Martin Luther King Jr Would Roll Over In His Grave...

     January 18th was, "Internet Freedom Day", something I didn't even know existed until 24 hours later. A celebration of the defeat of SOPA and PIPA. Propositions which would have regulated free speech on the internet. While this is a great thing that these initiatives were defeated, we're a long way from a truly free internet. As part of the celebration a website had posted Martin Luther King Jr's iconic "I have a dream" speech. Within hours though, that speech was taken down from the website Vimeo, presumably due to a "copyright" request from Mr. King's estate, (i.e. his family).

     Apparently it is very hard to find a full length version of his speech anywhere, unless you want to pay his estate $20 for it on DVD. It's my belief that Martin Luther King Jr. is rolling over in his grave right now, because of the way his descendants are prostituting his heritage. That speech was a milestone in civil rights in this country and should be available freely on something like the internet, which didn't even exist when that speech was made. Because of the greed of his family though, it is only available to those who want to pay for it. I've been a staunch advocate for rewriting the copyright laws in this country. They've been hi-jacked by corporations to "protect their intellectual property" and are now stifling true education and freedom of expression. Greed has become the over-riding factor in copyright law, and it needs to be rewritten so that important cultural landmarks don't disappear from the landscape.

Have you heard of SOPA yet?

If you haven't heard of SOPA yet, let me elucidate. SOPA stands for "Stop Online Piracy Act", and is legislation our congressional leaders (HA!) are thinking of passing. Stopping online piracy doesn't sound like such a bad thing, does it? Well, actually it is, the way this legislation would work anyway. Basically, SOPA would make it a felony to use someone else's copyrighted material in any way. Here's one way this scenario could go...

Imagine Grandma is watching her young granddaughter one day, she's 10. One of her favorite singers is Lady GaGa. She's playing "Edge of Glory" and starts lip-syncing to it. Grandma whips out her Iphone and starts recording her precious grandchild. She thinks the video is so cute, she decides to upload it to Youtube so that all her friends in her knitting circle can see it. The next day, Lady GaGa's record label, Interscope Records, catches wind of this video. Since they're the copyright holder for that song, they can have Youtube blacklisted so that no one can go there until the video is taken down, Grandma will be arrested and if convicted, spend 5 years in a state prison for the heinous crime of being proud of her 10 year old grandchild singing a Lady GaGa song!

Yes, this is the kind of legislation that our congress, (who can't even stop bickering long enough to give a crap about how our country is going to HELL) is thinking of making into a law. Let's make anyone who wants to sing a song or act out a scene from their favorite movie into a felon and lock them up for 5 years! After all, we don't have enough people in this country behind bars yet.