If The Only Way A Library Can

If You Are Explaining, You're Losing. It's A Bumper Sticker Culture. People Have To Get It Like That, And If They Don't, If It Takes Three Seconds To Make Them Understand, You're Off Their Radar Screen. Three Seconds To Understand, Or You Lose. This Is Our Problem.

But It Is As Silly To Think About Peer-to-peer As Applying Just To Music As It Would Have Been To Think About The Internet As Applying Just To Pornography. Whatever The Initial Use Of The Technology, It Has Nothing To Do With The Potential Of The Architecture To Serve Many Other Extremely Important Functions.

But, Like All Metaphoric Wars, The Copyright Wars Are Not Actual Conflicts Of Survival. Or At Least, They Are Not Conflicts For Survival Of A People Or A Society, Even If They Are Wars Of Survival For Certain Businesses Or, More Accurately, Business Models. Thus We Must Keep I Mind The Other Values Or Objectives That Might Also Be Affected By This War. We Must Make Sure This War Doesn't Cost More Than It Is Worth. We Must Be Sure It Is Winnable, Or Winnable At A Price We're Willing To Pay.

I Find Focusing Clearly On The Problem Is The First Step To Seeing A Solution. The Problem Is (a) The Insane Amount Of Time Spent Raising Money From (b) A Freakishly Tiny Proportion Of America. Basically .05% Are The "relevant Funders" Of Campaigns, Meaning Candidates Can't Help But Be Overly Sensitive To The Views Of That Tiny Fraction Relative To The Rest Of Us. If That's The Problem, Then The Solution Is To Spread The Funders Out: To Increase The Range Of Us Who Are The Relevant Funders Of Elections, Through Schemes Like Vouchers Or Coupons Given To Every Voter.

Overregulation Corrupts Citizens And Weakens The Rule Of Law.