SOPA

This blog will not be going dark today to protest SOPA.  LanceMannion.com is not anyehere near up there with Wikipedia.   Congressmen and Senators do not read my blog.  They read letters.  I wrote mine.

They also answer phone calls.

Comments

[Ken Houghton]

Apparently, some of them don't even do that:

Incidentally, NY Tech Meetup plans a rally against SOPA and PIPA, today from 12:30 to 2 PM, at the New York City offices of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, both of whom support PIPA and both of whom have, so far, refused to personally meet with opponents of the bills.

But at least it's a reminder to do something good with the extra time.

[actor212]

I went black, but more because I've got a busy day than SOPA.

[Earl Bockenfeld]

Pirating material from the internet is illegal. It has always been that way. The issue is that the big companies want to employ the government as their own private security firm. If you live in NYC you can not store your cash in a shoe box on the sidewalk and expect that the police will set up a guard to protect that cash.

Intellectu­al property, by its very nature, is difficult to protect. Curtailing everybody'­s rights because the cost for companies to protect their property is too high, is not right.

With Wikipedia now back in operation, we learn that in the early 1900s, motion picture production companies from New York and New Jersey started moving to California because of the good weather and longer days. Another reason was the distance of Southern California from New Jersey, which made it more difficult for Thomas Edison to enforce his motion picture patents. At the time, Edison owned almost all the patents relevant to motion picture production and, in the East, movie producers acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents. Thus, movie makers working on the West Coast could work independently of Edison's control. If he sent agents to California, word would usually reach Los Angeles before the agents did and the movie makers could escape to nearby Mexico. Hollywood was created to pirate technology, so now they want to wreck the internet to make a few more bucks. "Former Pirates" don't deserve the right to create another harmful "War on Piracy" with the wrecking of the Internet as an "Unintended Consequence".

"Paid fairly for a day's work" is the key remark there but the copyright laws have enough bite to them already. The "billions" being lost by copyright holder's is a bogus number. It's not like everyone who posts a video of their kids birthday party will become a signator of an ASCAP or BMI contract, so they can post the party-goer­s signing "Happy Birthday" on YouTube.