version seven.   http://demongin.org

Fascism Starts in the Heart (II of II)

Classic Gin

Sunday, 2005-02-13 | Classic Gin

So far as the FCC is concerned, we can say with utter certainty that the dyer has in this case taken on the color of his vat; originally authorized by the congress to suppress the fascist threat, it is no coincidence that the FCC now resembles the ministries of propaganda and secret police organizations we associate with Mussolini and Hitler. In the brief history of the FCC, the vampire-hunter becomes the vampire, the zombie-attack-survivor becomes a zombie.

I'll come straight to the point, then: through the anachronistic FCC, privately owned organizations can affect and in some cases authorize federal legislation. The history of the FCC is the history of a money-laundering organization that functions to legitimate the transfer private funds into the hands of public officials. The worst offenders, i.e. the private organizations who offer the most bribes to legislators through the FCC, are currently the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of American (RIAA).

Before we castigate these fat cats, however, we must return to the bizarre history of unconstitutional legislation. We must understand exactly what sort of bogus precedents support Intellectual Property rights (henceforth IP) before we can completely expose the morbidity and greed of the MPAA, of the RIAA and of their money-laundering front, the FCC.

Previously, I had made some nasty remarks about a 1934 piece of legislation. You might want to refresh your memory of the last time I went off half-cocked before I go off half-cocked again about the same stuff.

Still Holding.

With the 1934 legislation Sinon had already convinced the Trojans to take in the horse, however, and corporate malefactors had no trouble passing the wildly unconstitutional Communications Decency Act (henceforth CDA) and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (henceforth DMCA) into law in 1996 and 1998 respectively. These two pieces of legislation are, incidentally, totally unlike the unpopular Patriot Act in that they rely heavily upon carefully cited and argued precedent. Whereas the similarly unconstitutional Patriot Act was passed into law based on the sheer anxiety that "Islamofascists" were able to produce in the civilized world with the famous attacks of September 11, 2001, the CDA and DMCA were passed into law because the pressure of private money had finally become too great and public interest could no longer resist it.

Nevertheless, the gross effect of the bulk of the legislation concerning the FCC--concerning the very basic act of communication, which the secular apparatus in the US does not have the right to regulate (cf. amendment I)--is that it contributes directly to the existence of what we have already identified as 'intellectual property laws.' Basically, these laws spring into existence between the 1960's and, as they set the scene in Bruckheimer's Top Gun, present day. They function, in theory, to allow a person (but usually an organization) to 'own' specific moments in space and time and to act as if those moments in space and time were a thing--but I get ahead of myself. Basically, the history of the FCC since 1934 is that it has helped to authorize legislation such that corporations can make money selling nothing and that their nothing will be aggressively protected by law as if it were a thing (or things).

And so we come to IP laws as we have them today. A history of clearly unconstitutional laws paved the way for an era in which it is possible to prosecute a man as a thief even though he has stolen nothing; private interests have sculpted public law such that they can capriciously and perniciously prosecute private individuals as they please.

The basic premise of IP laws is that they're supposed to prevent the piracy of things like books, movies, music, etc.; things that can be reproduced by persons other than the author (or persons authorized by the author to reproduce them) and sold without the consent or knowledge of the author. This sounds like a fine thing indeed until we start to think about what it means to prevent the infinite, costless and exact reproduction of things like books, movies, music, etc.

What it means, namely, is that these things do not exist. If these things can be reproduced ad infinitum with no loss of integrity or quality, they are not things that exist--they are exactly analogous to words, phrases and ideas (in some cases, they are words, phrases and ideas). How would we respond if an agency within the federal government declared one day that anyone caught uttering certain phrases would be prosecuted as a thief because that phrase is owned, because that particular phrase is the property of a specific individual or individuals? We would regard this as patently unjust and absurd--it makes no sense to imagine that someone could possess something that is not tangible, is not a good or an item.

Nevertheless, we tolerate this sort of thing were it goes by the appellation of 'IP law.' Consider the RIAA and their Absurdist platform of 'artists' rights.' The argument, in reduction, suggests that once an artist or artists record a series of sounds that they own that recording, that arrangement of information that can be infinitely and exactly reproduced without even the slightest involvement from those who originally produced it. This makes no sense. Whereas I arrange data when I speak, let's say I've invented a phrase (a certain, infinitely reproducible arrangement of phonemes and morphemes), and understand that the phrase can be spoken by anyone at anytime provided he has the necessary apparatus (i.e. tongue, lips), the RIAA claims that artists who arrange data in a recording then own their certain, infinitely reproducible arrangement of data regardless of the fact that their certain, infinitely reproducible arrangement of data can be reproduced by anyone at anytime provided that he has the necessary apparatus.

(Does this deprive artists of money that they have become accustomed to receiving for their work? Yes, it absolutely does. The fact of the matter is that artists (and politicians for that matter) should be living according to the whims of a patron or narrowly eking out an existence that is just barely above the poverty level--but that's another series of essays.)

At the end of the day, IP laws assert that things which do not exist can be owned, that they can be bought, sold, stolen, defaced, broken, molded and stored; in short, such litigation invites us to react with awe and wonder as we behold the Emperor's New Clothes.

And so, on the strength of this dubious argument and the even more dubious legislation that precariously supports it, private guilds are, according to public law, entitled to break the leg and pick the pocket of private individuals. Their capriciousness and greed is protected by laws that they have (at least partially) authorized to assert their claim over things that do not exist.

More egregious still is the manner in which funds are raised for this deplorable injustice. The MPAA and RIAA intimidate and terrorize the public, singling out individuals and groups and assessing them huge fines. They collect because the FCC supports their agenda wholeheartedly and even--cue the 'conflict of private industry and public office' music--funds or partially funds many of their anti-piracy initiatives. These guilds then cycle a portion of this money back into FCC coffers through political lobbies, campaign endorsements, etc. Remember that scandal last year where Clear Channel Communications (an organization who has bought and paid for numerous FCC exemptions and privileges, literally private laws) organized pro-war rallies? Are we so naive as to imagine that no politician was involved in the planning of those pro-war rallies? Are we so naive as to imagine that no money or favors exchanged hands?

Consider the following press release from the MPAA. It accompanied a cease-and-desist order delivered to a certain bit torrent website that cited, you guessed it, certain precedents in the DMCA and CDA:

'There are websites that provide legal downloads, this is not one of them. This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop.'

Let's consider this in light of what we've just learned.

The idea of a 'legal download' is the same thing as a 'legal thought.' When information is downloaded, it is copied from one computer to another in exactly the same manner by which speech is communicated. Calling a download illegal is not merely akin but identical to calling a speech-act illegal.

That 'the illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity' is a transparent and disingenuous piece of ill-conceived rhetoric on par with Hitler's final solution. It is conjectural, based on the ridiculous premise that artists should not live on the margins of society, and ultimately circumstantial; if the duplication of ideas 'stifles creativity,' how do these mealy-mouthed rhetors account for the direct references in Shakespeare to his contemporaries and vice versai>? You know what stifles creativity? Consolidating money and legislative power in the hands of a few guildsmen and their subsidiary artists.

The only thing that this statement gets right is in the second to last clause; it is in fact a violation of the law to download material without the permission of the author. It is not, however, theft. No goods are lost or gained by any party.

Finally, the FCC is nothing more than a product of the pre-WWI anxiety regarding sedition; it was an anachronism as of 50 years ago. The FCC's very premise and founding documents are unconstitutional and it now exists only as a grim but certain reminder of an age where basic civil
-liberties were a war-time liability. It also exists to funnel money from private guilds to public officials and to authorize legislation towards this and similarly nefarious ends.

These guilds, guilds like the MPAA and RIAA, are criminal organizations who exist only to skirt the constitution and enforce their delusional sense of greed and entitlement on the docile public.

The FCC, originally invented to prevent the spread of the totalitarian menace, has become an agent of thought-control and the willing toadie of monopolistic robber barons.

Feel free--free because you are entitled by logic and not authorized by legislation--to reproduce anything you see on this or any other website. Don't be bullied by specious appeals to a set of values that don't exist or the callow rhetoric of cabalistic guildsmen.