Daily Archives: January 15, 2012


+Tim O'Reilly really nails something at the heart of the SOPA/PIPA debate, what… 2

+Tim O'Reilly really nails something at the heart of the SOPA/PIPA debate, what is it we're really trying to fix? Before you try to implement a solution, make sure you truly understand the problem.

A project that I recently completed began its life as something quite different by trying to use a modern "solution" to address a non-existent problem. Once we identified something that could be done better, the whole direction of the project was changed and the result was that we produced something really cool and innovative.

While the politicians and industry supporters of these proposed bills talk about preserving jobs by curtailing piracy, no one has yet actually proven a real economic harm. As O'Reilly says, there is no arguing that fact people are consuming content that hasn't been paid for. However, there is a presumption from the supporters of these bills that in the absence of piracy, everyone of the people, watching, listening or reading would pay for that content. There is no evidence to actually support that theory.

If that is true, then breaking the internet and imposing a new censorship regime, would solve nothing and potentially create many new problems. Instead, we need to look at how to build upon the strengths of technology to create new business opportunities and jobs.

#sopa #pipa

Reshared post from +Tim O’Reilly

Before Solving a Problem, Make Sure You've Got the Right Problem

I was pleased to see the measured tone of the White House response to the citizen petition about #SOPA and #PIPA

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#/!/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet

and yet I found myself profoundly disturbed by something that seems to me to go to the root of the problem in Washington: the failure to correctly diagnose the problem we are trying to solve, but instead to accept, seemingly uncritically, the claims of various interest groups. The offending paragraph is as follows:

"Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders."

In the entire discussion, I've seen no discussion of credible evidence of this economic harm. There's no question in my mind that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying creative content without paying for it, and even that some criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there actual economic harm?

In my experience at O'Reilly, the losses due to piracy are far outweighed by the benefits of the free flow of information, which makes the world richer, and develops new markets for legitimate content. Most of the people who are downloading unauthorized copies of O'Reilly books would never have paid us for them anyway; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of others are buying content from us, many of them in countries that we were never able to do business with when our products were not available in digital form.

History shows us, again and again, that frontiers are lawless places, but that as they get richer and more settled, they join in the rule of law. American publishing, now the largest publishing industry in the world, began with piracy. (I have a post coming on that subject on Monday.)

Congress (and the White House) need to spend time thinking hard about how best to grow our economy – and that means being careful not to close off the frontier, or to harm those trying to settle it, in order to protect those who want to remain safe at home. British publishers could have come to America in the 19th century; they chose not to, and as a result, we grew our own indigenous publishing industry, which relied at first, in no small part, on pirating British and European works.

If the goal is really to support jobs and the American economy, internet "protectionism" is not the way to do it.

It is said (though I've not found the source) that Einstein once remarked that if given 60 minutes to save the world, he would spend 55 of them defining the problem. And defining the problem means collecting and studying real evidence, not the overblown claims of an industry that has fought the introduction of every new technology that has turned out, in the end, to grow their business rather than threaten it.

P.S. If Congress and the White House really want to fight pirates who are hurting the economy, they should be working to rein in patent trolls. There, the evidence of economic harm is clear, in multi-billion dollar transfers of wealth from companies building real products to those who have learned how to work the patent system while producing no value for consumers.

P. P.S. See also my previous piece on the subject of doing an independent investigation of the facts rather than just listening to the appeals of lobbyists, https://plus.google.com/107033731246200681024/posts/5Xd3VjFR8gx

Embedded Link

We the People: Your Voice in Our Government
WhiteHouse.gov is the official web site for the White House and President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. This site is a source for information about the President, White House …

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


Bill Moyers is back with a new take on the news magazine show he's been doing…

Bill Moyers is back with a new take on the news magazine show he's been doing in various iterations for many years. It's on public TV stations around the country and it's also available online at http://BillMoyers.com. The first edition is up now and Moyers and his guests take an in-depth look at how winner-take-all politics in America has created the largest degree of income and wealth inequality in over a century.

#billmoyers

Embedded Link

On Winner-Take-All Politics | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com
Bill Moyers explores how America's vast inequality didn't just happen, it's been politically engineered.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


It's time for those of us that appreciate freedom to fight back against big corporations… 2

It's time for those of us that appreciate freedom to fight back against big corporations that fund politicians. Form a super PAC to educate Americans about what is at stake and make sure that politicos understand what is stake if they continue to do the bidding of big business at the expense of their true constituents. Get involved.

#sopa #pipa

Reshared post from +Alex Lindsay

The Manifesto…

We've tried to ignore the problem… I tried to ignore the problem. I wanted to ignore the politics of the internet and, in many ways, politics itself. From a netizen point of view, Democracy often seems inefficient and ineffectual. But just because WE want to ignore it, doesn't mean politics wants to ignore us.

There are many groups who would subjugate us if they could. They would force us to pay every time we heard a song on the car radio, they would make sure we can't speak freely about their brand or their brand of government, they would exert complete control over our online existence.

As Netizens, we naively think that calmer heads will prevail and this has often been the case… but laws like SOPA and PIPA, which could potentially make the Patriot Act look tame if used to their fullest extent… continue to be paid for by big industry and pushed through congress. These acts are not just bad, they are unAmerican and more akin to something we would see in China or Iran… not here.

How does this happen? It's simple enough, Congressmen are paid to make laws that would oppress us. In the emerging world, this would be called "Corruption"… here it's called "Contribution". It's easy. These laws are complicated and their most of their constituents don't even know that their congressmen are involved or how these laws would affect them. The industries behind these laws are wealthy and spend lavishly on representatives willing to support them. Most importantly… there is little to no political pain for these representatives. They fill their campaign coffers with cash… if the bill fails, they keep the cash and it's quickly forgotten. If the bill passes, they'll get more money next year.

This needs to stop.

We can no longer expect our representatives, many of whom couldn't write an email on their own, to represent us without firm action. We can no longer depend on OUR means of discussion – Facebook, Twitter, and Email -l to express ourselves.

We need to fight these laws, and the lawmakers that would pass them, in their back yard. We need to earn their respect, and fear if necessary. We need them to know that supporting these bills has a political cost.

We need a sort of "Internet Protection Fund", a PAC, that is designed for a single purpose – To use every legal means to attack those who would attack us. To bring the fight to to their doorstep, their airwaves, and their TVs. We need to organize and focus the resistance.

Step 1 – Stop the SOPA and PIPA before they are passed through targeted boycotts, information campaigns, and letter writing campaigns.

Step 2 – Target those in Congress who support these bills and attempt to unseat them in the fall with internet, grassroots, TV and Radio campaigns. Congress needs to know that supporting these bills is no longer a blank check…it's no longer safe.

Step 3 – We need to build our organization BETWEEN elections, build its resources, and build its capacity to defend our rights… aggressively. This fight is about to intensify as the information age matures. We need to begin to take an active role in shaping our online future.

This is not a replacement for organizations like the Electronic Freedom Foundation… without whom we will be already be in virtual chains. This is the sharp end of the stick that comes when they are not able to negotiate our freedom. These are the troops that back up the political discussions with real, tangible, action.

This is not a replacement for Anonymous. They play harder than we will. We will keep our fight within the confines of the current laws. We will use every means within those laws to express the will of those we represent but we will stay well within the confines of the current rules.

We will play by the political rules that our opponents play by… not the ones we wish they would play. We will use our skills, connections and ability to organize online but we will bring this fight to their field and beat them there.

So now what do we do?

Step one: +1 this post and pass it on. If there is enough interest, the next steps will be somewhat obvious (begin the organization structure). Comment and let me know what you think and what you would do next. If there is enough interest… more posts will follow.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


What do you think? My site is going dark on Wednesday, but +Leo Laporte is in a different…

What do you think? My site is going dark on Wednesday, but +Leo Laporte is in a different position where he could actually help educate people.

Reshared post from +Leo Laporte

What do you think: should TWiT go dark Jan 18 to protest SOPA? Listen to my blog post then let me know what you think.

Embedded Link

Should TWiT blackout on Jan 18 to protest SOPA? : LOL: The Life of Leo

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


I was working on a special page to replace my blog at sam.abuelsamid.com on Wed,…

I was working on a special page to replace my blog at sam.abuelsamid.com on Wed, but this makes it a lot easier and automates the switchover with a redirect to the americancensorship.org page.

Reshared post from +Scot Hacker

Want to join the SOPA #blackout on January 18th? Running WordPress? Here's how to have your site black itself out, then turn itself back on, right on time:

Make a backup copy of your index.php

Overwrite the contents of index.php with the code below. When the time comes, every page on your site will automatically redirect to http://americancensorship.org/infographic.html

<?php
/**
* Front to the WordPress application. This file doesn't do anything, but loads
* wp-blog-header.php which does and tells WordPress to load the theme.
*
*@package WordPress
*/

/**
* Tells WordPress to load the WordPress theme and output it.
*
*@var bool
*/
define('WP_USE_THEMES', true);

/** Loads the WordPress Environment and Template */

date_default_timezone_set("EST");
$start_time = mktime(8,0,0,1,18,2012);
$end_time = mktime(20,0,0,1,18,2012);
$timenow = time();
if (($timenow > $start_time) && ($timenow < $end_time)) {
header("Location: http://americancensorship.org/infographic.html");
} else {
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
}
?>

Embedded Link

American Censorship – SOPA InfographicAmerican Internet Censorship is Real and Happening — Stop it!
A bill that is very likely to pass will let government and corporations censor the internet, take down sites at the behest of corporations. My favorite sites and friends have to step up now to help st…

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


As is so often the case, Dan Gillmor nails it

As is so often the case, Dan Gillmor nails it

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

Over on Twitter, Rupert Murdoch is tweeting up a storm about SOPA, accusing Google (and other SOPA opponents) of all kinds of BS.

I'm wondering: Did he learn how to lie in 140 characters from his papers' headline writers, or vice versa?

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.


Stephen Colbert super PAC goes on the attack against alleged serial killer Mitt Romney…

Stephen Colbert super PAC goes on the attack against alleged serial killer Mitt Romney in South Carolina

#indecision2012

Embedded Link

Colbert Report: Colbert Super PAC Ad – Attack In B Minor For Strings
Mitt Romney has a secret.

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.