apple juice

This article on TechDirt gives the best overview I’ve found yet about the problems with the language in SOPA and PIPA.

Advertising giant GroupM recently asked its entertainment industry customers to compile a list of “sites dedicated to infringement,” not unlike what’s found under PROTECT IP. Universal Music, Warner Bros. and Paramount were three key providers to that list, which ended up covering a large number of perfectly legitimate sites including the famed Internet Archive (widely recognized as the library for the internet). It also included numerous innovative startups that are frequently used by content creators to get their works out, such as SoundCloud and Vimeo. Even more worrisome, it included a variety of publications and blogs, including Vibe Magazine, the quintessential hip hop and R&B magazine founded by Quincy Jones, as well as Complex, a popular lifestyle magazine recently recognized as one of the most valuable startups in New York.

This is my favorite example in the article:

Even worse, it appears that Universal Music also included the personal website of one of its own top artists, 50Cent. The hiphop star has a personal website as well as a website owned by Universal Music. The personal website is much more popular… and it appeared on the infringement list.

I really hope that there is a side effect of this bill: creative people will realize that they don’t need their publishers to get their work out there. (Or if they already realize it, they will act!) What Louis C.K. recently did on his own site serves as a model for any person looking to sell their work – you don’t need the middle man! I think you’ll increasingly see artists of all types reject the existing structure and go directly to the people via the internet. Radiohead, in 2007 did this as well with the album In Rainbows:

In Rainbows is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was first released on 10 October 2007 as a digital download self-released, that customers could order for whatever price they saw fit, followed by a standard CD release in most countries during the last week of 2007