The Corporati

In 1995, some co-workers and I developed a science fiction game concept. In this game, set in the near future in year 2025, the global corporate interests had exceeded the power of the federal government. Ten massive corporations formed a single uneasy conglomerate, a keiritsu, with the goal to purchase a struggling California from the United States. A deal that could be summarized as, "We'll take care of the failing infrastructure, in exchange for legal sovereignty throughout the state." In the sprawl, the ten feudal Corporati formed a contentious government of the money, for the money, and by the money.

That was science fiction, right? I'm not so sure now. Read a few of the practices of real companies, real cases in the courts, and real laws that our government has enacted against the rights of citizens, and tell me that we don't live in a world governed by the corporation.

And remember: Corporations have no vested interest in the rights of an individual.

Adobe, Inc. Arrests Dmitry Sklyarov for Speaking

2001-07-16 Las Vegas - Dmitry Sklyarov of Elcomsoft held a talk at Def Con 9, a prominent computer security conference. The presentation was entitled "eBook Security: Theory and Practice." The presentation and software offered by Elcomsoft highlight the insecure features of eBook products, and to show conference attendees why they should not entrust these products for secure information. (Flaws relating to other Adobe products, notably Acrobat, have also made headlines, where reporters have found poorly obscured sensitive data in public files.)

Adobe had Dmitry arrested by the FBI, under the pretext that the conference and the Elcomsoft software were illegal per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is at least the second time DMCA has been wielded as a threat against the existing legal rights to speak freely, to assemble peaceably in discussions critical of the law, and to reverse engineer products in research. Rather than focus their corporate interests in improving their insecure products, they decided to hire the FBI to detain this Russian "hacker" instead. This is not about copyrights, this is about freedoms, and Adobe does not apparently believe in the freedom of expression.

Adobe can have their cake and eat it too, with this bad legislation that they and other corporations lobbied for. When the public relations disaster struck, Adobe pulled out of the case, but left the real victim in jail. The U.S. Federal Government is now detaining and prosecuting a foreign national for "crimes" committed abroad, where there is no complainant in the case, no evidence of intent or actual injury to Adobe or any other copyright holder.

I'll vote against Adobe with my dollars. I also find it scary but amusing that the text of the DMCA is published on the US Government websites almost exclusively in Adobe Acrobat file formats.

Corporations have no vested interest in the rights of an individual.

Chemical Rubber Company steals MathWorld Copyright

2001-11-06 Mathematician Eric Weisstein created a wildly popular website called MathWorld, where all sorts of mathematics fans gathered and browsed the columns and resources there.

As an adjunct to the vibrant, growing site, he entered into a deal to CRC Press LLC, a publisher originally known as the Chemical Rubber Company. The deal was for CRC to print and promote a thick book which was a mere snapshot of the MathWorld site.

In the second year, the book's sales flagged significantly, and the price was boosted by CRC out of the reach of its intended audience of students. Promotions for the book were also dropped to focus on newer publications.

Even though Eric carefully tuned and adjusted his site to avoid any mass duplication (allowing visitors to roam at will but blocking any detected attempt to copy the whole site), and even though CRC failed to promote the print book as promised in the agreement, CRC decided that there was more money availble by suing Eric and shutting down the MathWorld site as an illicit copy of CRC's book!

Unfortunately, Eric's new employer, Wolfram Research, decided to bail on this crazy lawsuit and settle with terrible terms that (1) gives CRC Press LLC money where book sales were not, (2) ensures CRC Press LLC can publish future snapshots of the website without entering into new copyright negotiations, (3) requires that third-party visitor submissions to the site must grant their own copyrights to CRC Press LLC, and (4) forces CRC Press copyright notices on all of Eric's website pages even though CRC never sought to acquire those such rights or stipulations in the initial contract.

Lesson here: don't trust legal counsel when they say "it's all boilerplate legalese." Eric called CRC to tell them that they were failing on their agreements to promote one book, and lost almost all of his rights to his own life's work in the process.

Corporations have no vested interest in the rights of an individual.