Petition signed by several hundred people:

The Honorable John Ashcroft
Attorney General of the United States
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Ashcroft:

We are artists, technologists, scholars and consumers...individuals on the
Internet, united by the human will and the common bonds of friendship. Through the simplest desire to seek knowledge, to communicate thoughts ranging from humble to grand and from the absurd to the majestic; we unite daily through this remarkable network, Americans joined with people from all over the Earth. Strong in hope, with faith in freedom and democracy, we share a common connection extending far beyond our physical presence.

We speak as one.

Today, we write to urge the United States Department of Justice to see through the transparent pleas of multinational entertainment conglomerates that beg the Department to "vigilantly enforce the institution of copyright". It is our contention that these businesses have re-defined this key clause of the Constitution through passage of questionable law and now are seeking to exert a disproportionate control over global media by that convenient re-wording. We call on you to protect the future of the global Internet; some would say the future of human consciousness that hangs in the balance as you decide to marshal your forces, for or against it.

To wit, the US Constitution, in Article I, § 8, clause 8, states that:

"The Congress shall have power... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..."

And the US Constitution, in Article I, § 8, clause 18, states that:

"The Congress shall have power... To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing...."

Before there was the option of a global Internet, entertainment businesses controlled the stage for musical, television and cinematic arts. By controlling the movement of cultural products through both creative and distribution gateways, prices could be established and charged to the consumer whose choice was limited to the availability provided through retail mediums. The multinational conglomerates owned the means of duplication, promotion, and distribution. They metered those flows to draw the highest profitability, thus established ownership, for all intents and purposes, of society's cultural heritage. The formula for maintaining maximum earnings dictates limited availability of product, therefore, consciously or unconsciously, entertainment industries had, in effect, an interest in actually slowing the advance of science and the useful arts.

Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the case of the Internet.

With its advent, an entirely new form of thinking came into being. The far-reaching and chaotic network, instantly on and unable to be controlled, has become a bedrock communications foundation that works on principles exactly opposite to traditional market forces, especially with respect to entertainment. In place of exclusivity, the Internet is about including any willing participant. Its media and promotion filters from the downside up, where entertainment's world works upside down. Traditional entertainment businesses require much more money to control media, whereas on the Internet anybody with a PC has a voice limited only by self-initiative. The natural result has been a watershed of independent thought. People communicate one-to-one, as well as one-to-many and many-to-one. The dialog takes place across borders, up and down society's ladder and right to left across humanity's broad horizon. The topics of conversation are widely diverse and far-reaching. The use of media is random and uncontrollable. It is about human communication, emotion expressed through the sharing of words and such artifacts as pictures, movies and music. Thought is shared globally and it is in the sharing that the greatest pleasure is felt.

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