Copyright and the future

Information wants to be free. Copyrighted information, government information, my information.
I can't locate the quote, frustratingly, but someone once said that computer memory will never get more expensive, slower, or less convenient. The world is opening up for people to share ideas, books, movies, and personal data across the world almost instantly.

To do so in the case of movies, for example, is definitely illegal; arguably immoral; but still very easy. And likely to get easier.

Did you know that copyright law, when first invented in 1709, applied for 14 years? By contrast, Paul McCartney (and thousands of other artists) hold the view that 50 years of royalty cheques aren't enough. (Please discount my opinion, but if you're not currently earning, maybe you don't need to live a life of luxury.) Most performers around today are aware that customers have the option to pirate their songs, and their responses range from the overzealous ('let's sue them into the ground as an example') to the cool ('I make this awesome stuff you might like, oh and also I need to eat.').

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I bring this all up because I'm trying to picture the future. It seems to me that, whether the privacy activists and lawyers like it or not, our society is tending towards total freedom of information. Everything about us will be available to anybody who cares enough to look. It will fundamentally change the nature of our society. It will change how we treat others (because we'll know we're being 'reviewed' online); it will change why we create things (because anything we write or film or draw will instantly be available to everyone); and it will change how we keep secrets (if we even have them at all).

I'm not trying to present some horrendous dystopia here; nor am I condoning illegal downloading or the abolition of copyright law. I'm only trying to sort out, in my own head, where I think the human race is going, and (accidentally, in the process) who's stopping us from getting there. If I knew no other life, would I really mind living in a world like that? I think my answer is no.

What do you think? Where are we heading?

I love you, Randall Monroe

I was locked up for a year

A few days before my 21st birthday, I went missing. I was in a large room with about 5 other people. When the smell got too bad, or we just needed space, we'd go to different corners of the room. The man who put us there didn't want us escaping each other, so he put another half dozen or so people in.

A year later - although I kept saying it had been a day or a hundred years - we got out, I don't know how. I went back to my family on the 12th October 2009. They cried. I called my boyfriend and couldn't get through, and his message was different, and I was ready to cry, I missed him so much! But then I realised that what I had assumed was an extra bit of his phone message meant only for me in case I came back ("Loves Bear. Loves diddums.") was actually him - right behind me...

He told me that his job was going very well and that he was pretty much THE expert for (insert some techy thing here).

My family, Gavin and I went to this big new building to see my cousins and a bunch of other people from my church. They were all amazed and happy to see me. I was overjoyed to see everyone, I'd missed them SO much!

The strangest part was that... you know that mental check you can do? And then you go "oh, it's just a dream actually, I'm ok"? Well that came up negative several times. It was real when it was happening.

When I woke up I wasn't even sure what year it was. I went downstairs and turned the TV on to check that it's 2008. (It is.)