by Michael Finley
Copyright © 1996 by Michael Finley

It's a dismaying feeling because we were all convinced they wanted to be friends, they were going to be big, but not mean, and there would be a place in the new world order for all of us.

Sure there would, if you consider being on a platter with a sprig of parsley under your nose "a place."

This week the techno news is doubly dismaying because the little guy is taking it from two directions at once.

First comes the report that UUNet, the world's largest provider of Internet service, and the backbone or big brother to thousands of smaller Internet Service Providers (ISPs), is raising its rates in a deliberate effort to chase small ISPs -- mom and pop Internet companies -- out of the business.

Under the new deal, smaller, slower ISPs -- will pay from $2,000 to $6,000 to connect with UUNet. Since UUNet is the industry leader, other big carriers will likely follow suit. Result: if you're a small company with "good enough" equipment, it's probably not good enough any more, so bye-bye. And if you're currently happily connecting through one of these mom and pop operations, like I am, you may soon be shopping for a new provider among the extra large providers surviving this purge. Say bye-bye to the generosity and flexibility ("You can have as big a website as you want, no extra charge") typical of these small providers.

Hold on, it gets more interesting.

The other report, found at the website for online magazine C-Net (http://www.c-net.com), detailed the increased litigation going on online, with big companies like Kmart, Disney, Microsoft and America Online bringing their big corporate feet crashing down on tiny sites whose great crime was putting up a bit of art they liked, or a few paragraphs of beloved prose, or a splenetic tirade about a former employer. Examples:

If you're a lover of M.C.Escher's weird drawings, and you posted some on your website, imagining that any copyright on this 60-year-old art had expired, think again. Escher's estate has sold the rights to a CD-ROM publisher, and is bullying every site that has put up Escher images to take them down, or to severely limit their use.

If you're a lifelong admirer of J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye (the favorite book of four out of five unbalanced loners), the agent of the author will come a rapping on your virtual door. By all accounts, the reclusive and seemingly indifferent J. D. Salinger has the most ruthless agent of any living writer.

If you worked at Kmart over the summer and found it wanting as a career experience, and decide to post your own personal "Kmart Sucks" profile online, describing the personal habits of your immediate supervisor and the existential tawdriness of life under the blue lights, that long shadow over your lawn will be the giant red K come to discuss trademark infringement with your parents.

What is happening is that the wild west giddiness of the web is giving way to a place where virtual ambulance chasing copyright attorneys can do searches for the 1,000 places that use some proprietary image or text -- a picture of Mickey Mouse, even when it is being used satirically -- and send everyone letters threatening lawsuits from Walt Disney Corp.

This isn't Apple vs. Microsoft, or Pepsi vs. Coke. It's the Goliaths vs. the Davids, and the Goliaths are piling on.

The effect is to cast a horrible pall over freedom of expression, and the sense that the little guy can coexist in cyberspace with the big guys.

The examples are ridiculous:

Time Warner, owner of the rights to Batman memorabilia, has sued a Texas rock band using the name Riddle Me This, contending people will assume the band is associated with the summer blockbuster Batman and Robin.

Even more absurd, Toys R Us went ballistic when it came upon a website with the easily confused name of Roadkills R Us.

No reasonable person would confuse Toys R Us with Roadkills R Us, but yet the company makes a scene anyway, like a big baby, saying that if it doesn't protect its trademark it loses its protection, as happened to Xerox, Kodak, and Frigidaire.

Uh huh. Last I looked, those trademarks were somehow still in effect. Love those lawyers!

The "net effect" of all this bullying is to create a realm in which small, unique, interesting voices are not heard except when they tow the corporate line.

The new world order will be something along the line of McDonalds, where ordinary people are free to buy hamburgers or cook them, but only the clown is allowed a voice.

And I say it stinks.

Michael Finley has just learned that Techno-Crazed, much of which appeared first in these pages, has been remaindered. Console Mike by writing him at mfinley@mfinley.com, or visit him at http://mfinley.com.