***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 11:10:50 -0600
   [From]: Juan JosŽ D’az Infante  <jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Re: Denial is not a river in Egypt, mmh

Anne

I have been working on several projects for the last 15 years as a business
consultant regarding high technology. I was involved in computers, high
definition TV, cellular telephones, bipers, electronic books and Internet.

In many cases the jurisprudence does not exist in order to set up a business
or a university project. It is the when future planning is very important
since a project can have 40 different variables and some of them could be
bottlenecks.

I will put an example of the late 80=B4s, we were called by a subsidiary of o=
f
a big TV network in Mexico to do research in a new franchise that had to do
with Television via Satellite. It was incredible the characters we met in
that adventure. From one side we had the dealers of the decoders (which the=
y
are illegal to export from the US, the same way algorythms of encryption ar=
e
not permitted either). The whole problem was that the satellite path of the
US bathes accidentally Mexico in order to reach Hawaii and Puerto Rico. But
that signal does not have "permission" to be "landing" in Mexico. HBO for
example had only the rights of the movies for the US and therefore could no=
t
sell outside.
We had to work around what exactly we were selling and who to pay for the
content. One of the possibilities was that we could sell a decoder card and
give a percentage to the motion picture association. At such point at the
supplier from Canada showed up with the technology to do it. Almost at the
same time showed the FBI. In one side the Canadian technology was considere=
d
pirate technology and on the other hand we could not export the legal
technology to supply a market of 2 million satellite dish market.

My point is the following, laws are never created on a moral value or an
actual theoretical frame.They are sort of organic,either you know how to
grow them or they die, they are created in a very "economic way" as needed
by whoever is interested (as if it were food, you only get enough for your
ration). The lobbying starts with years in advance. The average citizen
reacts only when the law is already instated or when actions are already in
its way.

It is my belief that the system works, but it does not work as it should.
What I mean is that what we are calling an airplane in actuality is only a
car. Once redefining the system it works. I will post some of my writings o=
f
my next book of political comment "This country does not work, we apologize
for the inconvinience"

Sometime in 1993 I attended a lecture by Tibor Farkas (friend of mine and
photographer). His lecture was called "reflections on some legal aspects of
photography". I will try to scan it and post it this weekend at
www.altamiracave.com . It is not a good Xerox what I have, but there is a
very good chart.

Not to extend this email a lot, you do your own law. You need to analize
what you want from your product and write it in a simple way as a contract.
Do not relay on laws that can be interpreted in many ways.

If you want to speculate on the future: Privacy!, not even your garbage wil=
l
be safe.  The University of Arizona offers a degree on "Garbology", the
study of the personal garbage in order to know the "true" consumer habits..=
.

Juan



--- Original Message ---
>From: ANAT-Anne Robertson <anne@anat.org.au>
>Subject: [forum1] Re: Denial is not a river in Egypt, mmh
>Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999