The Robin Hood factor

Today I read a tid-bit about USA major internet and computer companies suggesting a new bump in this Internet Superhighway. Basically, they wanted to have ways (filters) to protect copy write protected computer programs, and probably music.

I agree with them, and here’s why.

There are too many people in the world who will “rip off” our intellectual content, as in programs, and even music, and sell it at their cost of making it, mostly the CD making expenses. While this “business” is focused in Asia, it is also going on about everywhere anyone can buy “copy’ machines and one original program.

The robin hood instinct about robbing from the rich to help the poor comes through just fine. It is part of us, many think. But that is not what is happening. Newly arisen “robber barons’ are at play, and they are hurting us big time in America, assuming we still want to make a buck at doing business.

Any American shopping at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul or Yongsan in Seoul or shops in Hong Kong can shop and haggle all day, and get a good deal, in their mind. Yet they are most likely getting a knock off “pirate copies”, as in a Swiss Army Knife actually made in Asia.

We have many hard working Americans who go to work each day and create the programs (intellectual content) that make our lives safer and more thrifty. Even the artist types are about the same. All deserve the most basic protection to protect their work, their incomes from this work, and the American families they support. If we want to think about robin hood, let him be an American and not some global “robber baron”.