In addition to yesterdays’ “Free to Tweet” post, it appears that good buddy Chris Dodd is on the doll for the movie makers to the tune of 1.5 million. This of course is in addition to his “retirement” from public “service” paid for by us truly. As usual, follow the money and it will lead you down the path of convoluted, intertwined relationships that exist to “get things done”.
It seems that licensing is almost double the income of movies with no almost outlay, how cool is that? Except for those pesky streamers, Netflix, Amazon, Google, Apple and YouTube, it could be even more. From The Hollywood Economist;
“Enter Dodd. While technically prohibited from lobbying Congress until 2013, he can provide guidance to the MPAA’s massive D.C. lobbying operation. And as a former chairman of the Democratic Party and former head of the Senate Banking Committee, he knows how the who-gets-what system in Congress works.”(Highlighting mine)
This site (opencongress.org) gives you contact info and where the individual representatives say they stand on these bills, contact info and the totally nifty feature of logging your call (initial link I found provided by EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) a site I think bloggers should become familiar with). Reading the comments from people who have actually called is amusing, frustrating and enlightening as to how the political system works, all in one place. It seems to demonstrate, again, how if you can hear only what you want (gee, didn’t get that call, voice mail full, no answer, etc), you get the outcome you desire. I have called on some issues and gotten the same problematic response at all my reps offices, local and national. Wow. You have 3-4 state locations, a national office and there is no one available to take a call? On a non-holiday? Just before a vote? What are all those staffers doing?
Maybe, like the Governor of Kansas, those staffers are busy seeing if a teenager is tweeting about him. What a great job, cruising the social media all day to see if someone is saying something about the boss. This article by Storitfy shows how this is possibly the very reason why some want the internet harnessed, it is powerful. The reactions on both sides are fascinating. That a governor’s office actually;
-uses tax dollars to pay people to screen for this is stupefying
-that his office complained even more so
-that they care about what a teenager says in their personal arena scary
-that they contacted the school, the principle called her in and ordered her to apologize, to a string of people, for her OPINION, scary—-
Then it went viral, even Forbes picked it up, go figure! The crux of the matter is freedom of speech, period. Use it or lose it, freedom isn’t free.
P.S. I’ve just see where SOPA has been “tabled” for the time being, but PIPA is alive and well. Neither are gone so keep your eyes open.
