The Supreme Court will decide if you own the property you purchased

ACT NOW: DON'T LET BIG BUSINESS STEAL OUR RIGHT TO RESELL WHAT WE OWN!

Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether you have the right to sell your stuff on eBay. Do you really own the smartphone or computer you’re using to read this? If you sold your books, would you be breaking the law? A federal court in New York says you would be, even if you legally paid for and bought them.

It's unbelievable, but trademark and copyright holders are trying to use a legal loophole to take away your right to sell things that you own. The mainstream media is starting to catch on, with the Wall Street Journal just running an article headlined, "YOUR RIGHT TO RESELL YOUR OWN STUFF IS IN PERIL". Please add your name at right to fight back.

Public interest advocates are taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and Demand Progress is joining up with a coalition of groups -- including many of those that came together to kill SOPA -- to support the rights of ordinary Internet users and everyday consumers.

Once again, big entertainment company lobbyists are fighting us in the courts to ensure their profits are given higher priority than consumer rights. But this time the MPAA and RIAA have the Obama administration on their side -- they've all filed legal briefs asking the Supreme Court to restrict our right to resell the things we own..

We only have a few weeks to make our voices heard before the Supreme Court makes a lasting ruling. We are working to defend a long-standing principle known as the "First-Sale Doctrine." This common-sense rule gives us the right to sell most property we own, but big businesses have been trying to chip away at out our rights in the courts. If the Supreme Court supports the lower court’s decision, we won't really “own” anything if any part of it was made in a different country. And practically anything you own -- from your iPod to your house -- could have been made abroad, in whole or in part.

If we lose this fight, practically anybody who wants to resell products they bought -- from Macbooks and iPhones to our clothing and textbooks -- will have to ask copyright holders for permission first. And they'll have the right to deny it!

It's bad for so many reasons: It'll undermine Craigslist and Ebay, hurt the environment, increase incentives for manufacturers to move jobs off-shore, and effectively ban the traditional American yard sale. For more info, please check out Marvin Ammori's article about the lawsuit.

To sign the petition:click here

If you believe that since you bought it you own it and it is yours to keep,give or throw away then sign this petition. Don't let the corporations run your life sign the petition today.

U.S. Government persecutes U.K. subject

Join Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales: Protect Internet Freedom And Seek Justice for Richard O'Dwyer

Hi, I am Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and if you care about justice and the future of Internet freedom, Demand Progress and I need your help. This will only take a few seconds, but you can really help us change things for the better.

Richard O'Dwyer is a 24 year old British student at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He is facing extradition to the USA and up to ten years in prison, for creating a website - TVShack.net – which linked (similarly to a search-engine) to places to watch TV and movies online.

O'Dwyer is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.

The Internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship in response to mere allegations of copyright infringement. As citizens we must stand up for our rights online.

Please sign on at right here to join me in demanding that British authorities refuse to extradite O'Dwyer, and that US officials cease persecuting him.

When operating his site, Richard O'Dwyer always did his best to play by the rules: on the few occasions he received requests to remove content from copyright holders, he complied. His site hosted links, not copyrighted content, and these were submitted by users.

Copyright is an important institution, serving a beneficial moral and economic purpose. But that does not mean that copyright can or should be unlimited. It does not mean that we should abandon time-honored moral and legal principles to allow endless encroachments on our civil liberties in the interests of the moguls of Hollywood.

Richard O'Dwyer is the human face of the battle between the content industry and the interests of the general public. Earlier this year, in the fight against SOPA and PIPA, the public won its first big victory. This could be our second.

This is why I am petitioning the UK's Home Secretary Theresa May to stop the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer, and asking the United States to end his prosecution. I hope you will join me.

- Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder

Source:click here

I'm not a big wikipedia fan so you should know that I would rather let the blind master from Kung Fu shave my pubes with a straight razor in a pitch black room than be on the same page as wikipedia. If it was staff at wikipedia getting fucked I would have no problem but in this case it appears that the U.S. Government is overstepping its bounds. This is the same government that doesn't do shit in the middle east,ignores Pro-American sentiment amongst the Iranian youth yet they can persecute some guy running a tv guide style website. This is rediculous and the U.S. government should just hang it up on this one. If you feel the same way sign the petition.

MPAA tries to get the courts to implement SOPA/PIPA

From Demand Progress:

Hollywood attorneys are trying to use the courts to circumvent Congress and implement a backdoor SOPA/PIPA scheme.

Fight Back: YOUR FILES ON Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, etc. and even your emails are in jeopardy. Demand Progress is fighting back in the courts and standing up for Internet users. We are taking on the United States and the MPAA. Please sign up at right to support our legal brief so the court understands that millions of people will be impacted by this decision. The judge is hearing the case TOMORROW.

BACKGROUND: One day after the Internet staged a massive blackout to protest Congress's Internet censorship legislation (SOPA/PIPA), the United States responded by seizing millions of ordinary user files hosted on the popular website Megaupload.com.

With an aim of shutting down Megaupload and other Cloud-based hosting services (like Dropbox, YouTube or even your email provider), the government is trying to claim website operators should face decades in prison for the misdeeds of some of their users. But while they pursue trumped up criminal charges against the companies' founders, they are shutting down dozens of websites, and leaving ordinary Internet users without any way of retrieving their files.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called the case against Megaupload a "threat to innovation." Wozniak likened the Megaupload site to a highway and those who shared pirated movies and songs to speeding motorists. "You don't just shut down the whole street because somebody is speeding," he said.

Numerous laws on the books already give copyright holders plenty of avenues to stop actual infringement, but that's not enough to satisfy Hollywood's lawyers and lobbyists. The prosecutor in the case, Neil MacBride, previously served as the Anti-Piracy Vice President of the Business Software Alliance, where he represented the intellectual property interests of countless multinational corporations.

Now Hollywood's lobbyists, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, want him to make it nearly impossible for ordinary Internet users to get their property back.

Stand with Demand Progress as we fight for ordinary Internet users. Sign up to support our action in the Court.

To sign the legal brief:click here

Let's let this judge know where we stand and how SOPA/PIPA are a threat to the American way of life and that we are tired of Hollywood's antics to limit or eliminate the internet and that we will oppose them.

Copyright deception

From Demand Progress:

"You've been owned!" That's what product manufacturers are hoping the Supreme Court will tell Americans this fall. The Court will decide if you have the right to resell the very things that YOU OWN -- your clothes, your iPod, even your house:

Please click at the end for more details, and tell the White House and Congress to stand by Americans' rights to resell the things we own.

Product manufacturers are trying to take away your right to resell items that are manufactured abroad, in whole or in part. In this globalized world, that's almost anything you own. Today we're launching YouveBeenOnwed.org to help Americans fight back.

If the Supreme Court rules with manufacturers, we might have to say goodbye to Ebay, Craigslist, and the old-fashioned American yard sale.

Manufacturers will have an extra incentive to off-shore jobs. Re-use and recycling efforts will be undermined, harming the environment.

Your pockets will be empty, and your basement will be a mess of junk you don't want or need.

Petition website:click here

Copyright holders have gone crazy. It's time to stop them. If they want to rent then be open about it. Don't give me the impression that I'm buying to own something when,if this judgement goes in favor of the copyright holders,I'm just renting it. Stop fucking with our freedoms,you wouldn't like it if we fucked with yours.

Your rights to own personal property...may be none

Act Now: Don't Let Copyright Holders Steal Our Property Rights! From Demand Progress:

Do you really own the smartphone you’re using to read this email? If you sold your computer, would you be breaking the law? A federal court in New York says you would be.

It's unbelievable, but trademark and copyright holders really are trying to take away your right to sell things that you own: Please add your name at right to fight back.

The First-Sale Doctrine gives us the right to sell most property we own. But if the Supreme Court supports the lower court’s decision, we won't really “own” anything if it's from a different country. We expect them to issue a ruling later this year.

The President can urge the Court to side with consumers; then Congress will probably weigh in on the issue, no matter how the Court rules.

If we lose this fight, anybody who wants to resell foreign products, from Macbooks and iPhones to our clothing and textbooks, will have to ask copyright holders for permission first. And they'll have the right to deny it!

It's bad for so many reasons: It'll undermine Craigslist and Ebay, hurt the environment, increase incentives for manufacturers to move jobs off-shore, and effectively ban the traditional American yard sale.

To sign petition: click here

Sounds like you are renting rather than owning. This is a example of copyright lawsuits gone astray. The judge needs to do the right thing and rein in these out of control control freaks who like to mess up people's lives.

CISPA,the new SOPA

From Demand Progress:

Here's their next move: The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, would obliterate any semblance of online privacy in the United States.

And CISPA would provide a victory for content owners who were shell-shocked by the unprecedented outpouring of activism in opposition to SOPA and Internet censorship.

The House of Representatives is planning to take up CISPA later this month. Click here to ask your lawmakers to oppose it.

SOPA was pushed as a remedy to the supposed economic threat of online piracy -- but economic fear-mongering didn't quite do the trick.

So those concerned about copyright are engaging in sleight of hand, appending their legislation to a bill that most Americans will assume is about keeping them safe from bad guys.

This so-called cyber security bill aims to prevent theft of "government information" and "intellectual property" and could let ISPs block your access to websites -- or the whole Internet.

Don't let them push this back-door SOPA. Click here to demand that your lawmakers oppose CISPA.

CISPA also encourages companies to share information about you with the government and other corporations.

That data could then be used for just about anything -- from prosecuting crimes to ad placements.

And perhaps worst of all, CISPA supercedes all other online privacy protections.

Please click here to urge your lawmakers to oppose CISPA when it comes up for a vote this month.

Thanks for fighting for the Internet.

Sign the petition here

and this:

Demand Progress members have been bombarding Congress in opposition to CISPA, with nearly 60,000 emails sent in the last 24 hours.

We need to make sure our lawmakers know that we won't stop fighting for privacy rights and Internet freedom.

Fine,let's add to it. It is our internet too and we want to preserve its freedom. By preserving its freedom we are preserving our freedom particularly our freedom of speech. If you haven't sign the petition to preserve free speech you may want to do so.