The Daily Travesty
"Happiness is like a
butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond
our grasp, but if you
will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."
--Nathaniel Hawthorne
The rest of the Lawrence Lessig speech from
yesterday is available here.
It's somewhat long so we won't print the whole thing, but consider
this:
"We are in the very early stages of a war. A war between
two ways of ordering the content of culture in the world. In one way,
content -- music, film, anything under the power of copyright -- is controlled
by content controllers. By distributors, record companies, Hollywood for
short. These controllers attract artists; the artists sell them their
souls to work for them; these controllers control distribution, distribution
feeds from them; these controllers control a vast resource of culture under the
label of copyright; this content is theirs; they own it.
"In another way of ordering content in the world,
these controllers would have much less power. Content is distributed; it
is shared and flows freely; it is produced by many, in bottom up manner; it is
sold or not sold, but it is out of the control of the few.
"In the world before the Internet, the first model
was the rule. Hollywood was the king. (Elvis was a figurehead).
Content controllers exercised massive control over the production and
distribution of culture.
"The Internet has threatened that
world...
"I can't believe AOL would forget its roots; I
can't believe it would turn against a culture of freedom that defined the
original net. And so I can work up a fever of fear about this latest
merger [with Time Warner]."
++
Speaking of Masturbation...
A high school English teacher reminds her class of tomorrow's final
exam. She tells the class there would be no excuse for not showing up,
except for serious injury, illness or a death in the immediate family.
A smart-ass jock in the back of the room asks, "What about
extreme
sexual exhaustion?" The entire class bursts into
laughter. When silence is restored, the teacher smiles sympathetically and
sweetly says, "Not an excuse. Write with your other hand."
----> we are accepting ramblings and musings, as
well as grunts and and moans... email.
B.C. will write more when B.C. is less freakin' BUSY!!! (or maybe I should
say, when B.C. has learned how to prioritize...)