Stop Me Before I Vote Again

J Alva Scruggs passed this along, on Rep John Conyers' "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008":

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-4279&show-changes=0

It adds civil forfeiture, in the no-trial-needed drug war style, to intellectual property laws.

I was a little surprised that Conyers drove this one through. I'd never considered him that much of a thug. But after looking at his sponsors...

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00004029 He's getting big money from MGM, Murdoch and the American Intellectual Property Law Assn, inter alia.

J Alva ain't kiddin' about this wildly draconian war on, among other things, bogus designer labels. Here's an excerpt from the bill:

(1) CIVIL FORFEITURE PROCEEDINGS- (A) The following property is subject to forfeiture to the United States:

`(i) Any counterfeit documentation or packaging, and any counterfeit label or illicit label and any article to which a counterfeit label or illicit label has been affixed, which a counterfeit label or illicit label encloses or accompanies, or which was intended to have had such label affixed, enclosing, or accompanying.

`(ii) Any property constituting or derived from any proceeds obtained directly or indirectly as a result of a violation of subsection (a).

`(iii) Any property used, or intended to be used, to commit or facilitate the commission of a violation of subsection (a) that is owned or predominantly controlled by the violator or by a person conspiring with or aiding and abetting the violator in committing the violation....

Charles Davis caught them, and makes a number of reasonable observations.

The socialist solution to the free rider problem, in that area, is relatively simple. Our access fees for using the internet, a utility developed at public expense, are outrageous. A substantial portion of the fees we pay are currently being spent by organizations that dedicate the money to rent-seeking and working against our interests. I think we'd be much better off if this misused money was, instead, paid out in royalties to the writers and other creative types whose work makes keeping access to the internet worthwhile.

The details would take some effort to hash out, but I think the justice of it is pretty clear. Those of us who do this for the love of it would not be harmed. Those who make a living with their writing would be able to devote more time and resources to their work. The money currently spent on rent-seeking and abuse of state power would clearly be better used if placed in the hands of people who perform valuable labor.

From the San Jose Mercury News -- oh yes, I read it religiously:

How dumb was the Silicon Valley hiring conspiracy? Let us count the ways

When I think of Google, Apple, Intel, Intuit, Adobe and Pixar, the words that come to mind are usually innovative and progressive.

In the wake of their shocking settlement with the federal government Friday over charges they colluded to not hire each other's employees, another word comes to mind:

Dumb.

It's not just that their actions are shameful.

It's not just that these actions violate everything Silicon Valley represents.

Of course I had to stop reading at that point. "Everything Silicon Valley represents?" What does this poor bloody fool think Silicon Valley represents, apart from venture-capital sharks using poorly-socialized creeps like Mark Zuckerberg, or downright sociopaths like Steve Jobs, to acquire monopoly positions in some carefully walled-off intellectual-property laager?

(The back story was also covered by the Daily Diary of Onanist Aspiration here.)

* * * * * I am closely related to some Mac people -- live under the same roof with them, in fact. Now it's always seemed to me that Apple is just Microsoft with a better haircut. But try telling Mac people that. They're like, Oh, I'm a Mac person. I'm soooo cool!

Just recently, for the second time in two weeks, one of my beloved Mac people experienced a problem with one of her way-kewl Mac apps. I think it was some kind of don't-worry-your-pretty-head, we'll-take-care-of it automatic backup thing. Turns out they make you change your password -- we're Apple, we know best, do what we say -- and as soon as you do, you're locked out, if I understood her correctly.

So my housemate made an appointment -- an appointment! -- several days away, to take her sleek Mac to the Genius Bar -- no shit, that's what they call it -- at one of the half-dozen or so Mac tabernacles in Manhattan.

Always in search of grist for the mill, I accompanied her to her appointment.

This particular Macernacle is on Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, all the way west, practically in the river. Albert Speer on mescaline. All frosted glass and brushed stainless steel and a spiral staircase made out of Pyrex -- a life of power, behind walls of iron and crystal, as Marinetti fantasized way, way avant la lettre.

It took the geniuses quite a long time to figure out my housemate's problem with their employer's proprietary software -- hours, in fact. So I had plenty of time to watch the Mac kids come and go.

It's a mall, really. A much cooler, hipper, better-designed mall than the suburban version most of these nicely-coiffed younkers probably grew up on. But a mall is a mall. It's a controlled and patrolled private space, devoted to selling things. And yet -- where are you gonna go, if not to the mall?