Big Media Bought the Politicians. Don’t Let Them Further Limit the Internet.

Comment by Nick Shillingford

The internet has given people across the globe previously unprecedented access to information and the ability to communicate with individuals in almost any city center. But the increase in free sharing of information, music, books, films and other media has also begun to eat into the profits of the huge media companies of the world.

While the executives of the huge media companies use the cover of poor artists and producers to pull on the heart strings they see this primarily as a war of control and a challenge to their profit driven empires they have created through mergers and acquisitions. The vast majority of media is now owned by 6 big companies (GE, Disney, Newscorp, TimeWarner, Viacom, CBS) And these companies have bought the politicians in both parties with large donations.

Minnesota’s Democratic Senator Al Franken is a co-sponsor of S.968 which is the Senate “Protect IP Act” (PIPA) closely related to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) which has gotten the majority of attention in recent mainstream media accounts. According to OpenSecrets.org Franken’s two top contributors were Time Warner and General Electric. Time Warner was also a top contributor to Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar. It is no surprise they co-sponsored PIPA.

All people concerned with freedom on the internet should immediately call or tweet Klobuchar and Franken and let them know that we are watching what they are doing and we are outraged at their sponsorship of this legislation:

Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D, MN]  Phone: 202-224-3244

Sen. Al Franken [D, MN] Phone: 202-224-5641 Twitter: @alfranken

But ultimately even the failure of this bill from public pressure will only be a short-term solution. Huge media companies with huge budgets will continue to push forward so called “anti-piracy” measures to criminalize ordinary people sharing information online. The sharing of information is a threat to their profits. As long as we continue to allow these conglomerate corporations to control the media and rake in large sums of money from doing so we will always be under threat of another SOPA or PIPA like attack on internet freedom.

It is absolutely necessary to take big corporations including those that own our media into public ownership under the democratic control of our communities. This is the only way to actually guarantee that the media is not censored by the rich and powerful.

Wikipedia has given us a taste of what a free and open learning and information tool can look like even under Capitalism. And the site has been one of the loudest in their opposition to SOPA and PIPA (including today’s “Blackout” by the site: )

To keep the Media Giants from crushing even the beginnings of free and open media it is required that we stop their stranglehold on our government. This can only be done by ridding them of their mountains of wealth which they use to exert influence on government. Seeing that the profit motive is the driving force behind Capitalism, the system itself must be done away with to clear a space for the real open flow of information and discussion.

For more detailed info on the language of SOPA and PIPA, click here. 

For more detailed information on media control and democracy, click here.