Intellectual Property Extremism talk:

Today intellectual property extremism is eliminating various freedoms Americans have benefitted from since the birth of our country. These freedoms include the freedom to build upon the work of others, and, the freedom from a feudalistic Soviet style "permission culture" controlled by a fraction of the country.

This extremism is justified today with references to the sanctity of "property". Those who disagree are labelled as "anti-property", un-American or worse, as "pirates".

A search through history will reveal many similar situations to today's debate over the Internet and peer to peer technologies. Examples of how our country balanced and evolved her ideas regarding property in the past will be given as a guide to handling the current controversies.

A discussion of our current situation will be presented and ways you can help.

Most of this discussion will be based on the writings of Prof. Lessig and "pirated" from his book FREE CULTURE.

Chris Seberino