Our culture proclaims freedom in this land, freedom from tyranny, freedom from oppression, freedom to worship (or not), freedom to speak our minds. Little do many lemming Americans realize that we are indeed increasingly not free. Case in point: FCC mandates broadcast flag, “software patents”:http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html, DMCA, lawsuits brought by the MPAA and the RIAA, “extension of copyright to life+70″:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act, “lawsuits against derivative works deterring their creation”:http://www.illegal-art.org/audio/grey.html, “removal of unregulated-use rights”:http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48088,00.html, “obliteration of fair-use rights”:http://slashdot.org/features/00/05/11/0153247.shtml, “threats against free code”:http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/190801_openoffice15.html, “censorship by the FCC”:http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/t/turner/2004/turner061504.htm, “net vigilantism”:http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47552,00.html, “eBook limitations for works that are no longer bound by copyright law”:http://usa1.ebooks.com/ebooks/book_display.asp?IID=196133, “inability to speak/report without fear of being sued”:http://www.kottke.org/04/12/sony-ken-jennings-and-me or “even jailed”:http://www.dailyiowan.com/news/2004/10/08/Nation/Judge.Orders.Times.Reporter.Jailed-747364.shtml, DRM(Digital Rights Management), and the list goes on.

I have grown increasingly disillusioned with our society as mass media conglomerations are allowed to merge and concentrate their influence over us and as the FCC oversteps its organizational mandate time and time again. If you have similar opinions, you must listen/watch “this flash presentation”:http://www.eff.org/IP/freeculture/free.html by “Lawrence Lessig”:http://www.lessig.org/blog/ over at EFF‘s website, founder of the “Creative Commons”:http://creativecommons.org/ License, an alternative to the standard copyright law, waiving some of your rights in exchange to allow other to create, use, and share.

!(alignright)http://www.sensoryoutput.com/wp-images/postings/cc-logo.gif(Creative Commons)! What is one to do? Resist. Resist at all cost. I start my resistance with the placement of this website under the creative commons license, granting users the ability to share, distribute, copy and modify anything found here, while attributing me as the source. Simple, easy and fair.