Over the last two months more people have heard or had discussions about copyright, the Internet, and piracy than ever before.
Former Senator Chris Dodd, who used to be known as the good senator from Connecticut because he was not Joe Liberman, has broken his promise not to become a lobbyist, becoming enemy of the Internet #1 as chairman for the MPAA.
Should the bad guys win, it’s possible that the music industry will be able to extend their YouTube takedowns to include gems like this, because, hey, without the Beastie Boys the parody never could have been inspired in the first place.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJa5X3L5Cr4]
This is what is at risk: the complete subjugation of the Internet to protect legacy industries which are run by people who are not willing to adapt to the modern world.
People have pointed to the success of Louis C.K. and Paulo Coelho as just the first of many content creators to use the Internet to bypass the traditional distribution models and more are on the way. If we keep up the pressure and don’t let Congress turn America into China and the Internet into a shadow of itself.