
Sleeping Through a Revolution - qsymmachus
https://medium.com/aspen-ideas/sleeping-through-a-revolution-8c4b147463e5
======
scotchmi_st
He had me until the bit comparing illegal movie downloads to terrorism and
drugs, and how MegaUpload and Google are 'enablers' by allowing users to
upload/search for copyright-infringing content. It's quite clear that he
doesn't understand the nature of computers. Cory Doctorow has a great rebuttal
of that argument in his talk on the coming war on general
computation[http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html-](http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html-)

"The important tests of whether or not a regulation is fit for a purpose are
first whether it will work, and second whether or not it will, in the course
of doing its work, have effects on everything else. If I wanted Congress,
Parliament, or the E.U. to regulate a wheel, it's unlikely I'd succeed. If I
turned up, pointed out that bank robbers always make their escape on wheeled
vehicles, and asked, “Can't we do something about this?", the answer would be
“No". This is because we don't know how to make a wheel that is still
generally useful for legitimate wheel applications, but useless to bad guys.
We can all see that the general benefits of wheels are so profound that we'd
be foolish to risk changing them in a foolish errand to stop bank robberies.
Even if there were an epidemic of bank robberies—even if society were on the
verge of collapse thanks to bank robberies—no-one would think that wheels were
the right place to start solving our problems."

Computers have no notion of what is 'good' content and what is 'bad' content,
and we aren't yet able to teach them accurately the difference (even humans
aren't able to tell 100% of the time).

~~~
oconnore
But we do pass laws about wheels. You can't drive them too fast, you must have
them inspected to see if they are safe. The engines that power them mustn't
emit harmful emissions. You can only drive them in certain places, and
following a certain pattern.

Why is the notion that you shouldn't be able to drive your computer to support
radical terrorism, violate copyright, or purchase illegal materials any more
strange than the rule that you can't drive your car over 70 miles per hour on
the highway?

~~~
shkkmo
We don't try to enforce the speed limit (yet) by limiting the ability of cars
to drive fast. We don't limit the ability to own a vehicle with bad emissions
or without safety equipment. (We will push you for operating that vehicle on
publicly owned roads.)

If you use your computer to commit a crime, you should be punished. If you use
your car to commit a crime, you should be punished. (Assuming the crime should
actually be a crime.)

What we shouldn't (generally) do is preemptively prevent your from having the
ability to commit that crime, especially when that prevents you from
performing activities that are not crimes.

~~~
oconnore
We seem to be in violent agreement. "If you use your computer to commit a
crime, you should be punished."

~~~
scotchmi_st
No, you seem to be talking about whether certain behaviour involving cars
should be allowed. That's not the issue in the article, or being discussed
here. The issue is whether it's a good idea to design computers to allow
certain actions in the first place. Since fundamentally we can't design
computers to detect 'bad' search queries, any attempt would likely be like
other forms of DRM: futile against the sort of people you want to stop, and
debilitating for everyone else.

~~~
oconnore
> The issue is whether it's a good idea to design computers to allow certain
> actions in the first place. Since fundamentally we can't design computers to
> detect 'bad' search queries

Where is the design of computers coming into this? If you host a forum, and
someone posts something that you don't like, you have the option to delete
that content.

Google hosts millions of online videos, and decides that they will delete
child pornography when they find it (whether they use an automatic filter or a
system of moderation is irrelevant).

They also decide that they won't delete ISIS videos when they discover them.
That decision is not a technical one, but a social one. It is worth talking
about, even if, as the article says:

> Certainly the fact that there are 3000 ISIS videos on YouTube and 10,000
> ISIS accounts on Twitter should give you pause. Clearly this is a tricky
> area, and I don’t believe this is necessarily a matter for government
> regulation. I do, however, think that Google might alter its “Don’t be evil”
> motto to “Don’t enable evil.”

------
digler999
> Competition is for suckers

> If you want to create and capture lasting value, look to build a monopoly

> recorded music revenues have fallen from $21 billion to $7 billion per year.
> Newspaper ad revenue has fallen from $65 billion in 2000 to $18 billion

So Joe Schmoe could make a record and market it to the general public (read:
get radio airplay) before the internet came and stole everything with their
"monopolies" ?

Anyone could start their own newspaper back then too ? There wasn't a huge
barrier to entry, like, oh, buying your own printing press ?

I'm not sympathetic whatsoever to "content creators" bellyaching stories about
the good ole days when they had control of the monopolies.

Information is free. If the only reason you were making money in 1995 was
because HDDs weren't large enough to store hundreds of albums, or because a
competing label couldn't afford payola to the radio stations, you never
deserved the money you made in the first place.

Companies back then solved the problem of information scarcity. The fact that
there is no more scarcity doesn't entitle you to reparation.

------
kndyry
The author at several points seems to dither between an insightful
consideration of the technological present, and what I can only quantify as an
underlying fear indicative of the very sleepiness against which we're being
warned. For example:

 _> My deeper question comes from my position as a professor here for the last
12 years, where I have watched the lure of Silicon Valley grow stronger. If
the best and the brightest of you are drawn to building addictive apps rather
than making great journalism, important films, or literature that survives the
test of time, will we as a society be ultimately impoverished?_

Might not have Rip said, on the day of his return to waking life, "if the best
and the brightest of you are drawn to building democracy rather than making
great works in the name of the monarchy, an institution that is sure to
survive the test of time, will we as a society be ultimately impoverished for
lack of grace?"

One cannot claim that the future is being misunderstood because it does not
look like one's past. Yes, the increasing ubiquity of processing machines has
altered society. These are still early days and the changes are so new, it's a
bit like bumbling around in the dark. It seems short-sighted to assume that
the current state is in any way permanent or indicative of future states.

 _> I was lucky enough to be involved with some artists like Bob Dylan, The
Band, George Harrison, and Martin Scorsese, whose work will surely stand the
test of time. I’m not sure I know what the implications are of the role-model
shift from rebel filmmaker to software coder._

Neither are we. Something, however, is quite certain: whatever the
implications, the future is coming and calling it wrong because it is
incongruous with the past is to miss it.

~~~
themartorana
I'm not sure where to differentiate between the rebel filmmaker and the rebel
software application developer - at least not in his analogy.

The rebel artist is there to disrupt social norms through a particular medium.
In his time, anti-Vietnam messages were a big one.

Now apps like Uber aim to disrupt social norms through the software medium. (I
will argue all day that software is art, BTW.) Just because the author doesn't
recognize the movement personally doesn't mean it has really changed all that
much.

(P.S. All of author's heroes listed are rich. I fully believe both art and
riches can be pursued at the same time, but being paid well for doing what you
love is the same as it's always been.)

~~~
digi_owl
The only thing Uber seems set out do disrupt is labor laws (in the sense of
finding some way for them to not be seen as employer).

The whole "app" thing reminds of the silly "with a computer" patents that
showed up in the hands of patent trolls for a number of years.

~~~
shkkmo
Well, they are also out to disrupt the government enforced taxi monopolies
using VC money.

I agree that there isn't anything patentable about their approach. We'll see
how hard it is to compete with their combination of infrastructure and network
effect.

------
shkkmo
In many ways I think this article is exploiting a false dichotomy that has
always bothered me: Libertarianism vs. Communalism. I've believed for a long
that both Rand and Marx were very important thinkers who both fundamentally
believed in the freedom of the individual: Freedom from control by 'Capital'
and freedom from control by the 'Government'.

I get worried as I see the ever tighter cooperation between capital and
government in our society. We risk approaching a world that both Marx and Rand
would have been united in opposition of.

At the same time, I have hope. By freely choosing to cooperate, choosing to do
what we love, by choosing to give whatever we can back to the world, by
choosing to support free software and free platforms, we have shown that we
have the opportunity to outpace the ability of capital and government to react
to this revolution.

We'll see where things go. I'm sure it'll be interesting.

~~~
WaxProlix
I understand what you're saying and I agree with it, but it hurts to see Ayn
Rand mentioned along with actual philosophers and economists (even Marx, who's
largely out of favor in the political and academic realms these days).

There's this sense of necessary equality of the ends of a spectrum (sort of
like the two-sides-to-every-story fallacy), and Rand gets to sit on one end of
that spectrum as its de facto representative, garnering some kind of
scholarly-econo-philosophical legitimacy in the process. It rankles.

~~~
shkkmo
I wouldn't call either Rand or Max a philosopher. I would be more inclined to
call Rand a poet and Marx an economist. (I must admit I am much less familiar
with Marx's writings).

I place them in opposition to each other mostly because of their rather unique
ability to instantly draw the ire of one large segment of the population while
rallying another.

~~~
nyolfen
marx is definitely a philosopher in the hegelian tradition -- dialectical
materialism is his great contribution. i wouldn't say it's inaccurate to
describe him as an economist, though

------
sudioStudio64
He makes some really good points about the way that the capital owning classes
actually don't want greater democratic enfranchisement. He also makes some
great points about how there doesn't seem to be as much inclination towards
revolutionary art.

As people come to grips with the decline of American power and begin to
realize that, in fact, we aren't free or special or really living up to any of
the high ideals that are described in some of our founding documents and
rhetoric you will see more arguments like these.

At the root of his critique is that he really does believe that we are special
and this place can be magic. It isn't and it won't be.

EDIT: Libertarianism is a dying hooker licking 9V alkaline batteries for that
metallic taste of excitement every time it gets to posit a counterfactual
notion about some basic human tenant. It's a foolish sounding semi-sorta
ideology when espoused by the middle class who are algorithmically incapable
of seeing any benefit from it's implementation and a smug blanket of self-
serving satisfaction for the wealthy who use it to make their social position
intellectually palatable in a "dinner party" conversational sense.

While the wealthy capitalists in this article may really entertain ludicrous
thoughts of building a treehouse-fort-island where they are the biggest bully,
they don't do so in any way that might upset their own apple cart's on the way
to markets created and policed by a political process that they go out of
their way to openly despise but are intravenously connected to in ways that
conjoined twins sharing a single heart would consider too close for comfort.

Libertarianism's philosopher's are the unpopular clowns at the children's
birthday party of society hoping that bending their "business innovation's"
into balloon animals will convince the starving attendees to actually enjoy
watching them eat all of the cake. "Look it's a lion! Rawr!"

EDIT EDIT: COME ON. You know that's good. Come on!

~~~
kiba
Democracy doesn't necessarily lead to freedom.

It's dependent on the voters making the correct decision on who to elect.

There's a reason why people hate our politicians.

~~~
sudioStudio64
In fact I think that you can have a functional Democracy without any freedom.
That's kind of what I mean. I don't think that people are interested in
freedom and I don't mean that to sound like a tea party fan. I just think that
this place wouldn't be the way it is if people were genuinely interested in
freedom...in fact it's such a nebulous term that it's almost meaningless.

Remember in Braveheart where Mel WahtsHisFAce rides in front of the soldiers
waiting to go into battle to establish yet another monarchy, "What will you do
without freedom?" That's a great summation of Americans arguing about freedom
during an election cycle. We are an open society. We are a little d democratic
society. I don't think that we are a free society.

Sorry for the blahblah blah stuff. It's just been on my mind a lot for some
reason. Back to the salt mine.

------
aaron-lebo
This is a really interesting piece and it is imperative that this generation
of techies really takes to heart the war between tech enabling people and tech
trapping people, but a quote in particular made me question a lot of the
statements and notions presented.

He quotes Thiel's "competition is for losers" statement, which is prominent in
Zero to One, to suggest that Thiel doesn't believe in competition. But really
Thiel is just saying that from a business perspective, you should be looking
for non-competitive markets.

~~~
Fomite
While true, the combination of the Thiel's beliefs ends up feeling a little
bit "For me, but not for thee". Relying on the free hand of the market to take
care of things depends on there _being a market_ , but any given company is
massively incentivized to distort the market as far as humanly possible.

------
CLGrimes
While the article makes good points, I was wondering when I would see the
smear campaign from the MPAA towards Google and the Silicon Valley:

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150724/15501631756/smoki...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150724/15501631756/smoking-
gun-mpaa-emails-reveal-plan-to-run-anti-google-smear-campaign-via-today-show-
wsj.shtml)

------
chaostheory
> So I want to explore the idea that the last 20 years of technological
> progress — the digital revolution — have devalued the role of the creative
> artist in our society

I disagree. Technological progress has just mostly devalued the old
institutions of middle men and gate keepers. Now anyone with a digital video
camera, mic, and computer can become a star. They no longer need hollywood's
or the record labels' permission

~~~
daveloyall
New boss, same as the old boss. The would-be stars need Youtube's
"permission", though actually I think this really means that the media company
profits by the work of the artist more than the artist does.

~~~
chaostheory
Not quite.

Getting Youtube's 'permission' is way easier and way faster than securing the
same thing through old media companies.

> actually I think this really means that the media company profits by the
> work of the artist more than the artist does.

Can anyone really tell though, since the accounting methods of both Hollywood
and the music industry is really shady where the numbers are just not
available for anyone or even the artists themselves. With silicon valley this
is a lot more transparent.

~~~
daveloyall
It took me FOREVER to dig this up. My memory is better than my browser
history!

Re: YouTube vs Artists:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8936257](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8936257)

~~~
chaostheory
Silicon Valley is a lesser evil.

[http://www.gerryhemingway.com/piracy2.html](http://www.gerryhemingway.com/piracy2.html)

There's another blog post I can't find about an artist not being able to get
access to the exact sales of his music online from his record company, which
didn't make sense to him since pretty much every online music servic make it
available.

Hollywood isn't any better.

[http://www.slashfilm.com/lucasfilm-tells-darth-vader-that-
re...](http://www.slashfilm.com/lucasfilm-tells-darth-vader-that-return-of-
the-jedi-hasnt-made-a-profit/)

------
PeterWhittaker
Perhaps this is not revolution, but a return: For much of human history,
workers have been paid poorly, if at all. Labour was always cheap. This
changed in the late 19th C and early 20th C. Perhaps 20th C costly labour was
nothing but a blip, an oddity, and we are now returning to the mean?

The article contains the line _economic gains will flow to those who own the
platform rather than to those who do the work_ which makes me think of Agatha
Christie's comment about her youthful perspective _I never thought I would be
so poor as to not have live-in staff, or so rich as to have a car and driver_.

~~~
crpatino
> For much of human history, workers have been paid poorly, if at all.

I think you are extrapolating the experience of the 19th century
industrialization into the distant past. There have always been poor people,
but I think "labour" is a relatively recent concept.

i.e. Medieval serfs had a place fixed in society. It was a lousy place, but a
place still. It had more to do with lord-vassal relationship than in had to do
with the calculus of labor's value added.

~~~
PeterWhittaker
Well, a more detailed comment from me would have expanded upon themes of
reward, social mobility (which requires resources or connections or both),
etc., etc. But as a quick comment, it serves.

For example, consider serfs as examples of _hardly paid at all_ : They made
enough to survive, but even if they had surplus and managed to sell it for a
luxury item or two, they stayed stuck in their fiefdoms, by and large, unless
they had skills or talents both in demand and recognized, e.g., qualities for
the priesthood, for becoming a mason, etc., or unless they fled and/or joined
the military.

I guess they key follow-on to both the original article and to Christie's
comment is one disposable wealth and choice: For much of human history, most
of us have had neither. For part of the 20th C, many of us have had both.

Perhaps that is the return to the mean (that I honestly hope we are not
experiencing - otherwise, my daughter's world will be far crappier than mine,
regardless of the efforts of either of us, unless one of us should win the
platform creation-and-ownership lottery).

------
gooseus
Thought provoking on a lot of levels. I believe that the technology we're
creating is cutting both ways.

It has allowed us to become more connected, but it seems that connection is at
the shallowest level and has resulted in a disconnection from our deeper
selves as the added distractions take energy away from self-reflection and
self-awareness.

The opportunities that we've created that allow any given idea to go viral,
become a killer app and make billionaires has distracted us from finding
deeper ideals that could be shared to show us how to lead a more meaningful
life and create a civilization worthy of stepping out to the stars.

I don't know if what I'm saying makes any sense to anyone else, but something
has definitely been bothering me for awhile and I think articles like this one
are starting to help me articulate it and at least let me know that I'm not
alone.

I very much appreciate that.

~~~
Kalium
You are echoing a notion that I see and hear regularly from a number of my
more artistic, spiritually inclined friends. That technology is isolating us
from one another, preventing people from connecting as we did in times past.

Honestly? I think it's not true. In days of yore, people read newspapers or
books to isolate themselves. Or whittled. Or knit. Or just looked busy. If
anything has changed, it's that it is now possible to connect deeply to a
person many thousands of miles away. Most of the connections in life are
superficial, yes. That's true today and has been for centuries.

My artistic and spiritual friends are, sad to say, mostly pining for a golden
age that never existed.

~~~
bargl
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you've never been to a 3rd world
country for an extended period of time. If I'm wrong I'd like to apologize for
making this assumption to make the rest of my point, because you can easily
step on the way back machine by moving someplace where only a few people have
computers.

During my time in Bolivia and Haiti I experience massive culture shock at the
way people interact with their community. At night you can walk around the
central plaza in the Okinawa Numero Uno (mind you this is a TINY town) and
someone will find you to chat with you. In bigger towns (in Bolivia) people
are friendly, because they have to interact to get directions, ask for a good
place to eat, or just chat. There are community events ALL the time.

Was it a golden age? No, I don't think so, but it was a time and culture where
people KNEW their neighbors because if you want to stave off boredom you have
to hang out with them to laugh, eat, drink, etc. I don't think technology has
changed this per se, but instead that TV and the culture of entertainment that
we have has changed this.

I know that comparing the USA 30-50 years ago and Bolivia is an
oversimplification, but there definitely was a culture difference before
everyone had a cellphone in their pocket. It may not have been a golden age,
but for some people it was a period where the risks were easier to understand.

That said, I also think people were still able to find isolation who wanted
it, the main difference is people who were seeking a way to fight boredom had
much fewer ways to do that in their house by themselves 50 years ago.

~~~
Kalium
The difference you are describing is societies where physical mobility is
possible and the norm versus societies where it is not. Places where it's
possible to know all the people around you and places where it isn't. Places
where actual cities exist versus places where they don't.

There are parts of the US like those you describe. I've lived in some of them.
People KNOW their neighbors. Very intensely. It's very rare to have a neighbor
that you haven't known for at least a decade. They still have TV, a culture of
entertainment, Facebook, and iPhones. There's a constant sense of community,
and an apparently endless stream of events.

And you know what? I can't stand life in those places. I found them incredibly
insular. Stifling. Conformity-enforcing. It's not something I found to be
beautiful, uplifting, or pleasant. They are not a thing I wish to encourage or
would call a desirable model.

Did you notice that the things I cited - newspapers, books, knitting, and
whittling - are all at least several centuries old? That was not an accident.

~~~
bargl
The difference is that the forms of entertainment you list are things you
learn to do. You must be taught. Tv, music, audiobooks and some other new
forms of entertainment don't require thought. They are shoved at you. They may
provoke thought but don't require it. Then you add other advances on top of
that, the internet, the avialbility of cars, planes, cellphone, etc. It
changes society.

To argue that these things haven't changed society and that the older
generation hasn't lived through it is ridiculous. Is it better? That's an
opinion, and the older generation may think so. My dad LOVES working on old
cars, but hates working with electronics (i.e. new cars)... Does he miss the
"golden age". Heck yeah, but does he also love watching TV at night, heck
yeah.

>And you know what? I can't stand life in those places. I found them
incredibly insular. Stifling. Conformity-enforcing. It's not something I found
to be beautiful, uplifting, or pleasant. They are not a thing I wish to
encourage or would call a desirable model.

Again totally an opinion, but society has changed even there with the advent
of the car/tv/internet/cellphone. These are things that expand our world, but
shrink where we feel comfortable (I.E. I feel more comfortable driving an hour
to see my friend then hanging out with my neighbor). Some people have adapted
to the "new world" very well and others would prefer to reminisce about the
golden age.

I'd like to take the best of both worlds, which is why I'm working to get to
know my neighbors better, but also to enjoy the community I've found here on
that interwebs thingy.

~~~
Kalium
I think the core difference is that you think ideal a society where people are
continually coerced into unwanted social interaction is ideal. I think it
dystopian. I much, _much_ prefer a society where i get a choice.

~~~
bargl
I don't think unwated social interaction is ideal, I want that interaction and
I want the people I'm interacting with to want it too....

I get your point though, if you feel like you don't want that type of face to
face interaction then it would seem like hell (See the TV show Ascension for
what I'm talking about).

It reminds me of a quote from vince vaughn.
[http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0396269/quotes?qt=qt0329774](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0396269/quotes?qt=qt0329774)
see " I apologize to you if I don't seem real eager to jump into a forced
awkward intimate situation that people like to call dating."

I know light humor is frowned upon in HN but when I thought of it for this
situation it made me laugh a little I hope you get a giggle out of it :-)

------
eridius
> _Since [...] 2000, global recorded music revenues have fallen from $21
> billion to $7 billion per year. [...] So where did the money go? Two places:
> into the pockets of Digital Monopolists and Digital Thieves._

The author here is making an absolutely incredible assumption here, which is
that the decline in revenue for the entertainment industry is somehow
fundamentally wrong and must be caused by bad people.

But it's far more likely that the revenue seen by the entertainment industry
leading up to 2000 was an aberration, caused by a very brief window of time
where technology enabled mass production and distribution by corporations
without easy copying or sharing by individuals. But if you go further back
than 2000[1], I'm sure you'll find that their revenue was much lower not all
that long ago. I'd be very surprised if that $21 billion number didn't
represent their all-time peak, meaning 2000 wasn't the start of the decline,
it was actually just the end of a bubble.

[1] I'm having trouble finding that data myself, anyone know where to look?

Addendum: It turns out the worldwide music industry revenues actually _haven
't fallen_ since 2000. Which I guess explains why the article explicitly said
"recorded music". According to [http://www.businessinsider.com/music-industry-
revenues-chart...](http://www.businessinsider.com/music-industry-revenues-
chart-2014-6?op=1), the worldwide music industry revenues in 2013 are about
the same as in 2000 [2]. But what's actually happened is that most of that
money is now coming from tours instead of recorded music [3].

This further reinforces my "bubble" argument. Before the advent of easily-
produced recorded music, the music industry revenue must have been mostly live
music. So the bubble here is just the short period of time when the music
industry was able to make a killing on mass-produced recorded music sales. But
that bubble is over, we're back to the industry needing to earn its money from
live music and other secondary sources. But of course the music industry
doesn't want to admit that this is a bubble. They want to pretend that the
business model of selling recorded music is sacred and must be protected by
law, regardless of the consequences.

[2]: It's 3% lower, but that's pretty meaningless.

[3]: It says 36% of the revenue is recorded music.

------
brock_r
Ironically, the author seems like _he_ is the Rip Van Winkle here...

------
nipponese
I thought the google smear campaign had already been exposed.
[http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/07/26/1224223/plan-to-
run-...](http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/07/26/1224223/plan-to-run-anti-
google-smear-campaign-revealed-in-mpaa-emails)

------
gloriousduke
> If the best and the brightest of you are drawn to building addictive apps
> rather than making great journalism, important films, or literature that
> survives the test of time, will we as a society be ultimately impoverished?

The opportunity to create art still exists. Distribution channels are more
varied now; they're more inclusive and perhaps (ironically?) less conducive to
middle class salaries. But since when has creating art ever been about
financial reimbursement? You're either creating or you aren't. The incentive
exists for those that feel one, for those that have to create or go insane. If
you "were going to be a novelist" but decided to be a programmer or an
economist because you wanted to make money, well...

In the words of Shia Labeouf: "just do it."

------
walterbell
> _As my colleague Ethan Zuckerman said, “It’s obvious now what we did was a
> fiasco, so let me remind you that what we wanted to do was something brave
> and noble.”_

Can we find role models who were successful at achieving their "brave and
noble" social goals? We can draw upon centuries of negotiation between labor
and rent seekers.

> _Your generation does not need to surrender to some sort of techno-
> determinist future. Let’s try and “rewire” (Ethan’s term) the Internet._

The article mentions SOPA but not TPP/TTIP/TISA/RECP which will "rewire" the
Internet, computing infrastructure and more. Caution is warranted when
listening to rewirers bearing gifts.

------
maus42
The author has some good insight on many things, but the insight is mixed up
with ...something else, and that makes a conflated spaghetti. For example, why
I and most of people I know opposed SOPA wasn't exactly because of piracy; I'd
remind that opposition included also organizations like Wikipedia, EFF, ACLU,
HRW and Reporters without Borders.

Most of the confusion seems to be there because being a content creator
affects his viewpoint... which is understandable. But in a grand scheme of
things, the future of professions based on copyright is quite minor issue
compared to the other problems of technological revolution and politics
intertwined with it.

------
trhway
well, the trick was the same as usual - under the guise of protecting the
"struggling artist/creator" the public was sold a law - DMCA (and supporting
ideology&moral) - which main purpose and function is to protect the platforms
who as the result of it got to exploit the "creators" instead of the
Studios/labels who did it in the pre-Internet/pre-DMCA time.

