Chris is the head of the MPAA now. He must have promised his Hollywood producer bosses that he could push SOPA through Congress, and he’s pissed:
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.
Calling Wikipedia a “technology business” and its users “corporate pawns” doesn’t quite rise to the level of Chris’ predecessor, Jack Valenti, who famously said “the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” But give the guy time, he’s only been on the job for a few months. (I’d tell you exactly how long he’s been on the job but Wikipedia is blacked out, so I can’t.)
Michael D.
Wikipedia is still up. You just need to hit the Escape button before the site goes black.
Josie
I love the way these bought and paid for politicians turned lobbyists toss around the term “irresponsible.”
Raven
He was especially critical of Wikepedia this morning comparing them to a child throwing a tantrum.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Josie:
It’s almost… irresponsible of them! :)
Chris, like most other pols, is for sale to whoever will pay his bills. Stick a quarter (million) in him and he performs. Need lies? No problem at all for Chris and his kind, lying is a way of life for them.
I’m glad he’s out of Washington D.C. We need more like him in that regard.
PeakVT
@Michael D.: Or you can disable Javascript for the site (which you can do on a per-site basis with YesScript in FF).
Egg Berry
Hmmm, like the MPAA and RIAA?
mistermix
@Raven: Pot meet kettle.
Danny
So, how about a constitutional amendment ending corporate personhood?
Snarki, child of Loki
Ignorant assholic hollywood greedheads.
They don’t own the internet, they don’t understand it, they don’t get to say what we do with it.
Offshore your DNS, and then for every “www.example.com” that is blocked in the US, set up “www.example.com.chrisdoddgoatfucker.com” that points to it.
Mudge
Let’s see..the MPAA is pissed with the status quo. These are the poor wittle movie studios who are suffering due to the abuse of power by Wikipedia and such. Their suffering can only be eased by Congress. Yet Dodd wants the parties to “work cooperatively together” so that the MPAA can achieve its every goal.
The MPAA sounds like the Republican Congress. Compromise means letting us get our way.
ET
Doesn’t this apply to the members of the MPAA?
PurpleGirl
(I’d tell you exactly how long he’s been on the job but Wikipedia is blacked out, so I can’t.)
I ran up against this a few minutes ago when I wanted to check a fact about who founded AIG because a press release for Walker’s fundraiser hosted by Maurice Greenberg claimed Greenberg founded AIG. What I remembered from dealing with The Starr Foundation, was that Cornelius Vander Starr founded AIG under the name C.V. Starr and Company and that Greenberg was its long time CEO. I was able to pull up enough references in Google itself to confirm that. (The issue as I saw it at The Mahablog was PR flack’s laziness in not checking out AIG history.)
Napoleon
I hate Dodd with a white hot passion. He is everything that is wrong with the Dem. party brought to life.
Bob
Chris Bayh, Evan Dodd, fuck ’em.
NobodySpecial
Come now, I’m certain that Mr. Dodd is the best we can do in that area, and yelling about it will just mean they appoint a Republican instead.
FridayNext
@Egg Berry:
Abso-fucking-lutely. For the head of the MPAA to say that is the height of hypocrisy. Those people have spent good money on their politicians. How dare they go straight to the people with their lobbying. That’s not how we do things around here.
rikyrah
fuck Dodd
Schlemizel
FWIW – The Cato web site has a story up attacking the $775B figure being tossed around for the cost of piracy. They come up with $450M.
Its an interesting data point plus its nice to see Mr. Kaelin has been able to make something of himself once he moved out of OJ’s garage.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@NobodySpecial: Nice try, but I didn’t get to vote on Dodd.
one two seven
This is why I have trouble calling myself a Democrat anymore.
Comrade Dread
He’s just upset that his normally bought and paid for brethren are pausing to consider the emails, letters, and calls they got from angry constituents about this piece of crap legislation.
Keep it up, folks.
Ken J.
Dodd’s new job is making me embarrassed to be a Democrat. Our side was supposed to be better than that.
Plus, one of my recent heroes is Darrell Issa. Ugh.
Davis X. Machina
I remember when Dodd was a progressive hero for his filibuster of the immunity-for-telcos provision of the RESTORE Act.
max
I remember when Dodd was a progressive hero for his filibuster of the immunity-for-telcos provision of the RESTORE Act.
Heh. Seems like he’s basically on the same side of the issue here: the telecom companies get the screws, everybody else gets a walk.
…said the man with an entire arm up his ass, wincing as the hand squeezed his liver.
rikyrah is right. The only correct response is ‘fuck him’.
max
[‘Shouldn’t this also be International Talk Like a Pirate Day?’]
JPL
@Michael D.: Sure you can but why would you. Wikipedia is educating us all on what’s in the bill. The NYTimes blog showed the same way to circumvent the protest but took time to explain concerns. There’s a great comment by a musician who is opposed to the law because of the wording in it. link
lol
@Davis X. Machina:
I remember when Chris Dodd was the “go-to guy” for the Netroots.
Gin & Tonic
@Davis X. Machina: I remember that, too. Unfortunately, I also remember contributing to his Presidential campaign. I want my money back.
Davis X. Machina
@lol: It’s amazing how, knowing that in 2007, Kossacks can still claim daily to have been blindsided, and disappointed, by a stealth-conservative Obama four years later.
I’ve seen less trimming and tacking in office by Obama than any other President in my lifetime. (Not that he’s not a trimmer — he’s a trimmer from way back.)
Roger Moore
FTFY.
burnspbesq
@Danny:
Would appreciate it if you would explain how that particular piece of nonsense would contribute to the solution of the particular problem at hand.
burnspbesq
I never liked Dodd. Only by comparison to the other Senator from Connecticut did he ever look remotely good.
ronobot
C’mon mistermix, Wikipedia is not the internet: http://mpaa.org/about/ceo (“Appointed in March 2011”)
Walker
Dodd was always a bought-and-paid-for crook. The brief period where he was a “progressive hero” always felt like an act to me.
Bob
@ronobot: I bet you $10,000 mistermix was making a joke.
Paul in KY
I do know that when I purchased my VCR I stopped going to as many movies (at the movie theater).
Love being able to pause to go to the bathroom & you can’t smoke a doob in the theater.
Bob
@Paul in KY: Yeah, but that is not what this brouhaha is about. Is it?
Danny
@burnspbesq:
The problem at hand – narrowly understood as the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation – is best dealt with as per Tim F.’s suggestion.
The larger problem of Big Business outsized influence on U.S. politics – manifested in an incentive structure that make individual politicians, like Chris Dodd, carry water for business interests – is best dealt with by a) putting better people on SCOTUS, and b) pressuring congress to change the law.
I’m pointing to the best long term strategy to permanently rid us of the perverse incentives that keep giving us politicians like Dodd.
JGabriel
Chris Dodd:
Wait. Let’s get this straight. Former Senator Dodd wants Congress to pass legislation that forces the government to treat as guilty, with little to no chance to prove themselves innocent, anyone the entertainment industry accuses of any copyright infringement — fair use be damned — and has the fucking gall to accuse the non-profit Wikipedia of abusing corporate power?
Chris Dodd, let me be one of many to tell you to go fuck yourself with a thousand virus-infected sharp needles.
.
Villago Delenda Est
Someone call a tumbrel for Dodd. He needs a close shave.
Bill K
@PeakVT: You can also add, ?banner=none ,to the end of the wikipedia URL address to get around the blackout
Villago Delenda Est
@ET:
You know, guys like Dodd never bother to look at it that way, because they’re paid very well not to.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bill K:
I dare say that the workarounds to get into Wikipedia are a clever demonstration of just how bogus the legislation is.
“The internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.”
Too bad for the luddites of MPAA and RIAA.
Schlemizel
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/18/chris_dodds_paid_sopa_crusading/singleton/
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Dodd says he still doesn’t know what he’ll do come January 2011, when, for the first time in 36 years, he will no longer be a member of Congress. But he has ruled out one option.
“No lobbying, no lobbying,” Dodd said in a recent interview. That Dodd would forgo a trip through Washington’s “revolving door,” using his policy and political expertise–and a thick Rolodex–to launch a new career in the influence industry, may come as a surprise.
JGabriel
Salon via Schlemizel:
Isn’t there a law that says former MoC’s aren’t allowed to lobby Congress for two years after leaving office?
.
redshirt
Sadly, this is the inevitable result of Empire. Power and money are so great, so towering, that most folks will sell out anything in order to grab a slice. And the folks in power and with the money know this, and wield all the influence they can in order to remain so.
waratah
I had withdrawal pains this morning when I saw Google blacked out, then relief when I realized it was black arm band in sympathy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel:
OK, roll that clip from Godfather III, Biff!
Schlemizel
@JGabriel:
technically he is not a lobbyist, he is the CEO of MPAA. Thats the problem when you try to legislate basic human decency, honesty and integrity there are always some smart guys who will figure out a way around the law.
Paul in KY
@Bob: Mr. Valenti’s comments were mentioned in the post.
I may comment on them if I please.
gex
The 1%ers love this bill too, not just Hollywood. The right took over radio, TV, cable, newspapers, and billboards. They need to control every single method of distributing information or they can’t keep getting people to vote for their own serfdom.
kindness
So sign all the petitions people. At least the good ones.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Danny:
Well, sure, but corporate personhood isn’t what creates those incentives. There are other issues with it, but not this. Even without it, all of the financial incentives remain the same. Some people will still make money off of IP, and they will still make contributions to politicians. They will even still form groups to lobby Congress.
Sentient Puddle
@JPL:
Because I’m already quite educated about the bill?
I may be alone in this, but sites going total blackout today (or at least trying to) really rubs me the wrong way. How is it any different from all those moronic libertarians who threaten to go Galt?
Ken J.
@Sentient Puddle:
Because the point of today’s “blackout” is to spread the news, raise the alarm.
handsmile
Less than a footnote really to this matter, but the reason that Chris Dodd is now Hollywood’s chief peddler is that Bob Kerrey, former Nebraska senator and rumored as a possible candidate for Ben Nelson’s seat, was unable to agree to a contract with MPAA’s board. (It had to do with perquisites, not anti-lobbying principles.)
Quick summary: Having alienated the faculty, staff, and student body of the New School University and achieving only modest success as a fundraising “rainmaker” while serving as the university’s president, Bob Kerrey was looking for a new job in early 2010. Despite having no experience in the motion picture/television industry (nor for that matter in higher education) and despite being out of Congress and Washington for a decade, Kerrey was selected was by the MPAA board to be its new CEO. Announcements were made. But to everyone’s embarrassment, contract negotiations foundered.
Fortunately for them, the newly-unemployed Chris Dodd was eager to hawk the less glamorous wares of the dream factory’s merchants.
And Kerrey may yet return to the Washington kennel with the other Blue Dogs.
slag
@Schlemizel: I’m glad there’s a law. Even if the Chris Dodds of the world find ways around it, at least a law indicates that we, as a society, don’t condone such things.
And I remember back when Dodd was fighting the good fight on telcos. I’m starting to get paranoid that supporting civil liberties is the last resort of scoundrels.
Ryanayr
Well, the Creationist Wikipedia (http://creationwiki.org/Main_Page) and Conservapedia (http://conservapedia.com/Main_Page) are both working…. So if you need to write a report on the recent existence of dinosaurs (http://creationwiki.org/Dinosaur) you’re in luck!
Villago Delenda Est
OK, no one has done this yet in the thread, so I’ll do it now:
Dodd smash! Dodd smash!
slag
@Sentient Puddle:
Well, for starters, they’re actually doing it rather than making empty threats. And, for finishers, them going Galt actually does have an impact on our lives unlike all those moronic libertarians.
Ever heard of a boycott? A sit-in? Direct action?
Benjamin Franklin
@redshirt:
The Internet has brought a spotlight, an almost instantaneous focus on what, and how these assholes work. I would want it hobbled too, if I were them.
A Humble Lurker
@NobodySpecial:
Yes. And…?
The Moar You Know
Glad to see Dodd is still whoring for anyone with a few bills to rub together. What a disgrace to humanity.
Villago Delenda Est
@Benjamin Franklin:
DING DING DING DING DING
The Intertubes are threatening to cut out the middleman. The artists going directly to the customers, without need of an intermediary.
The intermediaries quite correctly see this as their doom. In the words of Governor William J. Lepetomane, they need to protect their phony baloney jobs!
burnspbesq
I’m in the bizarre position of having my Neanderthal Wingnut Congressman being better on this issue than either of my two Senators. It’s so strange to think that writing to or calling Royce might make a difference.
I’ll get to Royce later. First, I need to figure out a polite and non-profane way to ask Boxer and Feinstein if they are out of their fucking minds.
Drive By Wisdom
Heh, so much fashionable hate for the former limousine hero-liberal. In short course, you will all be speaking truth to power about Blarney Frank and lapping up some third-string Kennedy no one has ever heard about.
Benjamin Franklin
@Drive By Wisdom:
about Blarney Frank and lapping up some third-string Kennedy
Roger Moore
@Sentient Puddle:
Because Wikipedia is providing something of great value that easily could be destroyed by the legislation they’re proposing, as opposed to nothing of value that won’t be hurt much by the stuff the Galtian Geniuses are bitching about?
Benjamin Franklin
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s why I support Wikileaks. Let the chips fall where they may.
Transparency is KIng
Sentient Puddle
@Ken J.:
OK, but I’d wager that the community who uses Wikipedia, by and large, are already aware of this legislation and its effects. I’m not impressed by preaching to the choir.
@Roger Moore:
And wasn’t Atlas Shrugged roundly mocked for who unrealistic that whole idea was?
Mnemosyne
@Sentient Puddle:
So labor unions should never go on strike because that’s what the idiot Galtians did in Atlas Shrugged?
People mock the idea that the Galtians actually provide a valuable service to society that would be missed if they went on strike, not the idea of strikes in general.
The Moar You Know
@burnspbesq: Darrell Fucking Issa, the douche one district up from me, who has been an asshat his entire career is fighting the good fight on this. I’m having some very confused feelings about him at the moment.
Feinstein is a total loss on this, but I expected that from California’s Republican Senator™. Boxer is also a total loss on this, I kinda expected that too but hoped she’d see the light. Oh well.
The Moar You Know
@Sentient Puddle: The greatest users of Wikipedia are high school students, who in general are not aware of this at all.
However, they can’t vote.
Nonetheless, the “stunt” has driven Dodd into a foaming rage, so good on them.
gaz
@Drive By Wisdom: Glenn Greenwald, is that you?
burnspbesq
@The Moar You Know:
Tis hold-your-nose time. Hakeem Nicks is a gaddam Tarhole, but as long as he’s a Giant I can hold my nose and cheer for him. Once he leaves the Giants, he’ll be just another gaddam Tarhole, and I will root for a meteorite to strike him. Same deal with Issa.
JGabriel
@The Moar You Know:
I doubt that. Kids hack, pirate, and post copyrighted photos on their blogs, etc., without permission, all the time. I’m sure a fairly large percentage — say 30-40%, just to pull a number range outta my ass — knew about PIPA/SOPA even before today’s blackout.
Of course, there’s still a lot of people who are hearing about it for the first time today, due to the various blackouts. So I’m sure they are having some effect.
.
Sentient Puddle
@Mnemosyne: I’m not seeing the parallel between unions deciding to strike and Wikipedia making a top-down decision to go dark.
Mnemosyne
@The Moar You Know:
If it’s any consolation, he’s only fighting because it lets him tout himself as standing up against the eeeeevil warpers of children’s minds in Hollywood, not because he actually believes in internet freedom.
Not that I’ll reject his help, but I’ll stay clear on what his motive is for taking the side that he has.
Ron
@Sentient Puddle: I think this is just wrong. Wikipedia is used by “internet users” at large, not just the people in the know. And of course they aren’t the only ones doing something. Google isn’t “dark” in the same way Wikipedia is but they have something up as well.
JGabriel
@Sentient Puddle:
Not that alone. There’s also the poor writing, the one-dimensional characters, the rape fantasies, the appalling dialogue, the ethical cluelessness, and the advocacy of greed and evil in general that are all roundly mocked too.
.
Mnemosyne
@Sentient Puddle:
Strikes are not spontaneous bottom-up action. They’re called by the union leadership. So if your problem is with top-down decisions, you need to hate labor union strikes as well.
Though I’m wondering who you think would be making the “bottom-up” decision for Wikipedia. Would the users vote on making it go dark? The employees?
Ken J.
The Great Orange Satan had the best piece I have seen today, from a film worker in Hollywood who opposes SOPA:
[couldn’t make the link work, but it’s Recommended over there…]
Confessions-Of-A-Hollywood-Professional:-Why-I-Cant-Support-the-Stop-Online-Piracy-Act
Quote:
Roger Moore
@Sentient Puddle:
No, or at least not primarily for that. It’s mocked for the idea that a few great creators at the top are the ones responsible for all the good stuff, so that a loss of a few creative geniuses would wreck everything. When we mock Atlas Shrugged and Going Galt, we’re mocking the idea that we’ll really miss a few rich bastards who decide to withhold their productivity. ETA: We’re also mocking the people who are threatening to Go Galt for believing that they’re genius creators, when they’re mostly people who push money around for a living or work in other highly paid but non-creative work.
If anything, Wikipedia is great evidence of how absolutely wrong the Atlas Shrugged viewpoint is. It’s a fantastically useful place that was created primarily from the bottom up. Yes, Jimmy Wales started the place, but the actual content that makes it so useful is crowdsourced. The result of a bunch of ordinary people cooperating is a resource that couldn’t be created by a lone genius in a hundred lifetimes.
Mnemosyne
@Mnemosyne:
Slight correction to myself: there are such things as “wildcat strikes,” which is when the union members go on strike without the approval of the leadership. So, Sentient Puddle, is your argument that only wildcat strikes are legitimate and any strikes called by union leadership are illegitimate?
Benjamin Franklin
Issa, Cantor?
This is Alice in Wonderland where up is down.
http://www.redstate.com/neil_stevens/2012/01/18/sopa-and-protect-ippipa-an-update/
Danny
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Yeah, IANAL so maybe the issue of corporate personhood is a red herring.
What I was getting at, though, is that congress having the right to regulate political spending – and using it – is the best way to moderate the incentives that give Big Business way to much influence on U.S. politics.
Unfortunately, Citizens United found that congress right to regulate political spending is severely limited by the First Amendment.
So why not propose an amendment that explicitly gives congress back the right to regulate political spending; gives congress back the right to tweek those incentives we’re talking about through legislation. Next step would be strengthening McCain-Feingold to further lessen corporate ownership of U.S. politics.
Meadrus
Wikipedia isn’t even remotely blacked out. It’s a Javascript re-direct from the home page to the protest page. As noted in the first comment, just hit ESC when the page first loads. Or, if you are using Firefox with the NoScript plugin, you will not even notice — I had to actively grant the page Java permissions in order to see the black page.
So any complaints about whether Wikipedia should or shouldn’t have “gone dark” are completely beside the point — it does indeed seem to be some sort of meta-comment on the futility of online censorship, or a test of basic user knowledge.
It does make Dodd’s tantrum look even more ridiculous, though.
Amanda in the South Bay
@burnspbesq:
Become a fancy upper middle class lawyer like you and instantly become an expert in all things political and legal?
Someguy
Dude was on TV this morning lying his fucking ass off that nobody’s rights will be harmed by SOPA/PIPA. He ought to just go back to his fat assed Irish country estate that Angelo Mozilo helped him buy.
The idea that this is about people who know how the internet works versus those who don’t, isn’t quite entirely true.
I suspect that the recording industry, the villagers and the movie industry know full well how the internet works. They just don’t want little fuckin’ noisy pipsqueks like us using it to voice our opinions, make fair use or derivative works from their stuff, or to read any of their materials located anywhere other than behind an expensive pay wall. You look at the NYT’s subscriber model, the litigation factory that AP just stood up or Righthaven, and you’ll have a pretty good idea at what they’d like to get going.
That they’ll be able to silence any dissent that quotes a primary source from the villager media (or from their own political ads) is just an added benefit.
shortstop
@JGabriel:
I don’t think the truth of the first sentence necessarily leads to the accuracy of the second.
JGabriel
@shortstop: Of course not. It’s the fact that it was pulled out of MY ass that makes it accurate. On the other hand, I’m willing to concede, per Tyrone, that it’s possibly only 27%.
.
shortstop
@JGabriel: Well, my nephew just surprised me by knowing about it, so based on my statistically valid sampling of one, you may be right.
Ken J.
@Benjamin Franklin:
The Red State link is worth reading. The author is thumping his chest about how True Conservatives were willing to take on their own side’s politicians on this, while he accuses us liberals of “free-riding” on the issue.
Right now it looks like Republican legislators are getting all of the press for backpedalling on previously-expressed support for SOPA/PIPA.
I’ve written multiple times that Internet control issues like this one have the potential to bite the Obama reelection campaign in the ass, hard, with their young voter/digital native support, a demographic which went about 80% for Obama in 2008. Right now I think the GOP is getting the better of the argument for the young voter.
Hypothetical: “Psst, Obama and the record companies are wrecking the Internet, pass it on.”
Benjamin Franklin
@Ken J.:
I’ve been a little puzzled at conservative reluctance to take a stand, either way.
Of course I don’t walk point on all their blogs, but that’s what I haven’t seen
If they were for it, they certainly would be on it like Romney is on corporate carrion.
Josh G.
The decision to black-out Wikipedia wasn’t a “top-down decision.” There was a poll on it a while back and the consensus among editors was very strongly in favor.
satyr9us
@handsmile:
That is laughably bad history.
Kerrey never sealed the deal with the MPAA because he couldn’t be bothered to work himself into fantods pimping their nonsense, which is a job requirement (cf. Dodd, Valenti).
He was decidedly never a Blue Dog. He led the opposition to the flag burning amendment, and he was one of a handful of Senators to vote against DOMA.
I don’t love his entire record, but what are you gonna do? We’re talking about Nebraska. Kerrey is the Democratic Party’s ONLY hope of retaining that seat in a cycle in which Republicans are expected to make gains (wave bye-bye to North Dakota, for starters). But he’s still gauging the temperature and hasn’t committed yet. Do you want us to keep the Senate, or don’t you? Be sure.
Ken J.
I see bloggie posts all over the place confirming my view of the reactions to yesterday’s protests, where Republicans loudly announced retreat from pro-SOPA positions and Democrats mostly hedged:
Republican brand: We stand for Liberty!
Democratic brand: How can we avoid pissing off our Hollywood campaign contributors?
Like I’ve been saying, hypothetically, for some time: “Psst, Obama and the record companies are wrecking the Internet, pass it on.” Say goodbye to the “digital native” vote, say hello to President Romney.