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Fighting the Pigopolists with bricks not bluster

By Andrew Orlowski in London

Posted: 11/07/2002 at 17:20 GMT

An overwhelming response to our report on Rep. Rick Boucher's proposal to outlaw share-denial systems, beginning with copy- protected CDs [see Congressman vows Pigopolist legislation]. In this report we resurrected a modest proposal of ours which is neither new nor entirely original, but which caught your attention nevertheless : that we legislate the entertainment complex off our PCs for good.

It's pretty simple. You're allowed to own either a content creation empire - a studio or label - or a playback device empire (Walkmans, or PCs). But you can't have both.

This idea is an anathema to today's libertarian techno orthodoxy: or at least in its West Coast version. Governments are bad, and can only do bad things. But this is now, post-Enron, post the DoJ's AntiTrust Seattlement, and with the perspective of the EFF - the best we've got - having failed in its noble crusades against the Pigopolists. The RIAA is stronger than ever, and not only have the forces of light failed to halt its advance, the geek world looks more isolated, and less able to transmit the imperatives to the rest of the world.

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