ACTA

New Anti-SOPA Song & Crowdsourced Video From Dan Bull

by on December 20, 2011 @ 8:40 am · 0 comments

in Anti-Statism, Education, IP Law, Police Statism, Pop Culture

I noted previously a brilliant music video, “Death of ACTA,” by Dan Bull. (More on ACTA, which has unfortunately now been signed by several countries.) Now he’s back with a new one, in a very creative attempt to fight the evil Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. As Mike Masnick notes in this Techdirt post (see below),

Perhaps even more interesting, however, is how the song and video came together. After deciding he wanted to write a song about SOPA, he reached out to his followers on Twitter, asking for “help with themes and lyrics.” After getting a bunch of ideas, and realizing he should do something different for the video, he went on Facebook and asked for volunteers to take photos of themselves holding up signs with the various lyrics… and tons and tons of people jumped at the chance. The whole video was put together over the last few hours, and the whole effort is pretty impressive.

Incidentally, Leo Laporte, host of TWiT, and Denise Howell, host of TWiT’s This Week in Law, in recent episodes have been heroic in opposing SOPA. In the most recent TWiT show, Laporte makes a strong argument in favor of Internet freedom and against limiting it in the name of copyright, in contradistinction to Nilay Patel, who takes a more mainstream and confused “balancing” approach. And in a recent episode of TWiL, where most of the commentators and guests tend to be anti-SOPA, lawyer Marty Schwimmer was invited on to defend the need for SOPA or something like it; Howell admirably dissents.

[C4SIF]

Here’s Masnick’s post:

New Anti-SOPA Song & Crowdsourced Video From Dan Bull

from the sopa-can-ban-ya dept

We’ve written about UK singer Dan Bull a bunch of times, highlighting his various songs that often cover copyright issues. His latest is an anti-SOPA song and video, called SOPA Cabana (take a wild guess what that’s a reference to). Check out the video here first, and read on below about the video and why it’s interesting (beyond the music/lyrics):

First of all, what strikes me as most interesting about this is that Dan’s not in the US, but the UK. But he recognizes how this law being debated in the US can have a significant and dangerous impact around the world. In talking about his reasons for doing a song about SOPA, Dan noted that “SOPA is abhorrent on three fronts:”

Firstly, it threatens the future of the internet, which is something far more valuable both commercially and socially than the entertainment industry ever has been, or ever will be.

Secondly, creativity is all about interpreting and re-imagining what you see and hear around you. The idea that creativity exists in some kind of vacuum, and that you’re not a real artist unless you can make something “completely original” is not only stupid, it contradicts the most fundamental axioms of how the universe works. Everything is influenced by something else. If we want a richer cultural landscape, we should embrace remixes, embrace mashups, and embrace sharing, not cling to ideas as pieces of property.

Thirdly, the internet is an amazing new forum for free speech and holding those in power us to account. The idea that governments and even private corporations can police the internet and decide what people on a global scale are allowed to say and hear is tyrannical.

Perhaps even more interesting, however, is how the song and video came together. After deciding he wanted to write a song about SOPA, he reached out to his followers on Twitter, asking for “help with themes and lyrics.” After getting a bunch of ideas, and realizing he should do something different for the video, he went on Facebook and asked for volunteers to take photos of themselves holding up signs with the various lyrics… and tons and tons of people jumped at the chance. The whole video was put together over the last few hours, and the whole effort is pretty impressive.

Dan Bull is a musician. The entertainment industry and the lobbyists supporting SOPA insist that they’re doing this to protect people like Dan Bull — but Dan is quite reasonably scared of what this law will do to his ability to succeed online. Dan Bull is as well known as he is because of the internet, and his ability to share his works wherever and however he likes. SOPA would make that a lot more difficult. It doesn’t “protect” Dan Bull. It helps destroy the careers of folks like Dan Bull by limiting their ability to create, promote, distribute and communicate.

{ 0 comments }

Kinsella on Intellectual Property and Economic Development

by on July 30, 2011 @ 9:02 pm · 0 comments

in (Austrian) Economics, Anti-Statism, IP Law, Libertarian Theory, Podcasts

My Mises University 2011 lecture, Intellectual Property and Economic Development (July 27, 2011), is now up. The audio may also be downloaded here; the original PowerPoint slides are here. Streaming audio and a googledocs version of the slides are below.

~*~

Play

{ 0 comments }

Stop the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)

by on April 11, 2010 @ 2:41 pm · 10 comments

in IP Law, Mercantilism, Protectionism

I blogged a year ago about the “Secret intellectual property treaty [that] could profoundly change life on the Internet.” At the time, the text was still secret but it was believed that the treaty: “seeks to set forth standards for enforcing cases of alleged copyright and patent infringement.” Now, as Cory Doctorow notes in How ACTA will change the world’s internet laws, the text has been leaked. This thing is bad. America and the west have long tried to extend the reach of their mercantalist IP laws — they use the WTO to twist the arms of other countries, etc. (see, e.g., my previous posts Hatch’s “International IP Piracy Priority Watch List”; IP Imperialism (Russia, Intellectual Property , and the WTO); Russian Free Trade and Patents; Bush Wants More Jailed Citizens in Russia and China; China, India like US Patent Reform).

The ACTA is also similar to another arcane law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which, under the guise of protecting “property rights,” snuck in provisions that criminalize even the mere possession of technology that can be used to circumvent digital protection systems (see, e.g., my post TI Uses Copyright Law to Attack TI Calculator Enthusiasts). Likewise, under the guise or protecting property rights in inventions and artistic works (patent and copyright), it “seeks to provide legal authority for the surveillance of Internet file transfers and searches of personal property”. As one group notes, “ACTA goes way, way beyond the TRIPS (the copyright/patent/trademark stuff in the World Trade Organization agreement), creating an entirely new realm of liability for people who provide services on the net”. More invasion of personal liberty and property rights in the name of false, artificial property rights.

So the ACTA is like a hybrid of previous efforts: it is as abusive and insidious as the DMCA, and covers patents as well as copyrights. And it will apply worldwide. This is culmination of America’s efforts use of the WTO to extend western style IP rights worldwide. As Doctorow notes, this is “a radical rewriting of the world’s Internet laws, taking place in secret, without public input. Public input? Hell, even Members of Parliament and Congressmembers don’t get a say in this. The Obama administration’s trade rep says that the US will sign onto ACTA without Congressional debate, under an administrative decree.”

For detailed comments on the ACTA, please see the following report:

James Love, Comments on ACTA Provisions on Injunctions and Damages (pdf), KEI Research Note (Knowledge Ecology International, April 6, 2010).

[cross-posted at Mises blog]

{ 10 comments }