All day tomorrow, Wednesday, October 24, a bunch of people heavily involved in internet freedom causes -- from the SOPA fight to the Declaration for Internet Freedom to work around cybersecurity and the fight against ACTA/TPP are all teaming up for a giant Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything -- or, basically, a big Q&A session). I'm included as one of the folks taking part, but there are plenty of much more interesting people involved, including Alexis Ohanian (Reddit, HipMunk, Breadpig), Ben Huh (Cheezburger), Michael Geist (Canadian copyright expert), along with people from EFF, Public Knowledge, Public Citizen, Open Media, ACLU and a bunch of others as well. It's basically going to go all day, starting from 9am ET. So stop by, ask some questions, and talk about internet freedom... Update: The link to the AMA.
The folks over at ReasonTV have put together a great episode about the state of copyright law today. Hosted by Zach Weissmueller, the video includes three guests. Professor Tom Bell, who is well known for his useful depiction of the insanity of copyright extension via the Mickey Mouse curve, Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh, and the MPAA's Ben Sheffner.
There's a nice animation of the Mickey Mouse curve which is even more powerful than the standard image version:
Sheffner trots out the usual lines about property rights and how we're going to see less content going forward, which Bell rightly scoffs. The video then uses our Sky Is Rising report to highlight how silly Sheffner's claims are. Sheffner also has the unenviable task (because it's a despicable position to take) of claiming that site blocking is a perfectly reasonable solution. Go censorship!
It's also nice to see ReasonTV highlight the ridiculousness of copyright laws today by refusing to use any material covered by copyright to demonstrate certain points. So, rather than show Mickey Mouse, they show three revolving balls, and ask you to imagine how they might come together to form a mouse-like shape.
Is this an exaggeration of the restrictions in place today? Sure. They have a perfectly valid fair use claim to showing Mickey Mouse -- but they're being safe in an era where people are getting sued for the same sorts of things all the time. And, in an era where the MPAA argues, with a straight face, that blocking entire sites is a reasonable remedy, you can understand why they'd rather be safe than sorry.
The whole thing is worth watching, but the key point really comes at the end from Ben Huh, and it's a point that we've been raising for years:
This disconnect between the public's view of copyright and fair use and what should and should not be prosecuted vs. the copyright maximist's view of the law is our generation's prohibition. The law no longer reflects what the society believes to be true. And I think that if they continue to go down that route, they're going to see even bigger backlash.
This is such a key point, and one we've raised over and over again. The disrespect for copyright law today is not because people are uneducated or immoral. It's because copyright law just doesn't make any sense at all. It's so disconnected from reality and societal norms, that people can't respect it. The fact that the industry's response to this is to push to make the laws even more ridiculous and push them further away from people's natural tendencies, is only going to serve the opposite purpose of the maximalists' intentions. They are driving an entire generation into thinking that the whole of copyright law is entirely pointless.
Following on the news that Reddit will be blacking out its site for 12 hours on Wednesday, January 18th in protest of SOPA & PIPA, Cheezburger Network CEO Ben Huh has announced that all Cheezburger sites will be doing the same thing. I'm guessing that those who are unfamiliar with the massive size and reach of Cheezburger will scoff at this... but that would be a mistake. People love Cheezburger's collection of meme-related, meme-driving sites, and they reach a very very large population of folks who might not have already been aware of SOPA/PIPA.
