Free Talk Live

We already know that content providers don't care one bit about hard-fought concepts like freedom and privacy, but the joint proposals by the RIAA and MPAA to the US Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator really blew my brains out: monitoring software installed on people's computers, border inspections - it's all there, and then some.

A campaign to send the RIAA/MPAA billions of dollars! Well, copies of dollars anyway because they believe a copy is as good as the physical thing.

Just last month millions of Americans rallied to defeat SOPA and PIPA. However, something worse has crept in the back-door and may not be able to be repealed. In October 2011, President Obama signed an international agreement called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA.

The Center for Copyright Information (CCI) is part of the group's controversial "graduated response" effort: a partnership between Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, the MPAA, RIAA, and others that will enforce copyright claims against customers by serving them with warnings and escalating penalties.

With ACTA Dead, TPP Shapes Up To Avoid The Same Fate

The internet is still rejoicing after last week’s win over ACTA. The European Parliament overwhelmingly voted down the treaty which effectively kills it for the time being. It will be back later, but the Internet can celebrate another win for now. While our friends in Europe our celebrating, the U.S. must still be on the offensive in regards to the ever elusive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

"A bunch of folks sent over MPAA interim CEO Bob Pisano's incredibly misleading defense of the COICA censorship bill written recently for TheHill.com. It's amazing how many misleading or outright false statements Pisano was able to fit into a single piece but it's a testament to the level to which the MPAA must go through to support its plan for internet censorship"

MPAA is unhappy with the planned blackout of major sites in protest of SOPA. Wait, isn't that what they are trying to do? So...they are upset because THEY are not doing the blacking out??

President Barack Obama’s embrace of a national database to store the DNA of people arrested but not necessarily convicted of a crime is heartening to backers of the policy but disappointing to criminal-justice reformers, who view it as an invasion of privacy.

"Music labels and radio broadcasters can't agree on much, including whether radio should be forced to turn over hundreds of millions of dollars a year to pay for the music it plays. But the two sides can agree on this: Congress should mandate that FM radio receivers be built into cell phones, PDAs, and other portable electronics.