orthogonal's Journal: Victory in Iraq! -- for the RIAA!

(I submitted this to Slashdot -- and of course, the editors rejected it.)

As the U.S. prepares to hand over 'sovereignty' to Iraq on June 30th, the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority is also forcing Iraq to adopt laws favorable to the U.S. Three of these are Orders Number 80, 81 and 83, requiring the adoption of patent and copyright laws to protect 'intellectual property' against 'piracy'. Although the laws have been written by the U.S., with the Iraqi Governing Council forced to accept them, the press spin is typical RIAA double-speak:

'The new amended laws acknowledges [sic] the Governing Council's desire to bring about significant change to the Iraqi intellectual property system as necessary to improve the economic condition of the people of Iraq.
In addition, the amended law aims to improve the conditions of life, technical skills, and opportunities for all Iraqis and to fight unemployment with its associated deleterious effect on public security.'

In a delicious irony the Washington post reports that the Coalition Provisional Authority's web site stole the "intellectual property" -- specifically, the web site design -- of the liberal Brookings Institute.

I'm sure our American soldiers are proud to have made the world a little safer for record company executives' profits.

I doubt it's just IP "laws"

[BandwidthHog]

I would assume that they've been porting a stripped down version of our Constitution and legal statutes to graft onto what remains of their existing civil infrastructure in the great conversion to a Democratic user interface. People like us are noticing the IP laws, while those in the health care industry, for instance, are probably bitching about commercially oriented structures being written into their part of the code. Repeat as needed until the Iraqi Puppet State is up and running as a strategic API for inserting Corpratocracy into the neighboring Middle Eastern nations.

Okay, that's my tortured analogy for the morning. Time for more coffee. Flame as needed.

Re:I doubt it's just IP "laws"

[elmegil]

NPR's "On the Media" yesterday was reporting rules that gave the CPA and the new Iraqi provisional government complete control over the media, with an interview from an apologist who claims that just because rules can be set doesn't mean that activism will ensue. Right. So yeah, there are lots of things besides IP laws going on, and personally, I hardly think that IP law is going to be very important for Iraq's forseeable future.

Re:I doubt it's just IP "laws"

[arlandbayes]

I think it is quite an insightful analogy. Australians are dealing with the same problem. Our politcal leaders are being coerced into ratifying an FTA (with the US) with DMCA like provisions. As Australia is a net importer of US IP I fail to see how this is in Australia's interests. Under the FTA , sugar, one of our major exports is exempted and beef tarrif relief doesn't come into full effect for 20 years!

they appointed a puppet government

[zogger]

there was a fascinating image I saw on the news. Here's this room, the entire walls are surrounded with soldiers, all US, as far as you can see. Down on the stage are the new "civilian leaders" of iraq, all appointed by what force the soldiers represent. If it was any other nation doing this, almost all the US people would call it an appointed dictatorial puppet government. US news talking heads have done that many times in other obvious situations. But because WE do it, then it's never said that way. We've

You're probably right

[freejung]

but very few will believe it. I mean, what are you, some kind of conspiracy nut or something? Our government would never do a thing like that! They're the good guys, don't you know!

imperialistic algo

[freejung]

the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority is also forcing Iraq to adopt laws favorable to the U.S.

Of course they are. This is the standard US imperialistic algo, which has been working well for the last century or so. It goes like this:

• Remove local government by any means necessary.
• Install new, supposedly "autonomous" and "democratic" government.
• Use leverage as superpower to force new government to adopt laws extremely favorable to US corporate interests.
• PROFIT!

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Do you have a map out of paranoia land?

[OldMiner]

I was travelling meerily along the road of justifiable suspicion, flanked nearby on left and right by extreme cynicism. However, I thought I could take a shortcut, and, whoops I've clearly lost my way and landed in paranoia land, where every road is equally valid, because you can't trust any of the street signs each of which comes with a footnote, brining doubt upon all its neighboars.

Now, after laying that metaphor to rest, uh, basic protection of artists' and scientists' creations is a bad thing? I'