Copyright bottom-feeder on the prowl

From Threat Level, we learn about a big business called Righthaven picking on little people and non-profit organizations who run blogs. If you are running a blog, there are two options. A) Register as a DMCA takedown agent with the U.S. Copyright Office (which I am now in the process of doing) or B) Prepare to travel to Las Vegas federal court to defend yourself against this copyright troll, based (usually) on a commenter's use of copyright material. Here's an excerpt from the Threat Level article:

Founded in March, the Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content of the Las Vegas Review-Journal for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post, or even excerpt, those articles without permission. The company has settled about 60 of 160 cases for a few thousand dollars each, and plans to expand its operations to other newspapers across the country. Many of its lawsuits arise, not from articles posted by a website’s proprietors, but from comments and forum posts by the site’s readers.
How-to instructions are provided at Threat Level.

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44 Senators: We won’t support a CFPB that has any real power

Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama and 43 of his fellow Senators are leading the charge to strip the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) of any meaningful authority. My prediction: The big banks will completely defang or defund the CFPB.

Continue Reading44 Senators: We won’t support a CFPB that has any real power

Lack of sleep can make you unethical

According to this report by Jena McGregor of the Washington Post,

lack of sleep led not just to poor performance on tasks that require “innovative thinking, risk analysis, and strategic planning”—though studies have shown all those to be true—but also to increased deviant and unethical behavior in both groups. Examples included rudeness, inappropriate responses and attempts to take more money than they’d earned.

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Private campaign contributions = corruption. It’s THAT simple

Cenk Ugyur reports on the new proposal for unfettered circumvention of current law. "In 2010 alone, GOP congress members received more than $58,797,874 in contribution from the financial industry. They are not your representatives. They are the representatives of the multinational corporations who buy them." At 2:30 of the video, Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the relatively few members of Congress with any scruples, discusses the need to "take apart" Citizens United, including the need to pass a constitutional amendment pointing out that a corporation is not a person. At 4:00, see the arrogant quote by Republican James Bopp, who believes that money runs everything and that there is no way for the people to fight back. We need to "educate and organize." Sanders argues that there is to fight this corruption using a grass roots movement. How genuine are the philosophical arguments of the politicians who are seeking the free flow of money from big corporations to politicians? See Sanders' discussion at 7:00. Ugyur aims his arrows at Republicans but Sanders, the only Independent representative sitting in the Senate, points out the problem extends to Democrats too.

Continue ReadingPrivate campaign contributions = corruption. It’s THAT simple