The RIAA Wants to Monitor Your PC!

Once again, RIAA President Cary Sherman shows us how scary his organization really can be. He now lends his support to filters installed on our PC's and cable/dsl modems to detect copyright infringement. Look how quickly they are trying to backpedal from this ridiculous position already.

These folks are bound and determined to alienate every potential consumer of their crappy products that they can. I hope that when the time comes to look back on this whole debate, after he has single-handedly burnt the recording industry to the ground, people will realize what a fucking idiot this guy is. Tell me who the hell would want any company or government monitoring what you do in the privacy of your own home? What's next, the porno industry making your monitor a two way screen so they could see who's whacking off to illegally downloaded porn? Would anyone accept a device installed in your car that would alert the police when you've broken the speed limit? The big brother implications here are really scary. As Mr. Bean would say, people should "be afraid, very afraid".

If the world doesn't wake up to the corporations and governments infringing on our rights to privacy and presumed innocence we will all be living in a place far worse than George Orwell could ever have imagined. If you really want a glimpse of where we are headed and what a slippery slope we are on, I suggest reading the book Farenheight 451.

Below you will see an edited version of a video taken at a recent conference where Cary Sherman is on the panel. The video was edited from the full hour and a half taken at the conference down to 6 minutes to point out some of the highlights of the draconian ideas the RIAA ass monkeys support. If you are interested in seeing it in it's entirety, I would certainly recommend you do so.

If we all educate ourselves as to what we are up against, perhaps enough people will scream as loudly as possible so that the morons in Washington, and politicians around the world, will stop listening to the intense lobbying efforts these jokers are making. They are completely within their rights to distribute and protect their copyrights as they see fit. Just as we are well within our rights to not buy their junk. But, if they are able to pursuede lawmakers into passing legislation that allows them to monitor us 24/7, it sets a very dangerous precedent. Once something is written into law, it is difficult or impossible to change. What the RIAA is now proposing is a right to monitor activities in our home. The police or FBI aren't even granted such a right. Why should a corporation be granted such access? I particularly don't buy Sherman's assertion that this all could be done "anonomously". How long would it be before the RIAA folks persuade lawmakers to give them the right to have access to this "anonomous" information in order to bring more lawsuits? I also found it amusing how quickly the woman at the end of the forum was cut off when she tried to point out that Sherman never said they wouldn't sue people for ripping legally purchased CD's to their mp3 player...

Again, I can't urge you enough to contact your representatives and demand that they not cave in to pressure from these groups. Keep in mind that most of our folks in Washington are too old to be "net savy", so they listen with great interest to lobbyists who represent these media dinosaurs. The problem is that they don't really understand the technology or the dangers of its misuse. If you doubt this, all you need to do is revisit the Ted Stevens "the internet is a series of tubes" speech. Lawmakers may not understand the "internets", but the two things they do understand is the power of money (from these lobbying organizations) and the power of votes (from the likes of you and me). This is where the battle will ultimately lie. Remember, the politicians don't bother to read my blog, or the millions of others like it, but they do read polls and they do count votes!