Politicans rethoric regaring filesharing

There has lately been quite the uprising amongs the bloggers here in Sweden(thus I almsot feel forced to join in). This is due to a new law that are going to be voted in the parlament within a few days. It's called IPRED, and is basicly giving the private organization antipiratbyrån free hands to sue everyone and everything. Pretty much like RIAA in USA.

As a political science student this is a very fashinating subject to observe. And I will write an essay on this, starting with it next week. The essay will most likely concentrate on the both sides ideology, basicly free information vs copyright. For as I see it, this is a class between generations. The younger generation, which has grown up with internet and has a widescale understanding of it, stands generally for free informations, while the older generations, which generally lacks any deep understanding of internet, both philosopicaly and technically.

My definition of one that are for free information isn't one that wants everything to be completely free, but understand they changes are needed to be made and certain parts aren't needed anymore. Changes that still allows the creater to get his profit from the art, but the way of distribution and making it available to the public have or should change.

The essay will not, in any way, be about how it is in reality. The situation is to fresh, to hard to get hard materials since there are very few emperic data to use. The numbers are thrown around like mad and even though I haven't spent much time trying to locate the source, I doubt there are anyone that I feel I can trust, from both sides.

But anyway, I have been reading a lot of this current situation, and what interest me the most is the politicans way of acting. It's easy to tell that they are truly uncertain of the situation. This is something they never encountered before which result in them retreating into lousy rethoric, rethorics that would have made the roman speakers scream in their graves. Their example trying to justify their cause lacks any parallell whatsoever. It's like they either refuse to accept how the new technology is working or they just lack the possibility to understand due to other indoctorinations.

I have read some blogs and comments that assume that the politicans are either bought or lobbyied into infinity. That the music industry, with all it's cash, control the politic. However, I claim that this isn't true. They aren't corrupted nor are the lobbying industry here in Sweden so powerful. There are some other forces, more deep and subtly forces at work here. And that is, as I already earlier, indoctorination. A quote from Johan Pherson from folkpartiet (the liberals) is "We always listen to the people, but politically I listen to my heart" (my translation).

This make my claim stronger, for he does listen to the opposition, but through his inability to understand the other indoctorination, he cannot work any other way. This is also why the music industry manage to get their will through, for they speak in the same language as the politicans does. Even when large part of the educated(understanding on how internet works) people goes against the politicans (refering to the FRA-law).

So, I do think the IPRED law will go through here in Sweden, but it will be very painful for the politicans. And eventally, as with FRA, they will be forced to retreat and rework the law.

But in the long run, they have already lost. The younger generation will eventally get in power, with the understanding of internet, and therefore will release it back into what it should be: Not a battleground but a place where creativity flourish. Beside, there is already got technology that makes these laws useless. All they will catch is people with the same indoctorination.

A beginning

I was hit by a thought sometime ago. We, the westerner, claim to be relatively free people. That we are mostly allowed to do what we feel is right as long as we don't put yourself and/or other in a danger. Or are we?

I mostly have Sweden in my mind while writing this but I am sure this can be applied to almost all OECD countries. Here we are always adding new laws where we are prohibiting things that may be dangerous. A classic example is bicycle helmet, all kids under the age of fifteen must, by law, wear it. Now, first time this doesn't sound so bad, actually it sounds quite good. Less children get injured or even killed in accident. But this may have repercussion that is far worse then a very slightly less serious injuries.

First, and to me the most serious one, is that this relief parents of their responsibility. They do not need to consider the situation, does my kid really need this helmet or not, why and why not? Instead the state has fixed that situation for them: Just force the kid to use the helmet or be prepared to pay the fine. "Well, isn't that nice, less problem for the parents, right?". No, being a parent is all about knowledge, valuating the situation and the needs etc. To learn how to be a good parent. Taking this away from them will make them less capable to deal with the kids.

Also, there is a very common rule by schools that kids under the age of eleven aren't allowed to take their bike to school. The reasoning: The kids periphery aren't developed yet so they cannot yet fully comprehend the traffic. And then they put a helmet on these kids that reduces their sight even more! This actually happen to me when I went in second grade. One teacher saw me coming to school on a bike, told the principal, who which sent me home, on my bike! Of course my father got furious over this.

Before this gets to long let me remind you of the situation in Australia. There everyone is forced by the law to have a helm when riding a bike. The sales in bikes completely went down the drain, the number of people taking the bus and their car just went straight up. Save a few people in accident resulted in more damage to the environment and lower peoples health by lesser exercise...

Enough about that, back to the point. There is constantly new laws added, and generally it isn't a bad thing, but a few of these law have a horrifying effect: it place the people more and more into a box. The bicycle helmet was one example of the state trying to save a few people for the price of freedom.

Step by step we lose our freedom, step by step we loose our ability to deal with our life without guidance from the state. A step closer to 1984.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. - Benjamin Franklin"