Speaking out against the government today, pretty much gets you labeled “anti-American”, people forget that descent is what this country was founded on. Thomas Jefferson further said that its our rights and duties to overthrow any government which is corrupt that it can no longer be fixed.

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. …And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right asto the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed fromtime to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Has it got so bad that its time to overthrow the government, and setup a new regime? Probably not. However, lets create a checklist for “Thomas Jefferson’s Criteria for Revolution”:

• Been at least 20 years since last revolution.
• Citizens can no longer keep track of the governments actions.
• Citizens warn government by holding protests.

Check, Check, and Check. Well its a good thing this isn’t 234 years ago, otherwise I feel that Americans would have taken to the streets to fight back for our freedoms. The citizens who founded this country would not have settled for the “Patriot Act”, if they were aware of its implications, they surely would be against “ACTA”, and of course the DMCA which likes to trample on their rights as well.

The United States Federal Government has failed the people, and it has now become to corrupt for repair. The time for a revolution is coming, because its our right, and our duty to take over control of our government and give the powers of state back to the people. We shall have a more parliamentary style of congress, and there shall be NO time when the president can step on our rights for “national security”, or “general welfare”. Its our rights to have and no one can take them away from us.

Thomas Jefferson would be considered a terrorist today, but he was a patriot. Revolutionaries, activists, and outspoken groups are not “terrorists”, they are Americans, who are mad that their country has been corrupt and they want to take it back. They are patriots.

Honestly in the debate between the two bloggers (there is another contestant as well over at Matthews blog as well, that he references), they get down to a battle of who Intellectual Property laws were designed to benefit. One claims that Intellectual Property laws are there to aide the consumer, and was developed so that a media can eventually be released for free; and the other says that its designed to aide the artist, and allow them to grow and be able to make a profit off their work.

I fail to see how either of these points are valid or good at all. We have two extremes trying to fight for why they are right and the other is wrong and unfortunately copyright and patent laws are not that black and white… So lets look at this from a real persons point of view.

The current failed copyright system gives a copyright to its owner for their entire life plus 70 years. Clearly this is not for the benefit of the artist, because the artist will not be able to make any gains off those additional 70 years. Thats why the system is flawed, instead of allowing defunct artists music to be put into the public domain so that more people can learn, grow, and build off of it… the current system discourages respecting the late artist by not allowing there to be education based off their work. These laws are, however, in place for the artist.

Matthew also claims that because of the length of this copyright term that art should be released for free, and I feel that it was more of a creative way of twisting words and facts to gather more supporters for your cause (which is admittedly a noble one). We cannot expect artists to release music and not get paid for them, thats why I suggest copyrights, but on a much smaller scale. An artist has the right to make money, and recoup losses from the production of music. However, after a few years the artist’s primary income focuses on live tours and merchandise anyway.

I feel that the reason that drug patents are so short is because the Government realizes that we need short patents to drive innovation. While they would rather neglect artistic innovation, and only embrace being the worlds health care leader. As this shows, not only do short patent times not “kill innovation” as some say it will, but it also drives innovation and can be contributed into the United States great contributions to science.

We cannot be battling any more on black and white issues, and the time is to rally in support of real copyright and patent reform so that we can learn from our medical innovations, and apply that great system to media, and code as well. By allowing people to build off code after 7 years opposed to the rest of your lifetime… we develop better projects. By allowing music to be mixed, we create more innovation in what music is and what it can be.

Whats funny is that the answer to the question is simple:
Who does (current) Intellectual Property Laws help? Management
Who does (current) Intellectual Property Laws hurt? Anyone who wants to learn.