Calling All Bloggers! Calling All Bloggers!
It wasn't getting to the top of the mountain that was difficult or, as Martin Luther King Jr. rightly feared conerning his own life, doomed. It was what happened at the bottom that made descent more dangerous than ascent. Am I speaking in code? Botched metaphor? All of the above.
Well, as the purchase of U-Tube by Google and the deletion of all Viacom videos shortly thereafter illustrates, cyberspace is being annexed by Wall Street. So that even here the ever-rising Dow becomes as much a danger sign as a smog alert or a storm warning. I always knew that this day would come. What other fate could be in store for a freedom whose prophet is Bill Gates? Never confuse billionaires with Bodhisattvas or superstars with avatars. As earth-residents, we all live in Matrix Country.
Listen, my fellow cyberspace travelers and Internet surfers both friend and foe, the time has come to discuss a global warming threat to our world. The era of informational hedonism has produced a group of blogger junkies, like myself, who have treated the Internet as a series of crack houses where we can practice carefree, irresponsible downloading of anything we please. Well, I believe the time has come to admit the promiscuous exchange of copyrighted art endangers all of us--sharers and deleters alike.
It endangers sharers by encouraging an ardent disrespect for or casual indifference to the law and it endangers deleters by encouraging the kind of ferocious self-righteousness that persuades right-to-lifers to take the lives of doctors and midwives who practice abortion. The few times I have tried to engage deleters in dialogue I have felt like a Palestinian in a faceoff with an Israeli. Suddenly all traces of the new millennium disappeared and I was in Birmingham circa 1963. But trying to engage fellow bloggers in discussion proved just as futile because most seem too intoxicated or engorged from the morning's downloads to do anything but belch or yawn. Which is worse? Deleter terrorism? Or sharer torpor? Believe it or not, this question is NOT a no-brainer.
Look, I'm trying to be a good Sufi Taoist these days. So I don't want to stereotype angry deleters as rednecks or racists or even property rights bigots. They are defending interests that are often near and dear to me, also. I have a close friend who runs an independent music label and he views the blogosphere like a Miami refugee views Castro's Cuba.
Nor do I want to paint bloggers as download fixers or innocent music-sharing mendicants who take vows of poverty so that they can escape accusations of self-enrichment with their charity. The blogosphere is not Haight-Ashbury. If anything, it is a rebel stronghold where Luke Skywalkers outwit their wiley Darth Vader dads. Yes, Viriginia, there is a Freud and he has hyperactive relevance to the 21st century.
In short, this struggle isn't black and white. It's got more grey than I've seen since the Blue Meanies took over Pepperland. And both sides of the dispute have legitimate concerns and can trace their behavior to laudable values and visions. So I am putting out a call for a conference based on team work to begin discussion of vital issues and lay the ground work for a workable code of ethics and honor here in the still-free mountains and valleys of cyberspace. I am inviting visitors to begin a forum to see if we can forge protocols and conventions of sharing that are fair and equitable. I would ask other bloggers in consort with this goal to take up my call. Any takers?
Well, as the purchase of U-Tube by Google and the deletion of all Viacom videos shortly thereafter illustrates, cyberspace is being annexed by Wall Street. So that even here the ever-rising Dow becomes as much a danger sign as a smog alert or a storm warning. I always knew that this day would come. What other fate could be in store for a freedom whose prophet is Bill Gates? Never confuse billionaires with Bodhisattvas or superstars with avatars. As earth-residents, we all live in Matrix Country.
Listen, my fellow cyberspace travelers and Internet surfers both friend and foe, the time has come to discuss a global warming threat to our world. The era of informational hedonism has produced a group of blogger junkies, like myself, who have treated the Internet as a series of crack houses where we can practice carefree, irresponsible downloading of anything we please. Well, I believe the time has come to admit the promiscuous exchange of copyrighted art endangers all of us--sharers and deleters alike.
It endangers sharers by encouraging an ardent disrespect for or casual indifference to the law and it endangers deleters by encouraging the kind of ferocious self-righteousness that persuades right-to-lifers to take the lives of doctors and midwives who practice abortion. The few times I have tried to engage deleters in dialogue I have felt like a Palestinian in a faceoff with an Israeli. Suddenly all traces of the new millennium disappeared and I was in Birmingham circa 1963. But trying to engage fellow bloggers in discussion proved just as futile because most seem too intoxicated or engorged from the morning's downloads to do anything but belch or yawn. Which is worse? Deleter terrorism? Or sharer torpor? Believe it or not, this question is NOT a no-brainer.
Look, I'm trying to be a good Sufi Taoist these days. So I don't want to stereotype angry deleters as rednecks or racists or even property rights bigots. They are defending interests that are often near and dear to me, also. I have a close friend who runs an independent music label and he views the blogosphere like a Miami refugee views Castro's Cuba.
Nor do I want to paint bloggers as download fixers or innocent music-sharing mendicants who take vows of poverty so that they can escape accusations of self-enrichment with their charity. The blogosphere is not Haight-Ashbury. If anything, it is a rebel stronghold where Luke Skywalkers outwit their wiley Darth Vader dads. Yes, Viriginia, there is a Freud and he has hyperactive relevance to the 21st century.
In short, this struggle isn't black and white. It's got more grey than I've seen since the Blue Meanies took over Pepperland. And both sides of the dispute have legitimate concerns and can trace their behavior to laudable values and visions. So I am putting out a call for a conference based on team work to begin discussion of vital issues and lay the ground work for a workable code of ethics and honor here in the still-free mountains and valleys of cyberspace. I am inviting visitors to begin a forum to see if we can forge protocols and conventions of sharing that are fair and equitable. I would ask other bloggers in consort with this goal to take up my call. Any takers?
posted by David Federman @ 6:49 AM
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