Friday, January 27, 2006

Excuse Me Here One Time

Campaigns are afoot against Wikipedia and file sharing, and have been for some time. The former is a vehicle for democratic knowledge-building; the latter is a people-to-people network.

All of which hints at this: the assault on them is anti-democratic.

The questions, respectively, are about credibility and intellectual property. Starting with the second, file sharing is not theft, nor is it piracy. Record label conglomerates that produce "corporate music" are destroying music, good real music. Not to mention having done their share of fucking over musicians.

To keep it short, the first question goes to Wikipedia. "Credible" means elite knowledge, pre-approved by "expert" opinion. They don't want anybody with the ability to freely register to add to a public encyclopedia.

Keep them alive.

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