It is our opinion that in 2012, the copyrights of content creators are effectively useless in the current lawless state of the Internet in the United States. Just about every song, movie, book, software package or video game ever made is available for free on the Internet in the United States with almost no consequences to the distributors who are breaking the law. Just go to a search engine and enter movie name, band name, software name and the word “download” after it and you’ll have it in moments. For the US broadband subscriber purchasing content is now essentially an option and every creator from a sole practitioner to the largest media corporation has to compete with free links to their products on for-profit pages driven by internet advertising.
The irony is that the United States taxpayer paid for much of the equipment and research that built the Internet from 1968 to well into the 1980s and then through the National Science Foundation that built and ran the “dot com” lookup and registration system until Network Solutions took it over in the early 1990′s.
Is this what the tax payers invested in? A system that provides tremendous profits for people who facilitate the illegal distribution of the products of several of America’s most prolific industries?
Let your representatives know that you do not agree with distribution without compensation on the internet, that you believe that the creators of content decide who can profit from distributing that content and that the US government is there to enforce the rights of private property owners.
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml
Additionally, this debate is being DECIDED on the web. If you are not engaged, you are being overrun. When the cases come before judges, their law clerks will start by researching these issues on Google. These courts will already be in possession of legal briefs filed by groups working everyday to eliminate your rights. And yes, there are now United States judges that appear to believe that property rights on the internet are a “barrier to innovation” and “unenforceable.” Intellectual property rights have DRIVEN investment and innovation for centuries. The advent of weaker IP rights over the last ten years has clearly demonstrated that this shifts the profits from smaller declining content markets to a few unfairly compensated tech gatekeepers. As a quick reminder, the Internet companies work together to block IP addresses that broadcast spam – they could do it with illegal file distribution. If your voices are not out there on the Internet, you will not be heard.
Set up a Google alert for the word “Piracy” and watch how carefully executed the Copyleft’s disinformation campaign is every time the Congress or anyone tries to stand up for the rights of content creators.
Log in to the discussion boards on these articles and refute the legions of people advocating that they now have a right to your property.
Get a twitter account. https://twitter.com/ and search for #piracy. Counter the attacks on your rights.
Show up at panels at industry conferences and counter the pronouncements of these people.
Email journalists who write highly biased and inaccurate articles about your industry.
This web site has the facts and citations – get them out there.
Stand up for your rights.