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Okay um. Things just got alarming.
14 years ago
As if my last journal on SOPA wasn't scary enough, have some more conspiracy-theory-level crazy that's actually true.
It all hinges around a company called Cnet. Yeah, Cnet, the company that's been distributing and enabling software like BitTorrent, Kazaa, and LimeWire for over a decade. The one whose little download widgets for that software got put on all of its subsidiaries' websites, like AOL (Time Warner) and Go.com (Disney). And which provided a search engine for free mp3s without any third-party sites - the right-click download links were on Cnet.
And guess who runs Cnet?
CBS, with support from Warner, Microsoft, and Disney. The very people trying to pass SOPA because piracy is such a big problem. The exact same people.
Oh, and don't forget, they didn't just distribute the software. They also explained (in various editorials that got cross-posted to MSN and stuff) how to use the software using various copyrighted songs as an example, and which ones were more popular, based on downloads of various copyrighted songs. And profited from it. They still are.
And at the same time, these companies behind Cnet were successfully suing the pants off of housewives and kids for pirating songs. Remember Joel Tenenbaum, the kid sued for hundreds of thousands because he downloaded about a dozen songs? Or the mom sued $1.9 million because she used Kazaa a couple of times? Yeah, you probably do, if you think back a couple of years. But you probably laughed and forgot about it because surely such cases would get thrown out of court today.
cough ahem SOPA. And all of the legislation that's been lobbied for in the past decade against online piracy leading up to it.
Does this look like a crazy conspiracy theory to you? What if I could provide a boatload of evidence (warning, that one's got an autoplaying video) so you can see it with your own freaking eyes.
Just a few days left, too, so maybe if we can tell Congress about this they'll sit back on their haunches and actually think about something for once. See second link there for info on how to do it.
It all hinges around a company called Cnet. Yeah, Cnet, the company that's been distributing and enabling software like BitTorrent, Kazaa, and LimeWire for over a decade. The one whose little download widgets for that software got put on all of its subsidiaries' websites, like AOL (Time Warner) and Go.com (Disney). And which provided a search engine for free mp3s without any third-party sites - the right-click download links were on Cnet.
And guess who runs Cnet?
CBS, with support from Warner, Microsoft, and Disney. The very people trying to pass SOPA because piracy is such a big problem. The exact same people.
Oh, and don't forget, they didn't just distribute the software. They also explained (in various editorials that got cross-posted to MSN and stuff) how to use the software using various copyrighted songs as an example, and which ones were more popular, based on downloads of various copyrighted songs. And profited from it. They still are.
And at the same time, these companies behind Cnet were successfully suing the pants off of housewives and kids for pirating songs. Remember Joel Tenenbaum, the kid sued for hundreds of thousands because he downloaded about a dozen songs? Or the mom sued $1.9 million because she used Kazaa a couple of times? Yeah, you probably do, if you think back a couple of years. But you probably laughed and forgot about it because surely such cases would get thrown out of court today.
cough ahem SOPA. And all of the legislation that's been lobbied for in the past decade against online piracy leading up to it.
Does this look like a crazy conspiracy theory to you? What if I could provide a boatload of evidence (warning, that one's got an autoplaying video) so you can see it with your own freaking eyes.
Just a few days left, too, so maybe if we can tell Congress about this they'll sit back on their haunches and actually think about something for once. See second link there for info on how to do it.
Yes, the boatloads of money, dinners, vacations and whatever else they are paid by lobbyists from Cnet and affiliated companies.
The US is as or more corrupt than 60% of the world, we just call it 'lobbying' and 'campaign funding' instead of bribes.