Monopolies of the mind: front page

published Dec 07, 2008, last modified Dec 30, 2022

Ideas were inexhaustible and free until people caged them in. It's time we opened the cage.

Copyright and privacy cannot coexist. Society is at a crossroads where only one of these will exist in the future, and the copyright industry has been working hard to erode privacy to protect its obsolete business. It’s time to acknowledge the conflict and accept that copyright enforcement need to be actively prevented in order to safeguard fundamental rights.

Many people know how Megaupload got attacked, and how their promo video (full of Top 40 stars), despite being released free to be republished and remixed, was targeted by hundreds of fraudulent takedown requests. But it prevails, and it's here for you. Enjoy!

How the system of copyright we must endure is Kafkasque in nature, how it damages artists, how it censors creators, and how it enriches a few already-rich men, all at the expense of the public. A TEDx presentation by Nina Paley.

Why? Simple: using this key -- the secret piece of the puzzle -- people can now build hardware and free software compatible with HDMI, that can decrypt the encrypted video traversing between HDMI-compliant equipment, without having to obey the restrictions imposed by the HDMI oligopoly. Game over -- pirates 1, digital restrictions management AACSholes 0. One more note: using this key might be illegal in some parts of the world -- but whoever cares about what's right can't afford to care about what's legal.

Judge in charge of deciding whether they were guilty or innocent, member of a corrupt lobbyist organization in favor of putting peaceful men in prison.

Intellectual property defenders talk about the fact that you "created your idea" or "put labor in your invention" as the reason why they own these ideas and inventions. They are wrong.