Alan De Smet's Bookmarks - Evil

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• - We're quickly moving toward a culture that believes "if it's making money, it's ethical." The rights of big business are surpassing those granted to human beings.
• - "...capitalism, having defeated communism, now seems about to do the same to democracy." - Ian Frazier, "On the Rez."
• Copyright - Copyright was created to promote the arts, not to give corporations effortless profit for a lifetime, not to give corporations a choke chain on people's access to their culture.
• What's Wrong With Content Protection - Good summary of the problems.
• Reevaluating Copyright - Interesting paper by Richard Stallman on the need to reconsider copyright's purpose and how it should be managed today.
• The Right to Read - A warning of the risks of letting copyright get out of control.
• Software Copy Protection - Bruce Schneier's discussion on why software copy protection systems are doomed.
• Is a Stitch Online a Crime? - This is where the road of copyright can lead. Calling cross-stitching grandmother's "pirates."
• Boston Globe - Copyright Crusader - On the unethical extension of US copyrights by 20 years, stealing our heritage from us.
• Privacy - Privacy and anonymity are necessary for free speech and other human rights.
• Database Nation
• The Eroded Self - Good New York Times article on the dangers of losing privacy.
• freedOm - Software to protect privacy on the internet, sadly, no Linux version yet.
• Patents - Incompetent leadership in the US Patent office and abuse by corporation have turned our patent system into a tool for large companies to abuse small companies with.
• Basic Patent Law for Programmers
• Licensing - You don't own your software. You license it. You have less rights that you do to a book, video, or car you purchase.
• UCITA - The UCITA would make the terms you "license" software under even more onerous.
• ALA Washington Office - American Library Association, information on UTICA
• The UCITA Car
• CPT's UCITA Page - Good coverage of the dangers the UCITA creates
• UCITA Summary information - Information from InfoWorld
• Shrinkwrap Licenses: Threat or Menace
• Bad Software
• Copyrant - Licensing on software is moving us back to the days of company stores, where we don't own anything and owe it all to a corporation.
• Lawyers - Maybe the majority of lawyers are ethical individuals trying to serve mankind. But the lawyers who view the justicial system as a way to acquire money and power ruin it.
• What License - Are lawyers licensed by the state? (I'm suspicious of this one, it needs more investigating.)
• A Love Song for Napster - Jaron Lanier's thought experiment on where the road goes if Napster is shut down.
• Why Microsoft's Stock Options Scare Me - Why does Microsoft pay no Federal income taxes?
• Fixing it.
• Reality Cracking - Hacking reality from Fravia.org
• Adbusters Culture Jammers
• Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do - On the questionable policy of making consenual activities crimes
• Echelon Watch - Details on Echelon, in which the US government spies on European countries for profit.
• Against Intellectual Property
• Why the world needs reverse engineers
• Domain Name Rights Coalition
• RTMark - Social deconstruction
• Courtney Love does the math - Transcript of a Courtney Love speech where she discusses how the recording industry financially rapes artists.