Nerds Against ACTA

You, the readers of this blog, may have seen on this blog's main page a widget calling on citizens of the world to oppose the passage of ACTA. There are a few details listed explaining why ACTA should be opposed; further details can be found by clicking on the widget. (For those wondering why the logo looks like the world superimposed on Mickey Mouse's head's shadow, the reason for this is because Disney is one of the proponents of ACTA and one of the driving forces behind every major copyright extension in the US (which is extended to other countries in the name of parity); each of these extensions has managed to keep Mickey Mouse cartoons under copyright just when they were about to enter the public domain.) Many of the people quoted on that website (in their opposition to ACTA) are also signatories of a report that further details why ACTA is harmful and undemocratic in product and process. The full report can be found here. Along with the usual suspects of border searches and such, the report also lays out why it is harmful to things like medical research and sales in developing countries. There are 2 links to further explanation and analysis, so the report on that website is not that long; it would thus definitely be worth your time to read the report.

On an almost totally unrelated note, I have added a widget to the end of every post allowing you to share any post to a social media site. Right now, I have a bunch of visible options (and if you hover over the "Share" button, you can basically pick whichever site you want to share it — there are over 250 supported sites as far as I know), but I want to be able to pare the list of visible options down to only the ones that you, the readers, most use. I would thus greatly appreciate it if you could respond to the poll below. The poll closes in the early morning hours of 2010 July 14, so please act quickly. If you use sites other than the ones I've listed in the widget, please click "Other" and then specify in the comments section; I will be sure to add these other sites to the visible list.
Thank you so much for your time.

On What Social Media Network(s) Do You Share Blog Posts?

See? Authors DO Hate Corporate Copyrights

It's come with Marvel's lawsuit to keep (Associated Press) the copyrights on Spiderman and X-Men from expiring. It has sued the cartoon creator's family.
What?
This just goes to show that companies that keep artistic copyrights near indefinitely aren't doing the public or the artists any favors, in terms of monetary or social benefit. In fact, the artist's family has said so explicitly itself.
Michele Boldrin and David Levine were on to something when they said that when companies like Disney (of which, incidentally, Marvel is a subsidiary) try to maintain their strangleholds on works through copyright, they don't ever give the original artists any benefits, and when it's not a famous work like Mickey Mouse or Spiderman (but is artistically no less stunning), it dies because it can't be released to the public due to the...overbearing copyright restrictions meant to "protect" such works.