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5-10-12
Dear Rep Zoe Lofgren and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer:

3. Copyright
   All information contained on this site is copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 by Truth Publishing Inc. (“Natural News”). All rights reserved. The information contained on this site may not be copied, published, distributed, broadcast or otherwise used for any purpose whatsoever without the prior written consent of Natural News.

It is high time that the Internet was decolonized and returned to the same state of affairs regarding copyrights as the public libraries were up until the 1980's. Any printed book or printed magazine that is published can have passages photocopied out of it for use in research and all such works can be paraphrased in unlimited amounts and derivative works may be constructed from a group of such publications with no legal problems. The same should be true for all web site content. Regardless of how much or how little is charged for access to a web site, the content contained therein should only be covered by copyright and trademark protections and nothing else. If you are discussing a trade secret and don't want that secret told to everyone in the world for a profit or not, then don't publish it on a web page! It's that simple.

Note also that obeying terms of use on various random web sites may soon no longer be a trivial concern. With the advent of bills such as CISPA and the existence of technology such as Deep Packet Inspection, it will be possible in the near future (if it is not already) to monitor people's Internet activity at a level that may very well reveal violations of terms of use. If someone is accused of violating terms of use, THAT is not a trivial matter. It could be construed to be violating federal law prohibiting computer fraud, which could result in the accused serving several years in federal prison. A couple of cases involving the applicable computer fraud statute have made their way through the courts. In one case a woman was accused of making a false profile on a dating site. This should not be grounds for giving her a multiple year prison sentence.

Please introduce legislation to modify the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to clarify this issue for everyone who uses the Internet. Thank you.

Sincerely,

John Thielking
San Jose, CA USA

Journalists such as the person who writes these columns about violence in movies are under attack in the United States.

Some journalists are under attack through the repression of the Occupy movement. Many journalists covering the Occupy movement have been arrested and are facing an array of charges. In Santa Cruz, CA 11 innocent people, 4 of whom are amateur journalists for www.Indybay.org or Free Radio Santa Cruz, have been charged with felony vandalism, felony conspiracy to commit vandalism and trespass and misdemeanor trespass in connection with their inadvertent presence at the takeover of a vacant bank building at 75 River St, Santa Cruz, CA. For more information on this, visit www.indybay.org/santacruz or listen to the March 26, 2012 Hard Knock Radio and March 29, 2012 Flashpoints programs archived at www.kpfa.org. Also please copy and send a letter to the Santa Cruz County District Attorney located at www.peacemovies.com/supportsc11.html.

Journalists are under attack in many other ways too. Recently, Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky became plaintiffs in a lawsuit to overturn sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act. Their claim is that the NDAA 2012 interferes with the free speech rights of journalists by allowing the targeting for indefinite detention of anyone who has any association with a terrorist group or allied forces, even if they are merely reporting on the groups in question.

The crackdown on the journalism of Peacemoveis.com probably won't come until sometime after July 12, 2012, when Internet Service Providers (ISPs) team up with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) to monitor the Internet activity of Internet users to be sure that they aren't illegally downloading or uploading copyrighted material. An unintended consequence of this initiative is that this new monitoring capability will make it possible for ISPs for the first time to monitor with enough detail Internet use in such a way that will make it possible to enforce terms of use on individual web sites that prohibit the commercial use of information contained on those web sites. This could radically change the landscape of the use of the Internet as a source of information for journalists. Up until now, when the specific terms of use are not enforced, the default enforcement criteria has been “fair use”, which allows brief quotations of material and unlimited use of information (that is paraphrased) from specific web sites. If such use is disallowed, this could mean the end of the Internet as a significant medium of EXCHANGE of information amongst users as opposed to its use as a BROADCAST medium by the big boys and girls who want to control the Internet. Plus, a new bill called CISPA would allow such info to be transmitted to the govt, under the guise of protecting cyber security.

Peacemovies.com counters these moves against the people by promoting the viewing of relatively nonviolent movies in an effort to change the frame of the debate such that nonviolence becomes the default for the frame, instead of the “if it bleeds it leads” focus of the current mainstream media. Movies are ranked according to how much (or little) violence is in each movie, with movies that are ranked as Little to No Violence, Nonviolent and Iffy being reviewed, but movies that rank as Too Violent are listed but not reviewed.