No SOPA/PIPA Blackout Here, But Christopher Dodd Is a Goddamned Tool:
The Rude Pundit didn't go dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy and the Protect IP Acts because, well, it just seemed like a lazy way to avoid blogging for a day. Go read about the acts, if you haven't, because it's pretty insidious stuff, not just because of the governmental control, but because of the corporate power behind it.

Besides, why go dark when you can point out something stupid said by the most powerful lobbyist supporting the bills? Former Senator Chris Dodd, now head of the Motion Picture Association of America (motto: "You can only be our leader if you're a male with a full head of white hair"), issued a statement attacking the websites that are participating in today's strike/blackout. It says, in part, "It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."

You got that? The whore who fronts for an industry owned by multinational megacorporations like NewsCorp, Sony, and Viacom is actually attacking BoingBoing.net owners Happy Mutants LLC for using the internet for some evil agenda to steal Chipmunk movies just because they went on a one-day strike. That's a bit like Ted Bundy accusing a student nurse of having a messy dorm room just before bludgeoning her to death.

Here's the deal, entertainment industry: your old model for making money is dying, and you haven't figured out how to deal with it yet. You're still in the Anger phase when you need to move on to Acceptance. It sucks, yeah, but right now you're the brontosaurus in the room, and the little critters that don't need so much to survive are evolving and changing. Sure, you can stomp all the monkeys and aardvarks and panthers you want, but eventually you're just gonna keel over and die.

When he appeared on a panel on the future of book publishing at the Words and Music festival in New Orleans in November, the Rude Pundit told the audience that we haven't yet figured out how to adapt to new technology. "We're the missing link," he said. "We're the mutation that won't survive but is necessary to evolution."

In other words, instead of trying to rage against a future that one can't stop without resorting to draconian measures that will eventually fail, the MPAA and the RIAA and other "trade organizations" better spend more time figuring out how to co-opt and use the constant stream of innovation in digital entertainment delivery instead of wasting time suing and shutting down and lobbying. Even if it puts douchebags like Chris Dodd out of a job.