[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> An open letter to Congressman Mark Udall

["dan s wang" <danwang@mindspring.com>]

Wow, very good. . . example of citizens' participation in the American 
political system. When you read letters like this, you realize why
legislators usually keep for/against tallies on incoming letters and
no more. Because reading them for serious content or argument is too
damn painful. While I agree Ms. Chu (of the Republic of China, not the
People's Republic of China) deserves the revenue generated by her
candid performance, I for one cannot wait for the pirates to get hold
of "our most valuable national assests. . . like Britney Spears"
captured on video doing something similar. The sooner the better!

dan w.

----------
>From: Miles Nordin <carton@Ivy.NET>
>To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
>Subject: <nettime> An open letter to Congressman Mark Udall
>Date: Thu, Mar 7, 2002, 9:11 PM
>

> Cut and paste the following letter into Microsoft Word.  Then edit it
> for your congressman and your name, and mail it.  It's important to
> print out your Word files ASAP, because congressmen have short
> memories, and they may forget about the SSSCA if we don't remind them
> quickly and constantly of how badly this key legislation is needed.
>
>
> Dear Honorable Mr. Representative Mark Udall:
>
> I am very concerned about the threat to Intellectual Property (IP)
> posed to America by our enemies Korea, Japan, Germany, and the USSR.
>
> In the Digital Age, the tools of criminals and deviants are advancing
> at an exponential rate, while the tools of peace, morality, and law
> enforcement advance only linearly.  This is a consequence of the
> so-called ``network effect''---because criminals are now networked,
> their powers increase exponentially.  If this trend continues, we risk
> the resurgence of powerful organized crime cartels that exist only to
> subvert our freedom and democracy by, for example, illegally selling
> liquor and using the profits to subvert the checks and balances of our
> democratic political machinery.
>
> It is my hope that you will join me in my wish that these dark days
> when our American brothers abuse the freedoms for which our ancestors
> died by forming cartels that bend, twist, and spit upon the law, never
> return to this American earth!  I'd like to share with you a story, of
> a simple woman, named Feng Chu Mei, a citizen of our allied nation The
> People's Republic of China.
>
> Mrs. Chu was engaging in consentual sex with a visiting ``Joe'' when
> her Taiwanese maid secretly used an unprotected recording device to
> create a so-called ``Pirate video'' of her private sexual behaviors.
> As humiliating as this sounds, the heinous act of violation was made
> possible by Digital Technologies that did not exist in the recent
> past, when most of our Intellectual Property (IP) laws were crafted.
>
> The ``pirate video'' is stored in an underground format called
> ``VCD.''  The VCD is not permitted by the movie studios for use inside
> America, but in Pacific Rim nations this underground format is the
> currency of a thriving black market in illegal copies of American
> videos and popstars, all with the tacit support of corrupt enemy
> regimes like the Republic of Taiwan.  The Feng Chu Mei video was
> illegally duplicated in the very same Taiwanese CD piracy farms that
> our enemies use to rape and steal the work and sweat of Hollywood
> actors, actresses, and musicians in America.  These duplicated,
> unprotected VCDs were sold on the street---often, literally ON the
> street, on rugs laid down on the public sidewalk by shady characters
> from the Asian underworld such as pimps, drug dealers, VCD pirates,
> and squid ball vendors---for pennies on the dollar, depriving Mrs. Chu
> of what should have been her artistic revenue, and creating an economy
> of theft and artificial abundance in which such heinous and violating
> videos become uniquely possible.
>
> These pirates cannot exist without the support of underground video
> conversion software developed in America, often by patriotic but
> misguided Americans who do not imagine the uses to which their
> software will be put, and who unfortunately do not bear the direct
> consequences of their unconsidered actions.  The Taiwanese video
> pirates use AMERICAN SOFTWARE to steal AMERICAN MOVIES.  Truly, this
> is a case when dogmatic, inflexible interpretations of our freedoms
> and morals are our own worst enemies!  Obviously, the export of
> computing machinery and software to Taiwan which is capable of video
> theft like what was perpetrated against Ms. Chu must be stopped
> immediately.  The SSSCA is a bill which does just that.
>
> The SSSCA brings our laws into parity with those recommended by the
> global peace-keeping organization, the WTO.  Our allies China, Europe,
> and India have already adopted similar legislation, meaning that
> failure to embrace the SSSCA means we risk being perceived as a
> backward land of lawless cowboys on an increasingly global landscape.
> This appearance cripples our efforts to extend America's global
> strategy of peace and democracy, and stifles the critical economic
> (and strategic!) flow of our exports.
>
> It is time to take bold, new steps to rejuvinate our economy.  We must
> come together as a nation, and work toward one goal: toward erecting
> an impenetrable iron curtain around our most valuable national
> assets---our intellectual property, like Britney Spears, Mickey Mouse,
> and Larissa Olyeniczfr-whatever.  We must stop the steady stream of
> theft perpetrated by enemy nations like Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and
> France.  This piratical theft is bleeding our stock market dry and
> clouding our children's future.
>
>                                    Think young,
>
>
>
>                                    Miles Nordin
>
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