The flyer reads: DON’T buy any magazine, newspaper, DON’T download ANY song (legally or illegaly), DON’T watch any movie at the cinema, DON’T buy ANY DVD or videogame and DON’T buy any book.

A boycott would likely send a message, if enough earth citizens would participate in it. It would also hurt people that have no say in the matter but earn their living from it, like the small bookstore owner, a record store and even the cinema in your town. It could also impact the creative people of the entertainment business, people who do not have any say when it comes to company policy.

When you look at the options that the average joy (you and I) have, it boils down to two. You can first vote with your money, which is what the operation proposes. Your second option is to make yourself heard in another way. Let politicians know what you oppose, send them letters, call their offices.

My counter-proposal would look like this:

• Boycott select media companies and all their sub-companies. These companies should be the worst lobbyists that influence politicians with fancy meals and money. Create and maintain a list of those companies. Boycott means to stop buying anything they produce until they change their minds. This includes boycotting company websites, their offers on streaming media sites and television.
• The second important part would be to inform said companies and politicians about it. Let your local representatives know that you are opposing those bills, that it is an important matter to you, and that you will vote for someone else if they support bills. Let them know that you will NEVER vote for them again if they should EVER support such a bill again. Affected Media companies should also be informed by you, that you have stopped buying their goods, and that you won’t buy them anymore until they change their ways.
• Maintain a list of alternatives, either free or companies that openly oppose censorship and other efforts to restrict access to the Internet and freedom of expression.

What’s needed for this? A list of lobbying companies and politicians needs to be created and maintained. This list needs to be publicly accessible on the Internet. Postal addresses, phone numbers and if possible electronic mail addresses need to be collected so that it is easy as pie to contact your representatives and the companies.

Let me know where you stand in the matter.

Today, downloading has changed radically. There are innumerable peer-to-peer applications to transfer files. In addition, you can now download not only music but movies, TV shows, games, software, etc. On the downside, downloading has pretty much divided the online world into two camps: those who think it’s stealing and those who think it’s alright to download files.

I’m kind of on the fence with this subject. When you download something, you are not paying for it so technically, it is stealing. On the other hand, there are some situations where I don’t fault people for downloading. Let me list two of them. If I live in a country where the latest season of my favorite show is aired a year after it is aired in its home country. A second one is if a movie, music album or TV show I really want to watch is not being released where I live and will not be available even to purchase.

So my question is this. How do you feel about the downloading scenario? Do you think it is okay to download files under some conditions? What alternatives do you have to downloads?