[FSF India] [ARTICLE] Mark Summerfield : A Letter From 2020

[Raj Singh]

Letter from 2020 By Mark Summerfield 9/18/00

Dear Me,

I'm not sure if reading this letter is illegal. I thought it only fair to
warn you; it might be better to just destroy it.

The actual writing has been a bit of a chore. Word.NET isn't what it used
to be. Even Microsoft.NET couldn't afford to patent everything, so whilst I
can do Find, there's no Replace anymore. One good thing about having only
one legal operating system is that it's very stable. I'm glad they never
update Windows.NET; anyone can live with three or four crashes a day and
the hourly rent is less than I pay for my apartment.

I try to remember what it was like when I was a kid but it's really
difficult; the world has changed so much since then. I found a paper book
the other day that described the rise and fall of something called the
"Internet". It started out with people putting up links on computers so
that they could follow the link and read things on other computers for
free. After it got to be popular, companies started to create machines with
lots of links that you could search to find things of interest. But someone
put up a link to something illegal and got sued and had their machine shut
down. This happened a few times and people started to take the links off
their machines. The search engine companies were the first to go and
without them, you couldn't find anything. Eventually no one put up links
anymore because the legal risk was too great. The important thing is that
it reduced terrorism. I'm not sure how it could have worked anyway.
Anything I write on my computer or any music I create gets stored by
Word.NET and Music.NET in encrypted formats to protect my privacy. No one
but me, Microsoft.NET and the National Corporation can read or hear my
stuff even if they could link to it.

I shouldn't admit it, but sometimes I go to certain places and speak to the
subversives. I know its wrong but their warped views on things have some
kind of morbid fascination. For example, I spoke to someone who claimed to
be a historian the other day. She had courage all right, admitting to an
illegal activity like that. I hadn't understood why it was illegal until
she explained. History, she told me, gives you context. You can compare
today with some time in the past; ask questions like, "are people better
off", "look at the different forms of doing business", "compare corporate
records or the rights of citizens" (I think she meant employees).

But what interested her was that future generations will know nothing about
us; all our records and art are stored digitally, most of it will simply
disappear when no one rents it anymore -- remember the sadness when the
last digital copy of Sgt. Pepper was accidentally erased? And the data that
does survive will all be encrypted and in proprietary formats anyway --
even if there were historians they'd have no right to reverse engineer the
formats. I can vaguely remember that people used to have physical copies of
music and films, although I'm not sure how that was possible, or what the
point was when we can rent whatever we like from the air interface. I don't
think it matters that those who come after us can't read our writings or
hear our music or see our films; these things are temporal anyway, if no
one rents them then they can't be worth keeping.

The saddest subversive I met claimed to be a programmer. He said that he
was writing a program using Basic.NET. He must have been insane. Even if
his program worked he wouldn't be allowed to run it. How could one person
possibly check every possible patent infringement in a program they wrote?
And even if he hadn't infringed he couldn't sell it without buying a
compatibility license from Microsoft.NET and who could possibly afford
that? He had said something about gippling the software, which apparently
means giving it away, but mad as he was, even he knew that under WUCITA
that would be illegal.

These subversives really don't seem to understand that a few restrictions
are necessary for the sake of innovation. And progress has been made. We
don't have spam since most people can't afford an email license due to the
expensive patent royalties. Our computer systems all have the same
operating system, user interface and applications so everyone knows how to
use them, and although they crash and don't work very well, we all know the
limitations and can live with them. We have no piracy of intellectual
property since we rent it as we want it and have no means of storing it.

It was the USA that showed the world the way of course. First the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, then more and more software patents. The Japanese
followed suit. The Europeans were a problem, which is only to be expected,
with their anti-business un-Christian socialist tendencies. Fortunately,
common sense prevailed, helped along by the good old dollar I've no doubt
and they accepted both software patents and a redefinition of copyright to
suit global corporations. Once the USA, Japan and Europe had uniform
intellectual property laws to protect our corporations and our way of life,
everyone else had to play ball or they couldn't trade. The result has been
that every algorithm and computer program and every piece of music and film
(after all music and film can be put into digital form and are therefore a
form of software) have been patented. No more variations on Beethoven
(unless you've got the patentees approval). No more amateur participation
in music or film which might risk lowering standards. No more challenge to
established business and business practices.

I'm crazy to have written I know. But I am so happy in the world and I
remember how unhappy I used to be. I wanted to somehow pass back to you the
knowledge that its all going to be okay, that the world really is getting
better.

Sincerely,

Mark.

(c) 2000 Triad Commerce Group, LLC.