This is an accurate illustration of an important point in the defense of free culture against Intellectual Monopoly.

It is also deeply disturbing.

Show it to anybody who needs some basic orientation in anti-monopoly arguments against IP. But only if you also want to creep them the hell out in the process.

(Via Kent Hastings 2010-07-15.)

(Via Cerpn @ Google Reader.)

Kids around the country are getting high on the internet, thanks to MP3s that induce a state of ecstasy. And it could be a gateway drug leading teens to real-world narcotics.

At least, that's what Kansas News 9 is reporting about a phenomenon called "i-dosing," which involves finding an online dealer who can hook you up with "digital drugs" that get you high through your headphones.

And officials are taking it seriously.

Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs spokesman Mark Woodward told News 9.

I-dosing involves donning headphones and listening to "music" — largely a droning noise — which the sites peddling the sounds promise will get you high. Teens are listening to such tracks as "Gates of Hades," which is available on YouTube gratis (yes, the first one is always free).

Those who want to get addicted to the drugs can purchase tracks that will purportedly bring about the same effects of marijuana, cocaine, opium and peyote. While street drugs rarely come with instruction manuals, potential digital drug users are advised to buy a 40-page guide so that they learn how to properly get high on MP3s.

Oklahoma's Mustang Public School district isn't taking the threat lightly, and sent out a letter to parents warning them of the new craze. The educators have gone so far as to ban iPods at school, in hopes of preventing honor students from becoming cyber-drug fiends, News 9 reports.

— Ryan Singel, Threat Level (2010-07-14): Report: Teens Using Digital Drugs to Get High

So no, in case you were wondering, there is no bottom to this cognitive barrel: absolutely no drug panic so flimsily contrived that narcocratic Officials won’t use it as an opportunity to issue breathless press statements pleading for greater social control, or so obviously manufactured and transparently idiotic that the responsible gatekeepers of the newsmedia won’t gravely report about the Alarming New Trend, the worried reactions of Concerned Parents & Teachers, and the pressing need for Officials and Concerned Parents to be even more proactive in freaking the hell out, obsessively spying on their sons’ and daughters’ pastimes, taking away teenagers’ possessions, and controlling teenagers’ behavior. It’s not just that you don’t need to demonstrate that anybody is suffering, or even could possibly suffer, any kind of physical harm. The drug scare doesn’t need to involve any actual drugs; apparently it doesn’t even need to involve a physical substance. Or anything but the most tangential connection to basic facts of human physiology. A drug scare story without any drugs nicely distils the one really important feature of every drug scare story: all that you need to work up an adult panic is to find enough teenagers in one place (one or two on YouTube will do) who are trying to convince themselves that they’re having a good time without an adult’s prior approval — if some teenager somewhere is experiencing pleasure, never mind the cause, that alone is reason enough to call the narcs and issue yet another story leading off As if parents of teenagers don’t have enough to worry about…

So here, we find a whole gang of Responsible Adults holding positions of community authority — professional narcs, journalists, teachers and parents — all of them freaking the hell out because some teenagers somewhere might be trying to convince themselves that they’re having a good time listening to MP3s of binaural beat meditation music. A new craze? Sure, evidently there is a craze going on here. But who is it that’s acting crazed?

The politics of fear are the most dangerous mind-altering substance on the market.

• rechelon on “With agorist friends like these, who needs class politics?” or “Yo dude, I’ll trade you some land for a pack of smokes!” reddit.com: what's new online! (2010-07-12). If we're going for that kind of snide visual humor, a part of me has always wanted to take a photo of a fat dude in a han solo costume and macro it: "Agorism: Your pot dealer thinks he's Han Solo." (Linked Tuesday 2010-07-13.)

• Police Violence Caught on Tape? Videographers Jailed. www.jesusradicals.com (2010-07-13). In the early 1990s, video emerged out of Los Angeles showing a mob of police officers beating a black man, Rodney King, who was clearly subdued by their power. That was a wake-up call to the nation–particularly white people–that "officer-friendly Mayberry" has never existed for black people. The shocking footage… (Linked Tuesday 2010-07-13.)

• Netflix Tries to Fix One Part of the Patent System – Updated. Groklaw (2010-07-11). There’s a very interesting case, Media Queue v. Netflix, where Netflix is asking the Federal Circuit to revisit the standard for awarding attorneys’ fees. Here’s their appeal brief [PDF]. It would like the court to create parity between plaintiffs and defendants. Right now, the system tilts to help plaintiffs recover… (Linked Tuesday 2010-07-13.)

Here’s an interview with Joe Peacott, one of the founding members of the Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade (1986-1999), now of BAD Press and Anchorage Anarchy. Enjoy!

(Via William Gillis @ /r/Anarchism .)

• How we talk about the president: A quick exploration in Google Books. John Mark Ockerbloom, Everybody's Libraries (2010-06-20). On The Online Books Page, I've been indexing a collection of memorial sermons on President Abraham Lincoln, all published shortly after his assassination, and digitized by Emory University.  Looking through them, I was struck by how often Lincoln was referred to as "our Chief Magistrate".  That's a term you don't… (Linked Friday 2010-07-09.)

• Nibbling Away. Daily Brickbats (2010-07-09). The War on the Informal Sector (Cont’d.): $2,000 to sell salsa. (Linked Friday 2010-07-09.)

• Leave It to the Professionals. Daily Brickbats (2010-07-09). Government Vs. Public Safety and Human Decency (Linked Friday 2010-07-09.)

• Unity and Fragmentation. Ranil Dissanayake, Aid Thoughts (2010-07-08). I was in Cape Town last week for the World Cup, and watched the Ghana – Uruguay quarterfinal in the FIFA Fan Fest there, together with several thousand supports from South Africa and abroad. For those who have missed it, Ghana lost in controversial circumstances, and the trend of blatant… (Linked Friday 2010-07-09.)

• Ideas That Stick With You. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-07-10). Under the feudal system, rights to one's person were alienable (swearing fealty to a lord was irrevocable) while rights to land often weren't (a feudal lord couldn't sell his estate, as it belonged in perpetuity to his heirs) – the exact reverse of the rights system that most libertarians advocate…. (Linked Saturday 2010-07-10.)

• {takebacktheland.org} ONE DC Liberates Land in Nation's Capital. Max Rameau, takebacktheland (2010-07-10). VIEW FULL STORY PICTURES AND NEWS CLIPS ON TAKEBACKTHELAND.ORG http://www.takebacktheland.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=newsstory&newsletterID=162Metro DC police plan to evict community from Tent City on Monday July 12 Community organization ONE DC "liberated" a vacant lot in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC on the afternoon of Saturday, July 10, 2010. The contentious Parcel 42,… (Linked Saturday 2010-07-10.)

• We agree it's WEIRD, but is it WEIRD enough? gregdowney, Neuroanthropology (2010-07-10). The most recent edition of Behavioral and Brain Sciences carries a remarkable review article by Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine and Ara Norenzayan, !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;The weirdest people in the world?' The article outlines two central propositions; first, that most behavioural science theory is built upon research that examines intensely a narrow… (Linked Saturday 2010-07-10.)

• SISTERSONG, SPARK, and SisterLove Defeat SB 529. INCITE! Blog (2010-07-11). Victory in Georgia. (Linked Sunday 2010-07-11.)

• the politics of apology. bfp, flip flopping joy (2010-07-09). i read this post by macha at VL, and just about threw up. i'm just sick, sick, watching those videos. (long story short, a woman was attacked by men for talking shit about men she slept with). the videos show the attacks on this woman—one is of men slapping her,… (Linked Sunday 2010-07-11.)