January 2012
53 posts
Say what you want about Terrell Owens, but there’s one underlying truth. T.O. doesn’t forget where he comes from, he is a man of the people first! I was reading an Article that T.O. racked up around 70 million in his NFL contracts over the years. That’s enough to shut up, sit down and be a nice little NFL school boy. Who doesn’t want more millies? During his run T.O. gave loads of middle fingers to the fat cats of the establishment, alienating himself, losing fans, losing MONEY all at the expense of expressing himself and not being a 2Dimensional slave. Now he’s in the IFL, making exactly 1/140 of what he was making in the NFL but forget the money, he’s out there playing for the love of the game. For the love of being fit, and in shape. For the exhilarating feeling of the win. Yesterday i was at my local 24 hour fitness and T.O. runs up beside be to grab something from his bag, he was in a rush, he was in the middle of a pick up basketball game with the 99 percent. That’s how the greats do it. You gotta be in bed with your fans… your customers. Ps. This isn’t the first time…i’ve been to clubs and have walked outside to see T.O. standing on the corner, chopping it up with whoever, accessible to anyone.
We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.
We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.
We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.
We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.
We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA’s impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.
We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.
Respectfully,
- Aziz Ansari
- Kevin Devine, Musician
- Barry Eisler, Author
- Neil Gaiman, Author
- Lloyd Kaufman, Filmmaker
- Zoë Keating, Musician
- The Lonely Island
- Daniel Lorca, Musician (Nada Surf)
- Erin McKeown, Musician
- MGMT
- Samantha Murphy, Musician
- OK Go
- Amanda Palmer, Musician (The Dresden Dolls)
- Quiet Company
- Trent Reznor
- Adam Savage, Special Effects Artist (MythBusters)
- Hank Shocklee, Music Producer (Public Enemy, The Bomb Squad)
- Johnny Stimson, Musician
