Monthly Archives: June 2012

Second MEP Response: Office of Paul Murphy

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I’m so excited. I just can’t hide it.

I just received my second MEP response and I have to say it’s feeling a lot like the days leading up to the overthrow of SOPA.

Dear all,

Many thanks for your email concerning the ACTA agreement. Over the last few days, we received hundreds of emails expressing opposition to ACTA. This proves that there is a huge movement against ACTA and it is very positive that this opposition is so active…

[For full pdf click here.]

There’s a global pressure wave heading toward ACTA and only now are pro-ACTA forces starting to feel it as their offices are being flooded with dissent, as people start to give a shit and do something about it.  Yay.  It’s not over, of course and I may have popped the cork prematurely (so embarrassing, I know) but I’m content to wait until July.

To Timeslide or not to Timeslide?

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I’ve got one counter left on my time-travel diskette.  If I use it now to watch fresh episodes of Fringe this fall, I’ll miss out on Breaking Bad premiering in July.  Hmmm.  An impossible decision if I’ve had one to make…  The best thing to do really is to max out the time-travel account, get to the end of recorded humanity and download all the good shows…just the shows.  How do I get back then?

Yup, completely surrounded. Welcome to my Culture War.

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For shits and giggles I’m on Chik-Fil-A’s “like” list on Facebook even though the company is run by homophobic religious assholes [oh wait let me add] in my opinion.  This little ditty in my feed caught my attention.

So I just did the most natural thing and spoke my truth.

I open the comments to see what other zingers I can find.  That’s when I realize for the 2 millionth time…

Maybe I should just give up and join them?

Maybe I should just join them…hold on..there.  I got it:

I LIKE PEACH.

But I secretly love banana.

Who wouldn’t?

Followup: Letter to and Response from MEP Amelia Andersdotter

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Shadow Rapporteur – Best. Job. Ever.

I sent a boilerplate letter yesterday to all the EU MEPs involved with ACTA that I acquired thanks to [falkvinge.net]  Here is the response I got roughly 24 hours later.

Let me also mention that this EU politician can schmooz you way better than any US/Texas politician I’ve had communications with.  After all, she is a Shadow Rapporteur [and she’s behind me right now making me type all of this hel-…]

Thank you very much for your message. As rapporteur in the ITRE committee, I was able to convince my colleagues to follow my recommendation to reject ACTA in ITRE. I will continue to campaign for the European Parliament to assume its political responsibility to its citizens and reject ACTA, without first referring it to the European Court of Justice. Therefore, in my role as shadow rapporteur in the INTA committee, I will present the manifold objections to ACTA to the members of the committee before the vote, and ask them to vote in favour of MEP David Martin’s report. 

As all committees that have already voted on ACTA agree, ACTA is a threat to human rights, it cements an outdated copyright regime and privatises law enforcement. The intransparent negotiation process of ACTA must not be accepted by the European Parliament. 

I would like to give my thanks to you and all other activists who speak up against ACTA. Without the overwhelming protest from the internet and from the streets, ACTA would not have gotten the necessary attention to facilitate an honest debate about its ramifications. People like you who keep up the pressure against ACTA can not be thanked enough, as you don’t rely upon ACTA being defeated after the successful votes in ITRE, LIBE, JURI and DEVE. Only after ACTA’s rejection in the plenary on July 3 to 5 can we afford to celebrate.

Thank you very much for your support and keep up the good work,

MEP Amelia Andersdotter

Defend your Castle: ACTA and why it’s bad.

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“The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties.”

-British MEP David Martin

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a multinational treaty that will establish an international standard for intellectual property rights enforcement. The agreement aims to establish an international legal framework for targeting counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet, and would create a new governing body outside of existing forums, such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, or the United Nations.

Why it’s bad –

This is a policy that has global implications [fine, everything has global implications these days].  It will set precedents and establish protocols that other countries will use to change their current standards of property rights enforcement [Ok, so it has the weight to effect how I use the internet.  I’m listening].  It’s being crafted behind closed doors with private monopolizing interests and its drafters consistently deny public access for commentary or critique [DANGER!].  If approved by INTA, the International Trade committee appointed to research the treaty and respond to Parliament, it will be a huge factor influencing Parliament’s final decision on July 5th.   INTA is scheduled to report it’s decision this thursday, June 21st 2012.

Who has INTA’s ear now during this important process? All negotiations thus far have been in private.  It’s got a lot of Europeans worried about the future of the internet and freedom of expression as law enforcement becomes the responsibility of private companies with little capacity to maintain a consistent sense of “public good.”

Now let’s put this all together, keeping in mind the U.S. is for this treaty (remember when it was called SOPA over here?)  SOPA was defeated primarily through a motivated and well organized citizen protest of letters, phone-calls to law-makers and Facebook updates to ignorant family and friends.  The corporate interest groups that created SOPA then hopped on a boat and went overseas to work its magic on Parliament.

“ACTA is a strategically insane proposal [to] create a binding legal obligation on the USA to require the US authorities to encourage the domain name registries, search engines, payment providers and other companies based there to undertake privatised enforcement measures.”

-Joe McNamee of the European Digital Rights initiative (EDRi)

ACTA can be passed without any form of public debate and will affect every internet user at some point.  Doesn’t that make you angry?    Will a corporation guarantee you due process if accused of file-sharing?

Maybe.

What if one of their corporate arms is steadily losing revenue from file-sharing and would greatly benefit from making an example out of you and your friends and family?

Where’s your due process now?  These are just hypothetical glimpses of what futures ACTA will be a part of if approved.

Read this article over on torrentfreak by Rick Falkvinge to get involved.  It’s a global issue.  Your opinion counts just as much as any Europeans’.

Stop the nonsense.

GoThrones: Dinklage on fans and success of show

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“Just kidding. I’m fine!”

Yay!

Tyrion isn’t dead and just got 3X more awesome with facial scarring [looks good on him!]  Now that the show’s second season is over, Peter Dinklage has taken the opportunity to make a statement.  He’s worried about fans’ inflated expectations getting in the way of a smart story.  Is he thinking too much or thinking just enough?  Credit to  Geoff Boucher, over on newsok.com.

Read more after the jump!

Bonus Round:

Oh, hey.  Here’s a question for you – Which is higher: the average viewer-share GoT, season 2 got per episode, or the average number of illegal downloads per episode?   The answer doesn’t surprise me.  It was the most downloaded show of the season.  Now only if HBO could monetize direct digital downloads!  Oh wait, they totally can but won’t.  Have fun losing market share, HBO, or simply get with the program and pioneer a direct digital download platform and ditch your antiquated premium-only strategy.  It ain’t working anymore.

Technology outpaced you over a decade ago.

Stop it!  Or not, whatever.

Should the UMG-EMI music label merger be stopped?

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UMG-EMI mergerI just received a petition from http://publicknowledge.org  to stop this merger that’s been making some press for at least the last month.  After reading the associated article, I knee-jerked and signed a petition.  Note to self: Stop jerking off so much.  You see, I may have just contradicted my principles and views on high level mergers.

Digital distribution of music is the future of music.  The CD is dead.  New platforms are being developed to compete with iTunes’ dominance of the market and a merger at this level will make competition all the more difficult for start-ups with little entry-capital; this hypothetical combined label will be able to set the barrier to entry at whatever level they see fit.  But on the flip-side a merger at this level may be a financial necessity to keep the two operating.  This brings up another point entirely:  Do they need to operate?

Even more alarming is that if the merger is approved UMG-EMI would control 40% of the music industry.

Great business move.

Now that I’ve thought about it, I remember that I was all for Sirius and XM to merge back in 2007 because I was aware both were struggling to stay afloat and could not survive as two separate companies and I desperately wanted at least Sirius to survive [I’m a huge Howard Stern fan.]  Well, it appears that the music industry is not what it was ten or even fifteen years ago due to lack of album sales [Go ahead, blame me.  Send hate mail to idtorrentthat@gmail.com!] and they may be in the same boat as Sirius and XM back when they were separate.  Keep in mind Sirius-XM is now combined and doing terribly.  Just take a look at their stock.  Suffice it to say maybe they have a point.  Or maybe they just need to go away and let the music industry reform itself.

Read more on this topic from Glenn Peoples on billboard.biz after the jump!