A free tip for all you telemarketers who may be reading this: You do not call the house of privacy advocate and go on about how "you are now in our database" and I can call them anytime about reducing my (non-existant) credit card interest. "You are now in our database" does not sound like a friendly thing to most people; such a phrase affords the question "So how do I get out?" or the question "So how did I get in it?". Even to a non-privacy nut that's gotta sound pretty ominous.

Communication Ethics book part for Censorship and Free Speech. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Communication Ethics book part for Review. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

I'd like to publically retract my earlier comment about the EFF reflexively taking a stand against big business in this post; it is an unfair comment to make and I have no excuse. Notation to that effect has been added to the message, but as I am a believer in posterity, even when it reflects poorly on me, I won't simply make the comment disappear.

My apologies to the EFF for an unwarrented criticism.

Communication Ethics book part for Fundamental Property: Everything Is Digital. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Communication Ethics book part for The Key to Robustness: Follow The Effects . (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Communication Ethics book part for Fundamental Property: Only Humans Communicate. (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

Communication Ethics book part for A Natural Balance . (This is an automatically generated summary to avoid having huge posts on this page. Click through to read this post.)

I just posted chapter five of The Ethics of Modern Communication. Today's topic is software patents... which may not seem to relate but you'll see how it does by the end.

Today's chapter attempts to be the Definitive Word on why software patents are not just wrong, but actively oxymoronic. As such it is subject to revision as I find new arguments, but I believe what is presented here is pretty conclusive; there are simply no grounds on which to justify the idea of a "software patent".

"The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a brief in federal court in support of companies that offer software to edit violence or sex from a user's DVD. The full story can be found in this article from the Salt Lake Tribune."

I knew this would happen sooner or later; it's been obvious to me for a while that the EFF isn't really as certain as it thinks it is about what it stands for, rather then against. This issue was clearly decided by the EFF by the following logic: