alt.tech

A couple of weeks ago I was in a meeting with two lobbyists from Time Warner and Warner Brothers, i.e. the media/movie industry. Their message was the usual updated media industry claim that what they are really after is the well organized groups of top traders, not the average Joe. “We don’t want to prosecute” was probably the most repeated phrase during the hour and a half meeting.

Now, what the Industry seems to be after right now is a legal way of forcing the ISP’s into taking action against their customers, whenever the media industry finds that appropriate. The actions that are supposed to take place is sending threatening letters to the customers, and after a couple of warnings shutting down their Internet connection. Of cause, again, they don’t want to prosecute, but they want the right to.

The reason for the meeting in the first place was a report from the Swedish government (the Renfors report), which was really about stimulating legal alternatives to file sharing. The report was criticized by the green party (amongst others), in part because it recommended exactly the kind of ISP-responsibility the media industry is lobbying. So, much of the discussion came to be about why the alternatives aren’t there yet. The lobbyists claimed that it was because of piracy, but didn’t have an answer to why on earth it’s cheaper renting a movie in high quality in a local store than in lower quality on the Internet.

Obviously the media industry is lacking credibility when it comes to the area of stimulating legal alternatives themselves. And that’s not the only area where the industry is lacking credibility…

1. Copyright is for protecting the artist

The media industry are feeding the rich and signing up and coming artists to slave contracts. Copyright was never supposed to be about the right for mega superstars to buy their third luxury house in the Bahamas, but that’s what it became in the hands of the media industry. Copyright, for the media industry, is about protecting corporate profit.

2. Piracy is threatening movie production

In Sweden the DVD sales are breaking new records. The media industry hasn’t failed in selling their products, and people aren’t spending less on culture now than before. The fight against piracy is probably more about loosing control of the media channels than a real loss of money.

3. “We don’t want to prosecute”

Oh, really? Look at the track record. The MPAA is suing single mothers for thousands of dollars because their teenagers shared a bunch of songs – money they could never have spent on music or movies even if they wanted to.

The media industry is winning battle after battle, writing new laws as it fits them. They claim that they don’t want to use them, but history tells us something else. Still, I can see that it’s uncomfortable for them. Badwill is a powerful force. So their latest idea is brilliant from their perspective. Just the threat of legal action will force the ISP’s to be the bad guys – shutting down Internet connections as it pleases the media industry. But for society in full that should never be an acceptable solution. The citizens of a democracy must have stronger rights that that!

Today I opened up a new book – The Meaning Of the 21st Century by James Martin. Martin’s view is that the 21st century is the make-or-break of human civilization.

“A transition, unique in human history will occur.
If the transition goes well, humanity has a magnificent future. If it goes badly, we may be thrown into a new Dark Age or worse.”

Into my mind pops this article. A group, calling themselves The Wild Growing Collective, are advocating Anarcho-primitivism; a civilization critical ideology proposing a return to the “non-civilized” era of hunting and gathering.

It is easy, and very tempting, to dismiss the anarko-primitivists. For the humankind to live like hunters and gatherers we need to decrease the global population by about 99%. Just think about the path there for a while…

Still, I know the primitivists have no viable solution for the global problems, but I can’t help to think… How come people seeing a Mad Max apocalyptic scenario in the future get so little respect when people seeing the Star Trek colonizing-space scenario get so much? How come Christer Fuglesang gets away with saying that colonizing space could be a good alternative with all the environmental problems on earth, like global warming. Moving onto other planets isn’t a very realistic alternative for six billion people either. In fact, it’s a far worse solution than just returning to hunters and gatherers. Really! How are we supposed to manage life on other planets if we can’t handle it on earth – a planet so optimal that life emerged on it’s own?

So, still waiting for the solution? Maybe that’s just the problem, people waiting for the easy solution. The truth is that the solutions aren’t easy. They require us to use the best of civilizations knowledge, but not to once again increase our consumption of natural resources, but to decrease it. They require us to adapt our economy to the reality of ecology. They require us to base the most critical decisions of mankind on what world we want our children to live in – not quarterly reports.

And we all have to play a part, sooner or later. It starts with you or it ends with you, your choice!

The Swedish magazine Techworld writes about D-link’s new ethernet switches. The series is called “Green Ethernet” and consumes up to 44% less power than it’s predecessors. It’s really interesting to see new ICT-products being marketed using environmental arguments. (Remember the Zonbu?)

So, is the wattmeter entering the tech magazines test labs? I hope so. It’s been really hard getting the full picture of what ICT-products really cost, considering that the power consumption is a very real cost to the consumer. With more and more computers running 24/7, even in our homes, the electrical bill is a bigger part of our computing cost than ever. Especially considering that the price of hardware is falling. And when it comes to products like network switches, the amount running 24/7 is virtually 100%.

Now, let’s show the industry that these are products the consumers really want. It’s a win-win.