Yesterday wasn’t fun for me. I lost money, and lost a lot of fun. I lost ad revenue from people coming to my tiny little corner of the internet and clicking on an ad or two. Reading a funny post or learning a thing or two. Perhaps  listening  to the podcast that was supposed to record live last night. I’m not a hard hitting news site, and we all know this. This is where you come for a very niche brand of bad humor, good gadgets and fun. This isn’t a place for political machinations. Hell this isn’t a place that  usually  uses the word machinations… let alone spells it right both times.

This was the response from former congressman, and now MPAA chief Chris Dodd on Yesterday’s Strike
“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.” ~Chris Dodd

Abuse of power? or a showing of strength. I can’t think companies would give up revenue and annoy their uses for no reason.

“If 50 people, yes 50 people a day walk in an sing alice’s restaurant and walk out… then, that, my friends is a movement” ~Alro Guthrie

With all apologies to Arlo for  shoving  the quote out in a hamfisted way, we have a movement. And people are starting to learn what is happening behind the closed doors in  Washington. An educated populace is a dangerous one. You can’t kill a movement.

There are 94 million reasons for the Congress to listen to the MPAA, all of them fronting George Washington. None of those reasons has anything to back it up beyond a old fashioned payoff.

The reasons to keep the internet as it is are much more concrete. The bills as they stand break functionality, will loose people big and small real money and don’t add anything to the equation, in fact the process that the bill would  implement  would basically set us back years in terms of productivity and cooperative and  collaborative  work. The DCMA is a fine way to take down content that infringes upon people’s rights. It works, it has oversight. And the onus is on the copyright holder to  complain  if they feel their work is being  misused.  

SOPA / PIPA would allow the US Government to shutdown sites first, without a hearing. Upon  receiving  a  complaint.  What says the party in power doesn’t use this to shut down a particularly explosive story about one of its members, keep it out of the news long  enough  to win an election. This is censorship, plain and simple. This is not protecting jobs this is controlling information.

No one is defending piracy. We are rejecting censorship, in any form. Instead of standing up an old business models, innovate. Instead of locking people into content streams and milking them for money at every turn allow them to own their content and take it with them as they see fit. The piracy will go down. People quite simply don’t want to buy DVD’s or disks of any sort. they want files, and will pay for files, as long as the files can be played where they want them to play.

If you post a video with a song in the backround, under these laws you could go to jail for up to 5 years… does that sound like protecting american jobs?

Movies have not lost their revenue due to piracy, but because  going  to the movies is expensive and the economy sucks. Movies need to be really good for people to throw down coin in a down-turned economy. And that is just logic.

SOPA and PIPA are great examples of how things are really broken in our government. The constituents stand up and say they don’t want something to pass, it shouldn’t pass. Government by the people, not by the bank. A business does not get to vote, and does not get calls it an abuse of power? No my friends we elect people to make that laws. the congress shouldn’t be taking their ques from companies.

SOPA lives—and MPAA calls protests an “abuse of power”.