Folks,
You need to read this article:
http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65704,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2
Issues related to TiVO and file sharing networks aside, please note
that if "fair use" is ever legislated out of existence, many of the
web pages and news sources you depend on will disappear, including
much of the content of this mailing list. As you know, I often post
excerpts from an article to permit you to decide if the entire article
is worth reading, or to highlight one or two important points made in
the article. If "fair use" ceases to exist, I might or might not be
allowed to post links to the articles but I wouldn't be able to quote
any portion of the articles, so I probably wouldn't bother at all.
You should be very concerned when your elected representatives attempt
to take away any of the rights you currently enjoy, but especially
when it is done solely to benefit large mega-corporations who already
feel they somehow deserve part of every paycheck you receive. For many
years I have been opposed to the practices of telephone monopolies but
it appears that congress may be about to create a new privileged class
of corporations, namely those large enough to buy politicians (which
are now apparently acting as mere puppets for these industries - not
all of them, but if enough do it then the big corporations get their
way, and we lose even more of our rights and freedoms).
In addition to the article I linked to above, there is commentary on
BroadbandReports.com here: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/56780
On a somewhat personal note, I actually wonder why I still bother
doing things like this (posting news to these groups) sometimes -- in a
way I feel like we are all arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Of course I hope I am wrong, and if I didn't have that hope I would
have probably stopped doing this months ago. And if I told you why I
would believe something like that, some of you would question my
sanity and others (those who DON'T believe everything they hear on
ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX) might wonder why it took me so long to
wake up. But since this isn't a political or social forum, I'll stop
there and say no more.
How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home:
http://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html
If you live in Michigan, subscribe to the MI-Telecom group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MI-Telecom/
Jack Decker (jack-yahoogroups@withheld)