Doc, you’re so modest. You haven’t posted that you are, in the words of your past co-author, a “WSJ centerfold!” Or “Actually, it’s more like Doc Searls: Wall Street Journal Cover Boy!”

Oh, those “Fat Corporate Bastards”. They must be so stupid, in making a “centerfold” and “Cover Boy” (not my phrases) out of someone who is just going to destroy their power. How do they even tie their shoes, much less amass vast amounts of wealth?
What’s Wrong With This Picture?

But Google is committed to fighting ANY bill that might strengthen copyright enforcement. This is because it makes huge amounts of money by encouraging, and then turning a blind eye to, the posting of infringing material. It also makes millions from AdSense ads on sites devoted to copyright infringement. And it WANTS to make still more by delivering copies of books without paying the authors (the Google Books case).

Its latest move includes the formation, via the multiple lobbying shops that it funds and controls, of the so-called “Internet Defense League.” The purpose of this group is to allow Google to trigger knee-jerk, astroturf campaigns against anything that might be adverse to its business interests, including (but not limited to) laws that protect authors’ and creators’ rights. The group will point to whatever law is being proposed and falsely claim that it would “break the Internet.” A sort of supersized version of the old “modem tax” scam. Such reputable (not!) sites as TorrentFreak have enthusiastically supported the effort.

You might think the things that you do online are between you and your computer. Not so. Your cyber-privacy is constantly being chipped away: by your Internet provider, your cell phone carrier and lawmakers. Before you post to a social-media site or browse the Internet for that report you’re compiling on pedophiles, keep in mind how your actions online are anything but private.

At issue is the struggle to protect privacy rights while fighting the online theft of American intellectual property. Here is what you should know:

SOPA Shelved, or is it? Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives shelved its proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA (H.R. 3261). The legislation’s surface intent seemed sound: It would have given holders of music, films, books and other intellectual property copyrighted in the United States some teeth to stop its illegal distribution, even if that property was stored in an offshore server. But the bill required such sweeping enforcement that Google communications director Bob Boorstin said, “YouTube would just go dark immediately.” If you were caught unwittingly posting a video of your niece singing along with the latest Taylor Swift tune, you could be blocked from Facebook and by your Internet provider and you’d have the burden of proving your innocence.