> The key things with all of this, is that if enough people were to collectively have the courage to push back against this craziness it would stop...people recognizing that there is a problem is a good first step
Is that true though? The government is doing nothing here. There's nothing stopping anybody from owning these book or passing them around to somebody else. There's nobody in government stopping somebody from publishing these books.
What's happening is that a few megacorporations have acquired so much power they are beyond influencing. Are a few angry people going to vote with their wallets to defeat eBay? Please, there is no recourse - eBay has essentially no competition in its sector and is accountable to nobody but their shareholders.
And the publisher? Well, the publishers have lobbied for our politicians to grant them infinite copyright, so now they can do as they wish with our culture. If they choose to bury it and stop publishing, this is the right our politicians have agreed to give to them.
This isn't really a free speech issue at its heart, even if it feels like it. This is really a power imbalance where control in all sectors of commerce (and in almost every aspect of our lives) is being distilled into a handful of unassailable monopolists to whom our politicians have gradually ceded their power.
Is that true though? The government is doing nothing here. There's nothing stopping anybody from owning these book or passing them around to somebody else. There's nobody in government stopping somebody from publishing these books.
What's happening is that a few megacorporations have acquired so much power they are beyond influencing. Are a few angry people going to vote with their wallets to defeat eBay? Please, there is no recourse - eBay has essentially no competition in its sector and is accountable to nobody but their shareholders.
And the publisher? Well, the publishers have lobbied for our politicians to grant them infinite copyright, so now they can do as they wish with our culture. If they choose to bury it and stop publishing, this is the right our politicians have agreed to give to them.
This isn't really a free speech issue at its heart, even if it feels like it. This is really a power imbalance where control in all sectors of commerce (and in almost every aspect of our lives) is being distilled into a handful of unassailable monopolists to whom our politicians have gradually ceded their power.