Gee, nice to see my e-mail is working now after several days of having problems with both
sending and receiving...
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Paul
Is there anything us non-lawyers can do to fight these
battles besides give $$$ and sign petitions? I wanna
kick some ass but it looks like lawyers gotta fight
these battles.
Well, there's an old saying: The squeaky wheel gets the grease (or these days, synthetic
lubricant ;) ). I've found through personal experience that if enough people complain to
government officials on a given issue, the officials eventually have no choice but to
listen, despite what their monetary supporters tell them to do. Sometimes it might come
down to the threat of legal action against the offending parties (e.g. - Do as we are
asking or we will sue you and everyone else pushing this, Mr. Government Official), but
only in the most extreme cases (or where not enough wheels are squeaking for them to hear
the noise).
I often send letters to my Congress Critters about issues I either oppose or support (I've
sent a few "Thank You" letters when I think they've done right by me). I often get more
than just the canned response. They look at such letters as though there are a hundred or
more other people per letter that feel the same way, but just don't have the moxy (sp?) to
stand up and voice it. I've considered changing my party affiliation to give my voice a
little more weight: If an official thinks they can win another vote (or a hundred), they
tend to listen that much closer.
I think the reason we have the DMCA and some other such laws is that not enough people
voiced thiner opposition to them. One strong case in point is the Patriot Act. Nearly
everything in it was strongly opposed for years before 9/11, but 9/11 gave the powers that
be the excuse they needed to get the law changed virtually unopposed and unnoticed. No one
complained about the proposed bill so it passed easily. Complaining after the fact to get
it reversed is like pulling teeth.
Once DRM and patent laws are passed (or precedents set in court), it will be very hard to
have them reversed short of expensive, drawn out legal battles I think.
PGA
--
Paul G. Allen
Owner, Sr. Engineer, BSIT/SE
Random Logic Consulting Services
www.randomlogic.com
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
