This is an ancient post, published more than 4 years ago.
As such, it might not anymore reflect the views of the author or the state of the world. It is provided as historical record.
A few days ago I had the pleasure of reading a great article on Radio
Free Europe’s website – Iran’s
War On Fun. In short, it’s a terrific summary and analysis of
war that the totalitarian regime in Iran apparently waged against …
fun.
It’s terrifying. House parties ending in flogging; water fights being
dispersed by the Police; special forces raiding private households,
confiscating alcohol; finally – tragic accidents while “suspects flee
the crime scene” (e.g. a social occasion where young men and women can
mingle).
There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no
fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.
Ruhollah
Khomeini once said, and this seems to be a working motto of the
Iranian religious state, implemented with all seriousness and harshness.
This is clearly visible in the article – but is also vividly shown in
Persepolis,
a graphic novel on modern Iran (and in the film based
on it).
Western world sees all that and reacts with understandable disgust
and anger…
…And then – with different reasons, methods, areas, but still – does
the same.
Three Great Wars
Western War on Fun, just like the remaining two great wars of the
western world that are currently raging (the War o Terror and
the War on
Drugs), while still offically unnamed, lasts for a few years already
and lately puts on momentum. Just as with the other two wars, there is
no well-defined enemy (anybody can be a “terrorist” or a
“dealer”/“junkie”) and no definite victory conditions are (or can be)
set: no-one ever could say that all “terrorists” have been defeated, as
no-one ever could say that all drugs have been eliminated.
And just as with the other two, also this war is being waged using
government resources, often against the interests of The People, but in
general in the best interest of certain megacorps.
The War on Terror, at the cost of blood and sacrifice of tens of
thousands people and from public money, fuels the military-industrial
complex, so “drastically underfunded” after the Cold War ended.
In case of the War on Drugs the cost is measured in destroyed lives
of kids caught with 3 grams in their pockets, and the beneficiary – prison-industrial
complex, including again the arms makers.
The War on Fun is waged mainly for the media concerns – and that’s
something new. Of course, politians benefit too. And if this war was to
be named according to what the beneficiaries would like, it would
probably be called “War on Piracy”.
All illegal on the Western
front
This war rarely utilises police or army forces. The main theater of
operations are courts and lawmaking. ACTA,
or the “trade” treaty aimed at “intellectual property infringements”
that was negotiated in complete secrecy and without informing
any of the citizens it’s supposed to modify rights of, was just
days ago signed by 8 countries (happily the
EU is not among them, perhaps because of the opposition and outcry
that has risen in Europe with regard to that treaty). How dangerous and
harmful for democracy and human rights this treaty is can be a good topic for a whole book, for now
it’s enough to mention that it gives the control over freedom of speech
de facto to corporate entities.
In the USA lawsuits
against filesharers are a common, everyday fact of life. Companies,
having (when compared to statistical citizen’s budget) practically
unlimited means at their disposal, are sueing private persons for
downloading a music file from the Net, based on their IP addresses –
which seem to be enough to bring a lawsuit against an alleged
filesharer, but at the same time are
apparently considered not sufficient to catch a laptop thief.
And they win – by
bending the evidence, for example. And they destroy
peoples’ lives.
But wait, there’s more! ASCAP demanded
royalties from the Girls
Scouts for songs that those schoolgirls were “performing”
(i.e. singing) by the campfire; oh, and they still demand royalties for
“performing” Happy
Birthday in public. No, that’s not a joke – that time you sang
it for your friend at a small party in a restaurant? Copyright
infringement!
Obviously all that is done “in the best interest of the artists” –
for “we all
know” that nothing
creative can happen without monetary incentives, especially those
present decades after the work has been created. Right? Besides, the
results of the actions undertaken are what should be judged, and the
results are great indeed: because of ASCAP and their ilk artists
lose the ability to play.
In France the HADOPI law was forced
upon the public. The law says that after “three strikes” – three
“detections” of on-line copyright infringement, of course not verified
in any way by any court and without any recourse, of course the judge
and jury are the corporations – first Internauts are
soon to be disconnected.
Still on the Old Continent, head of IFPI says it loud
and clear:
Child pornography is great! It is great because politicians
understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to
act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get
them to start blocking file sharing sites.
And, as was to be expected, the child pornography scarecrow is the main
argument for network filtering in Europe; in the USA it lead to a
situation in which teens can be found guilty of possession and
dissemination of child pornography for sending each
other their own nudie pictures; a dumb thing, that’s granted, but
far from qualifying for being labeled a sex offender for the rest of
their lives!
Oh, that law has been softened a bit: now they can avoid prosecution
if
they report the sender; we know where that goes. Won’t
somebody please think of the
children?..
Obviously, polititians do not need to be convinced how annoying and
pesky this whole freedom of speech thing is. Already, YouTube gets
ordered by the Governments to block
videos of protests, even non-violent ones; in Italy a law is
proposed that would basically invalidate free speech (which has already
lead to Italian
Wikipedia protest, as it could mean that it would have to be closed
down); and again in the Land of the Free, New York State senators concede
we all have too much free speech and it should be restricted and
treated as a privilege rather than a law. Some of the former Eastern Bloc
citizens might tell you how that tends to go.
So it should come as no surprise that polititians go hand in hand
with the megacorps in their fight against The People – for example, in
Australia, it has been established that procedures requiring the
corporations to provide the evidence to prosecute thousands of citizens
for filesharing are not very convenient for the corps. So they
came up with ideas to streamline that process. Interestingly enough
the authors seem uneasy that the proposal became public and try
to put the cat back into the bag by redacting the proposal text.
Non-Public Domain
Well, for one good thing, the copyright law provides for the works to
lapse into the Public Domain
after a set time, for all to enjoy. Maybe we should simply use such
works and build upon them?
Of course. However, the Governments, under pressure from “artists”
(or rather, the companies that own the
rights to certain works) are extending the copyright term.
Recently in Europe – from 50 to
70 years.
It gets better! Even works that have already lapsed into the public
domain can be put
back under copyright law “protection”, though the author already
died years before and the “protect the author’s rights” argument doesn’t
seem to work all that well…
Hence, War on Fun is waged even in the area that should seemingly be
completely unavailable for it. Public domain works is precisely what the
Society is supposed to finally receive in return for temporary monopoly
on those works and their copying and publishing rights for the author,
or in other words for copyright. Somebody, however, steals those works
from the public domain, and from us. Maybe this is what should
be called Copyright Theft?
A Strange War
Comparing Iranian totalitarianism to how the Governments are serving
their People in collusion with megacorps might seem an unwarranted
hyperbole. Perhaps, however, it is needed to highlight the seriousness
of the problem. In a few years time our freedom of speech, our
privacy, presumption of innocence and the right to trial might land in
hands of corporations.
It’s easy to boil a frog – you need to rise the temperature slowly,
so that it does not notice and try to jump out of the pot. Our on-line
rights are being boiled slowly, right at this moment. Slowly the
temperature rises, step by step in secret negotiations and away from
media coverage, under the guise of “fighting child pornography” and
“protecting the rights of (dead) artists” we are being stripped of them
and put on the mercy of megacorps. More often than not we do not even
notice – and when we do, usually we ignore it: for we think “what can I
do”.
But we can do a lot. We can keep an eye on our representatives to vote
for the benefit of The People, not corporations. We can support the
Free
Culture movement and the Public Domain, using and promoting works
that are part of them – or, if we are the artists ourselves (and it
often doesn’t require more
than a camera), we can actively
extend and enrich them. We can monitor changes in law and protest
agains those that are detrimental to our freedoms and rights. We can
rebel.
There are no jokes in entertainment. There is no humor in
entertainment. There is no fun in entertainment. There can be no fun and
joy in whatever is profitable.
– let’s not allow that to happen.