You went to the computer store or went online and bought a brand new computer. You thought that buying it meant that you owned it. It turns out that you were wrong. You don't own your computer. Corporations and government own it.
If they can make you load their software, then the corporation has achieved its goal. They now own your computer. You do not. How is this possible? It's possible because any program that exists on your machine can do anything it wants. It can send information from your machine out to the Internet. It can mess up your disk and interfere with other programs that you want to run. It can even destroy the software you want to run.
But you won't intentionally load software you know you don't want. So corporations have to resort to "piggybacking". It works like this: A corporation that controls a program that a lot of people want (like AudioGalaxy or BearShare, used for sharing music) has a contract with a second corporation that controls a program that almost nobody wants (like Gator, used to spy on your hard disk). When you load AudioGalaxy, you get Gator. Or something else you don't want.
After a while, you will wind up with a computer that runs slower and slower, and sometimes it will just quit working right entirely. And you can't just uninstall things and make it better. Not too surprisingly, it is much harder to remove the programs you don't want, than it was to install them in the first place.
Does this sound familiar to you? Do you still think you own your computer?
So Disney would like for you to believe that your computer is a TV. But they don't have a sneaky way to load software on your computer to turn it into a TV. So they had to call their friends in Washington.
Their friends in Washington were sympathetic. They are concerned about Disney's business model. So they have made some laws. These laws are there to turn your computer into a TV. The Digital Millenium Copyright Law is one of them. There are more laws that are being proposed. The more laws they pass, the more your computer turns into a TV. And then Disney and the other corporations will be very happy.
Did you know that you were buying a TV? It's a pretty expensive TV. With a TV that expensive, you should be able to impress your friends.
Making a copy of Stayin' Alive is illegal. There has been a law against making a copy of Stayin' Alive for a long time. It is a good law. It is in the Constitution. It is the copyright law.
So the big music company wants see if you are breaking this law. But it is hard for them to find out without turning your computer into a stool pigeon. It is hard. It is not impossible. What does it mean to be "hard"? It means that it is expensive for the music company to find out. It means that the police are not interested in finding out.
This upsets the music companies. They are not accustomed to having to work hard to protect Stayin' Alive. This is a new thing for them. Do you feel sorry for them? Because if you do, you need to remember something. If they don't want to work hard to find out, they will use an easy way to find out. And there is only one easy way. That is for them to spy on your computer.
If you are willing for them to spy on your computer because you know you aren't illegally copying Stayin' Alive, then there is something else that you need to know. I tricked you a little. The music company really wants to do more than spy on you. They want to take Stayin' Alive off of your computer. No matter how it got there. Do you remember that we were talking about "piggybacking" before? When the corporations used piggybacking, they put things on your computer that you did not want. There can be lots of things on your computer that you do not know about. Do you think that the music company hacker, whose job is to remove Stayin' Alive from your computer, knows or cares if you meant to put it there?
Do you think the music company hacker cares if he makes a mistake and deletes a copy of Stayin' Alive that you actually paid for? Do you think that the music company hacker will never make a mistake? Oh, but if he makes a mistake, you will surely find out about it and he will fix it, right? Just like you found out about the sneaky piggybacked software we talked about before.
Did you know you were buying a listening device for the music company? Maybe your friends will be even more impressed when you tell them that you own very high quality spying equipment.
But maybe you want to believe that it is your computer. Then you will have to do something to turn your belief into reality.
The first thing you should do is find out if somebody else already owns your computer. There are some easy things you can do. If your computer has been getting slower and slower, it is very possible that somebody else owns your computer. There are some programs on the Internet that you can load that will tell you more. I will not say their names here. If you search for "anti-spyware" from your browser, you will see the names of several programs that might help. But keep reading before you do anything.
The second thing you should do is start to be more careful about what you are putting on your computer. How can you be careful? One way to be careful is to use www.google.com to look for opinions. Let's say you want to download a program named X. You can search for "X spyware" and read the opinions of lots of people. You can then decide for yourself after having educated yourself a little bit better. (Remember to do this for the anti-spyware program too!)
The third thing you should do is to ask yourself if you trust the websites on the Internet. Think about this for a little while. If the answer is "yes", then remember that you will be sharing your computer with all of the websites that you trust. It will not be your computer any more.
The fourth thing you should do is decide what your civic values are. If it's your computer, then you should be asked politely if you want to share it. And you should be allowed to say no.
If you are willing to be spied upon and manipulated because somebody with a very expensive suit thinks you might someday want to copy Stayin' Alive, then you don't have to do anything. Think a little bit about what it means to be "secure against unreasonable searches". Anybody accusing you of having an illegal copy of Stayin' Alive needs to have probable cause before they go rifling through your stuff.
Unless, of course, your computer isn't your stuff. If it isn't, then feel free to return to your regularly scheduled broadcast.
Update. Microsoft thinks it's your computer!
Last modified: August 26 2002