Encouragement

So it's been along time since I rapped at ya...

I think what it is is that Facebook has been sucking away my "chatter on the internet" daily quota on a regular basis.  That, and after 200+ some-odd essays on the expansion of fair use in copyright, well, I've pretty much run over all the arguments!

Still, I'm keeping my eyes open and I've got a bit of a backlog of stuff I want to talk about.

Today I just want to share an interesting comment section on a blog on my local paper by Dwight Silverman, the excellent technology writer for the Houston Chronicle:

http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2013/03/apple-amazon-get-patents-to-offer-used-digital-goods/

In this case, I'd like to draw your attention to the comments section, actually (sorry Dwight).  The blog post itself is just about Apple and Amazon trying to patent "reselling" of digital goods.  That, in itself, is so recursively contempt-worthy that I can scarcely comprehend it.  But the interesting thing I noticed was the comments--almost no one is defending this preposterous idea.

True, the comments are moderated, but I've seen in the past that Mr. Silverman seems to be pretty even-handed in his moderation.  But this is the first time I've seen such a comment section that wasn't filled with non-techies baffled by any sort of pro-piracy or anti-copyright point of view.

If this is the start of a new trend, it has come much faster than I could have expected.  I jumped in there, of course.  But the only really contemptuously anti-piracy rant came near the very bottom--the usual thing where the poster refuses to look at the big picture, and deigns to explain the current state of the law to all of us.  And it was immediately retaliated against, inadequately it is true, but still that's nice to see.

So maybe normal folks are starting to "get it".  I hope so.

More to come.