Re: [tlug] Pretending to be outside Japan?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Scott Robbins writes:

 > The content holders could easily cut piracy by a large percent by
 > simply not being such evil people.

And they'd make a lot less money.  That may not bother you, but I
assure you it bothers them.

 > Not sure about Josh, who is, I believe, in a first world country,
 > but here in the US, the content holders are allowed to blatently
 > threaten our elected officials to do as they were paid to do.

Oh, when was the last Congressman assassinated for voting against a
copyright extension?  I seem to have missed that.

Please note that nothing gets Stallman hotter than a claim that
Content Type X should be free and therefore should be classed with
free software.  If you don't believe me, consider the blatant catering
to content holder and media interests that differentiates the "Free"
Documentation License from the General Public License he recommends
for software.  These questions do not have obvious answers, and there
are a lot of people who would take the opposite position from Stallman
about "software" vs. "entertainment" content (even ignoring the Debian
position that everything that can be digitized is software).

Larry Lessig has a good book on the subject of what chains American
legislators, _Republic Lost_.  The main point relevant to this
discussion is that even an "honest" politician gets corrupted by the
need to be continuously raising funds, and he doesn't really offer a
solution.

But I don't think the "first world" governments you speak of are
actually any better.  The elites there have different ways of keeping
their politicians in line, that's all.  And in the end, it comes down
to "democracy is the worst form of government...".