[Newspoetry] good time to start boycotting amazon.com

[sigfried at shout.net]

gillespie william k said:
> 
> 
> Being asked to boycott Amazon.com is like being asked to give up the first
> amendment. Being able to buy obscene, dissident, and otherwise
> semi-marketable literature - even through a creepy e-market economy and
> dubious corporations - is one of the fundamental definitions of a decent
> society. For me. There can be no desirable society without Kathy Acker
> - and easy access to her writing - pushing the boundaries of what's
> writeable. For me. 
> 
> So should I shop at barnes and noble dot com or borders dot com?
> Monopolizers, union busters, independent bookseller slaughterers?
> 
> I'd love to support my (one) local independent bookseller - even though I
> don't like their store very much - except that ordering books through them
> takes four weeks longer and I don't have a car to drive out there.
> 
> Also the taxes go to Savoy, which is only sort-of local.
> 
> Opinions? 

Well, there's fatbrain.com.  I'm sure there are a ton of others also.
Suggestions for good online book dealers?

The boycott is being organized by my new hero, Richard Stallman, who is
mentioned fondly in your colleague Milan's recent report from New York
on open source software (www.shout.net/~milan/research/post_bazaar_report.html).

About the first ammendment: no one is calling for shopping at Amazon to be made
illegal, just for a boycott protesting their attempt to prevent others from
doing business in the way they do.  The bigger issue is copyright and patent
law in general.  I don't yet have a proposal for replacing copyright law with
something else.  I think it's good for individual writers to be able to
control, to some degree, the use of their work--primarily to protect their
writing from being copied and distributed without reference or compensation
being given to them.  But when you're talking about general ideas and computer
programs, intellectual property in the hands of large corporations....
whoops -- this is not thought out at all and i gotta run...  anyway, what
do you think of copyright law?

s