How YOU Can Protect Internet Free Speech

Josh King, reporting for Gigacom.com ("How to Protect Free Speech, June 16, 2012):

The Stop Online Piracy Act may have been shut down at the eleventh hour, but free speech on the Internet continues to come under attack. In addition to "son-of-SOPA" (which we will surely see in the coming year, under a different name), the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and a host of proposed regulations at the state level have taken aim at the open Internet.

In response to these threats, the Internet Defense League is launching in the coming weeks. Building on the efforts that brought SOPA to a screeching halt, the league aims to fight against bad laws and restrictions on online expression, wherever they may arise.

As general counsel for Avvo, a social media startup that offers an expert-only Q&A forum and profiles and ratings of lawyers, doctors and dentists in the U.S., I've seen firsthand how those with the means to do so will exploit any opening possible to try to silence speech they do not like. I've responded to hundreds of lawsuit threats and lawsuits against Avvo on grounds ranging from privacy to commercial misappropriation to unfair competition to copyright or trademark infringement — all for activity that is soundly protected by the First Amendment.

The takeaway is simple: any attempt to regulate speech online — whether in service of "stopping piracy" or "defending against cyberattack" — must be ruthlessly interrogated for how it will be abused. Because it will be abused. Those with censorious impulses will push the four corners of the law as far as possible to silence speech they don't like.

It is depressingly common to see the mere threat of a lawsuit cause a withering of speech online. It's vitally important that we recognize and call out the certainty that even well-intentioned laws that impact expression will be used as a bludgeon against the open expression of information and ideas online. In addition to opposing SOPA and its ilk, here are three areas where companies can take a stand to protect free speech on the Internet.

Read the rest of King's important article:

===================================

Ray Bradbury, A Writer's Writer

I discovered Ray Bradbury in a trash can. On my way home from grammar school, I saw that someone had discarded some yellowed, worn 1970s paperbacks. I salvaged all the true ghost stories and horror fiction anthologies. One Berkeley paperback contained Bradbury's "The Small Assassin," the tale of a mentally mature infant who plots his mother's murder. (Think of The Family Guy's Stewie.)

People forget that Bradbury, known for his science fiction, was also a horror writer. With "The Small Assassin," I became a lifelong Bradbury fan, whatever his story's genre.

I first met Bradbury in 1992, at a Malibu, California book-signing. (His, not mine). He loved my trash can story. One would expect the author of Fahrenheit 451 to rejoice at people rescuing any books from landfills, incinerators, or recyclers.

Read the rest of the article in the Hollywood Investigator.

======================================

Actors Union Erased Dr. Who Episodes -- Forever Detroying TV History

The BBC destroyed the master videotapes to dozens of Dr. Who TV episodes because Equity (the British actors union) feared that TV "repeats" would compete with new TV programming -- and thus reduce the number of jobs for actors.

According to Daniel J. Flynn of the American Conservative (May 16, 2012):

Actors' guilds, state television, and mindless bureaucracy combined to do what enemies like the Master, the Cybermen, and even the Daleks never could: exterminate the Doctor. Arriving in 1963, at the peak of automation fears, "Doctor Who" became a casualty of labor's Luddite preoccupation with machine replacements. Britain's actors' guild, the nation's last purely closed shop, prohibited more than one re-broadcast of any program, lest its members lose work to on-screen facsimiles of themselves. The musicians' union and other trade guilds imposed similar restrictions. So '70s-era employees of the state broadcasting behemoth, imagining neither a world without a closed shop nor one with the VCR, trashed, lost, and wiped all of the series's '60s-era masters. The Doctor, like so many of that decade’s characters, was there but can’t much remember the 1960s.

This shocking example of how a labor union, in a misguided attempt to destroy competition, instead forever destroyed episodes from a classic TV show, is also reported in Wikipedia:

The actors' union Equity had actively fought against the introduction of TV recording since it originally became a practical proposition in the 1950s. Prior to the development of workable television recording, if a broadcaster wished to repeat a programme (usually a one-off play), the actors would be re-hired for an additional fee to perform it again live. Equity's concern was that if broadcasters were able to record the original performances, they would be able to repeat them indefinitely, which would cut down on the levels of new production and threaten the livelihoods of its members. Although Equity could not prevent recording altogether, it was able to stipulate that recordings could only be repeated a set number of times within a specific timeframe, and the fees payable for further use beyond that were deliberately so high that broadcasters would consider it unjustifiable to spend so much money repeating an old programme rather than making a new one. Consequently, recordings whose repeat rights had expired were considered to be of no further economic use to the broadcasters.

Because of these misguided labor practices -- similar to how today's actors unions support Big Media's expansion of copyright -- many of these classic TV episodes remain unavailable for viewing, though a few "lost episodes" have been found.

==================================

Is Actor Will Smith a Homophobe?

When a male reporter kissed actor Will Smith on the cheek -- and kept on kissing him, ever more intimately -- Smith shoved the reporter away in obvious disgust.

Is Smith's action homophobic? Some bloggers and tweeters say Yes!

The Hollywood Investigator says No! Smith's action does not make him a homophobe.

If a man was to grab and kiss a random woman (who didn't even know him), and she shoved him away, the woman would not be considered a heterophobe. Indeed, feminists would say that the man had criminally assaulted the woman.

Yet some "progressives" advocate a double standard. Women have a sacred right to say no to a man, but men must allow other men to grab and kiss them, else they are homophobic.

We support Will Smith's right to his own bodily integrity. It's his body, his right to decide who touches it.

===================================

Distributor Seeking "Completed Family Films"

York Entertainment is currently seeking "completed family films."

According to York Entertainment president Tanya York, in an email to the Hollywood Investigator: "Our buyers network and territory reps are reporting that there's a high demand for 'family' genre films worldwide, so if you have a completed family film (or know someone that does) please submit it to us.

"Submission forms and information can be found at YorkEntertainment.com."

============================

Priscilla Leona Interviews Screenwriter Justin Samuels

Last June, the Hollywood Investigator reported that screenwriter Justin Samuels was suing Creative Artists Agency and the William Morris Agency for racial and sexual discrimination.

Since then Samuels has continued writing. His latest novels include Mother of Witches and Macchu Picchu As a journalist, he's covered the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is one of the topics of his blog.

Priscilla Leona recently interviewed Samuels on her radio show. The young writer discussed "How to get your first book published" and "How to sell your book online."

Why Celebrities Should NOT "Shut up and sing!"

Talk radio motormouth Laura Ingraham's silly soundbite -- "Shut up and sing!" -- conveys an attitude shared by many on the Lunatic Right.

Imgraham is suggesting that Hollywood entertainers should entertain -- and leave politics to the experts. Like, presumably, Laura Ingraham.

But it's a hypocritical soundbite. Even an idiotic, offensive, and anti-American soundbite.

Now the Hollywood Investigator's Mimi Brickmeyer explains why!

===========================