention of spoken words? What about the discovery of fire or the wheel? Electricity? Your idea suggests that everyone that comes up with a good idea or invention should protect it and hide it from everyone else until they can milk as much money as possible out of them.

ALL of humanity is built of the discoveries, knowledge, and inventions of humans that have come before us. And just because you discovered or created it first doesn’t mean that someone else would not have if you didn’t exist. It would have just happened at a different time. For you to stifle the spread of knowledge and discovery just to line your pockets is despicable and disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Now I am not saying don’t make money from what you do. Far from it. Being the first to discover/create something gives you a head start and a chance to use it better and quicker than others and offer services and products based off of your early knowledge and your mounting experience from it. If you instead don’t want to produce anything directly from it then hold seminars and teaching sessions to explain what and how you found/created it. You can charge for your time and effort to teach them. That is fine.

But for you to simply block the propagation of knowledge to make sure you get a slice of money is just greedy.

Peace

-Pjerky

Any thoughts, comments, or ideas are welcome here.