Friday, January 20, 2012

Yippie! — A blast from the past


The whole whoopee cushion of words over the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act got me thinking about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.
Those two were the most pop-culture-savvy leaders of the group of agitprop rebels who promoted ‘free’ as a lifestyle a generation ago—the Yippies. But, even for them, it was not easy to say exactly what free meant.
Read it at stealth of nations
The Yippie Way of Ownership
by Robert Neuwirth

 (BTW: can anyone tell me how the government has the standing to bring a case of copyright infringement? And how the government can shutter megaupload without having proved that the company’s done something wrong?)


Fun read if you were around then, or are into the history of the countercultural revolution. But definitely has application today, too.


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