In the last ten days, three of the blogs I have followed – and kept listed at the bottom of the left column on my other site – have been crippled or deleted by service providers. There seems to be a sudden, worldwide effort to implement dramatic suppression of internet freedom. It appears that the impetus may originate with the U$ FBI, which may be acting to enforce stymied SOPA/PIPA legislation. In effect, enforcement is happening because corporations have pulled the strings of their politician servants, who so far have not been able to legislate internet repression because of public outrage.
What we witness is a battle over intellectual property rights. It is prudent, for our sanity, to understand that we live in a capitalist system where property rights trump all other rights. In an era when corporations are deemed to be humans, where that particular race of humans has unlimited access to and control over the politicians that rule our lives, how could it be otherwise? Until and unless the system itself is changed so that human rights are the basis for society, there will be endless battles between people like us – the 99% – and the privileged few cloaked in corporate power.
I have been scrupulous to avoid copyright violations when posting to my other Rhythm Connection site, and totally open to remove posts if someone who owns the intellectual property right to a recording requests I delete it. Yet realistically, considering the obscurity of copyright tendrils that may exist among corporations – and most likely do not connect to musicians, by the way – I may inadvertently violate rights, when I intend only to help preserve for humanity valuable works of art. So there is the possibility that my blog may be eliminated by corporate action, as the battle for a free internet broadens.
I may try to mirror that blog or move it here, but I’ll attempt to carry on there until Google bows to its master.