Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Maturing Web, freedom of information flow.

Last time when I was writing about The Pirate Bay trial, I mentioned "dumb judges" problem briefly. Now it is more apparent, that the founding principles of the web like neutrality, governed by netiquette are displaced by govermental institutionalizations of the media. In Europe, European Parliament is going to ammend new laws about internet usage, potentially those new laws might change dramatically the rules how we can access information.

And I'm quoting this site raising concerns about upcoming "Telecoms Package Law":

It means that the Internet will be packaged up and your ability to access and to put up content could be severely restricted. It will create boxes of Internet accessibility, which don't fit with the way we use it today. This is because internet is now permitting exchanges between persons which cannot be controlled or "facilitated" by any middlemen (the state or a corporation) and this possibility improves the citizen's life but force the industry to lose power and control. that's why they are pushing governments to act those changes.


I can understand the problems facing the goverments and large corporations with the current, still somewhat anarchic state of the internet. From theirs point of view it is clear to see, that you can not control people's minds effectively unless you have all the power to filter the information which is seeping from the cyberspace. It is more than just falling revenues of the entertainment industry or the "guides of building atomic bomb".
The powers finally realized, that they need to pull the plug if they want to stay in power.

It can be dangerous to leave the things as they are, but it is also can be dangerous to change things in those recession times, bordering on depression. If you push too hard it is possible to break this socio-economic fabric which is currently holding European citizens together.
Let's see, in Spain there is already unemployment levels hoovering around 15%. If they go to 20-25% levels and stay there for a year or more do you think democratic nature of the state can be preserved ? I seriously doubt this, and bear in mind that Franco regime has gone only 30-40 years ago, Spain is not very old democracy. If Spain becoming a Hunta, European Union can break too, so can the mighty US buck go to hell rather quickly. The question is who will lose first, not if.

Learn from Lenin, you need to take phone and telegraph stations first. Today you need to control internet material infrastructure - wires, servers e.t.c., ISP's and internet search engines like Google.
Btw I also can't understand how is it that Google actually bought intellectual rights for all Guthenberg era printing materials for a measly 100 millions and nobody screamed it is a robbery (exept the old publishers). I don't really mind about Hollywood crap, last popular songs and other low real value informational ephemeral clouds. The deal is almost done, Google silently acquired rights for a "lot of content", unlike most of the 21-st informational noise, those old books contain the true gems of human ingenious minds for several centuries.

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