Re: <nettime> joxe's empire of disorder

[richard barbrook <richard@hrc.wmin.ac.uk>]

Hiya,

>One only has to look at the flurry of legislation --
>the Communications Act and Digital Millenium Copyright Act in the US.
>Or the remarkable amount of GATT and then WTO time taken up with
>issues of patent and copyright protection. These are relatively new
>developments, and their significance is not really plumbed by the
>tools of historical materialism as we have them to hand.

Passing laws is not the same thing as making people obey them. The DCMA or
the EU Copyright Directive haven't stopped the sharing of information
among Net users. As even the simplest versions of historical materialism
point out, the legal superstructure can - at best - only slow down the
evolution of the socio-economic base...

Later,

Richard


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Dr. Richard Barbrook
Hypermedia Research Centre
School of Communications and Creative Industries
University of Westminster
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<www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/HRC>

landline: +44 (0)20 7911 5000 x 4590

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