Comedy Central / Stop Online Piracy Act – The Colbert Report

Let’s make this more exciting and start committing some crimes, some copyright infringement crimes. Right now, ICE can technically seize this domain. Comedy Central can likely sue me, contact my domain host, and issue them a DMCA take down notice. They can also send me an email and ask me to remove it, obviously they would need to prove they are actually the owners of the material. Under SOPA, I could face 4 years in jail, under the PROTECT IP Act, I could also face the same amount of jail time. Perhaps I would need to do it a few more times to get that kind of draconian punishment.

However, there is also a chance that this could be considered fair use. I’m making a parody of it, I’m also not making any money from this, I’m not taking away from the original, I’m only using a portion of the show, the subject matter is about our government, and I may in fact now be promoting the network and show — and it doesn’t cost Comedy Central anything. I just want to point out that despite the indifference displayed by Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central is against the idea of letting people copy videos based upon their actions on their website. It was not a simple task to make a copy of the above video, and included using: Jack Audio Connection Kit and Audacity to record the audio, XVidCap to record the video, and Pitivi to edit the two together. All of those programs are available for everyone to use for any purpose, to modify and study, to copy, and to distribute improved versions — you have those liberties.

This is my freedom of speech, this is what I want to say. Copyright is broken! When will you believe it? When will you listen?

I’m not against Comedy Central, I’m not against Stephen Colbert and the many people it takes to produce their show. I’m not a villain, a thief, or a pirate. I’m acting as their promotion, I am their friend. I live in Los Angeles! I’m not two steps away from working for them. Many films and television shows are filmed right here in my building, and also all around Downtown. People, I have friends that work in the industry. This type of activity is real social media, it isn’t the greedy mass produced Silicon Valley type.