[TriLUG] Information

[Tanner Lovelace]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to write my response to our senate and I'm trying
to find out some information.  Is there anyone out there that 
knows, or can find out easily, how big (in millions/billions of
dollars) the Computer and Entertainment industries are.
(Brownie points if you break it down :-)  I'm kind of curious
about this since I think I've seen that the Computer Industry
is actually an order of magnitude bigger than the entertainment
industry.  I'm trying to figure out if I'm just dreaming this
up or if it's actually true.  If it's true, then the US is
insane for letting a smaller industry kill a large industry.
Kill an industry?  I believe it will.  When all "digital devices"
are required to have copy protection built in, what do you do
about the people that can control them by reprogramming them.
You'd have to do something like outlaw compilers and license
all programmers (don't laugh, this has already been tried...).
This makes us so much like a police state it's not even
funny.  Some people express themselves by writing or
composing.  I express myself by programming.  Why am I being
penalized so that someone else can express themselves?
(Yes, I know that it's really the big companies and not
the little entertainers, but still.)

Also, if you haven't yet, I urge everyone to go to the URL
in my .sig and SIGN THE PETITION...

Tanner
-- 
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace at wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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         http://www.petitiononline.com/SSSCA/petition.html
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 Those who are willing to sacrifice essential liberties for a little 
 order, will lose both and deserve neither.  --  Benjamin Franklin 

 History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times
 of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to 
 endure.  --  Justice Thurgood Marshall, 1989 
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