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"Censorship, infringement, and piracy are the talk du jour this weekend, it seems.  The other evening, I wrote a fairly long piece speaking to the growing potential crisis in media consumer rights that I and some other folks see as on the horizon. Whether it be in response or simply coincidence, there is a clear focus being brought to bear similar issues today.  I welcome the change, which is a clear step above the typical naval-gazing we bloggers engage in on the weekends.\nFor instance, the blog TorrentFreak saw fit to point out the hypocrisy of Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN today with an open mock cease-and-desist letter, claiming that materials and press statements contained libelous and unattributed works from TorrentFreak's blog. In one swift motion, TorrentFreak demonstrates the absurdity of the anti-Piracy and copyright infringement pseudo-police by itself being absurd, claiming the BREIN \"organization has reproduced text from an article published by [TorrentFreak] website concerning the website SumoTorrent, without prior written consent and without complying with the copyright terms applicable to this publication, TorrentFreak.\"\nThey further accuse BREIN of libel, stating:\n\"You have mischievously and inaccurately attributed the source of the material stolen from ourselves as being \u201Ca pirate weblog\u201D. This amounts to actionable libel, inasmuch that neither the owners nor the staff of this publication \u2013 a well respected and widely read source of filesharing news - have ever been accused, suspected or prosecuted, for any so-called act of piracy. We are neither sailors nor thieves of other people\u2019s intellectual property, unlike yourselves.\"\nIt is a brilliant letter, bringing to bear a topic brought up by TechDirt a few days ago: true copyright infringement, as defined by current outmoded laws and regulations, is completely unavoidable in today's always-on society. They pointed to a study by John Tehranian, who tallied up every bit of copyright infringement he engaged in.\n\nReplying to an email with quoted text? Infringement! Reply to 20 emails? You're looking at $3 million in statutory damages. Doodle a sketch of a building? Unauthorized derivative work. Read a poem out loud? Unauthorized performance. Forward a photograph that a friend took? Infringement! Take a short film of a birthday dinner with some friends and catch some artwork on the wall in the background? Infringement!\nThere is nothing particularly extraordinary about John\u2019s activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, he would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year. And, surprisingly, he has not even committed a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing.\n\nThis is without the government sanctioned copyright monitors the MPAA and RIAA are presently pushing hard for in France and the USA. If said programs were enacted at the ISP and university levels, would there be any end to the fines assigned to those just wishing to simply communicate on the Internet?  I think not.\nLest we forget about pattern by which the record labels and movie industry patterned its war against its consumers by, the Associated Press highlights the Business Software Alliance.  Instead of going after strictly consumers, they target small businesses (the business equivalent to consumers in the corporate world). The BSA represents large software makers like Microsoft, Adobe and Symantec, and sends large 'fines' to companies like Michael Gaertner's 10-person architectural firm for $67,000. In cases like this, the BSA acts in the same extortionist manner as the RIAA does towards unsuspecting 12 year olds, demanding the better part of a year's profit from small companies, claiming they'll seek even more in court if they refuse to settle.\nFrom the AP piece:\nOf the $13 million that the BSA reaped in software violation settlements with North American companies last year, almost 90 percent came from small businesses, the AP found. The BSA is well within its rights to wring expensive punishments aimed at stopping the willful, blatant software copying that undoubtedly happens in many businesses. And its leaders say they concentrate on small businesses because that's where illegitimate use of software is rampant. But technology managers and software consultants say the picture has more shades of gray than the BSA acknowledges. Companies of all sizes say they inadvertently run afoul of licensing rules because of problems the software industry itself has created. Unable or unwilling to create technological blocks against copying, the industry has saddled its customers with complex licensing agreements that are hard to master.\nAgain, we have a situation where the bureaucracy of government and big corporate regulation has created an untenable situation for users of the technology it was meant to help. Perhaps this can be one of the greater legacies of the Web 2.0 and social networking movement: the move from licensing to ad monetization and other forms of income. If the transition can be made without stepping in what could possibly be even larger puddles of censorship and privacy issues, we may be looking at a far easier to world to live in.\nThat is, of course, assuming the governments will allow us to make those transitions.\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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