Documented@Davos: SOPA Panel

Documented@Davos: SOPA Panel from Michelle Laird on Vimeo.

Excellent panel discussion at Davos on why Sopa is bad and possible ways forward.

We created Wikipedia, we made it all up ourselves. Much of the content on the net is provided by us. It is the human condition to create, to want to share.

Hollywood wants, Hollywood does not get.

Money no longer buys votes. We can mobilise via social media. we can Occupy!

Hollywood acted on behalf of Hollywood. Greed! Internet companies acted on behalf of the internet. Empowerment!

Sopa has opened an amazing can of worms. Internet companies are now demanding openness, transparency, lack of secrecy, good governance!

If Hollywood and the music industry stopped being so greedy, stopped criminalsing their customers, they would not have a problem.

Creative people wnat to share what they produce. It is the greed of Big Business that gets in the way.

Amazing. An intelligent American politician who actually talks sense, who knows what he is talking about.

We have Open Source Software. How about the same for legislation? Publish on the net. People invited not only to make comment, but to propose and draft amendments (cf Wikipedia). This reduces the worth of lobbyists to zero over night. It would also improve the political intake as they would be there to serve, to make a difference, not to get their snouts in the trough, as there would no longer be the money sloshing around.

Sopa would have been still born if instead of cooked up in secret between Hollywood and politicians for sale it had bene available to open public scrutiny.

Open Government? Participatory democracy?

– The cultural industry
– Defend our freedom to share (or why SOPA is a bad idea)
– Thoughts of Paulo Coelho on Sopa
– Stop SOPA
– We are in charge now
– A sense of the masses – a manifesto for the new revolution

Tags: Davos, Sopa, StopPIPA, StopSOPA, WEF, World Economic Forum