Autumn 2010
"More exploding fossil fuels... wonder how McCain will deal with this?"
"Some of us didn't hear about Limewire until now..."
"What the hell is Wikileaks?!"
As the fall came, something fascinating came with the elections. While the Gore Administration brought into attention the importance of the elections of House and Senate, the McCain Administration shown the prevelance of this and the primaries. The old guard of the Republican party has been clamping down on the growing dissenters, prompting them to try and run as independents, fueled by growing frustrations at the RNC and the DNC and their inability to change with the views of the voters or rather in their support of the old guard over the new ones for personal profit. As such, the primaries for these elections were becoming important. Even moreso as environmentalism would rise to prominence, even in the troublesome economy (in fact, some say tying both solutions together is possible.) This environmentalist bent would get a boost of attention with two new bits of news over in September. One is that another oil rig explodes and catches fire in the
Gulf of Mexico. 13 workers that were on the rig were rescued from the water. It has been reported the rig was not in production of oil or natural gas at the time of the explosion. It is reported that no hazardous materials have entered the waters of the Gulf. However, it was a reminder to explore the potential leaks and dangerous. Just days later, a
Pacific Gas and Electric Company natural gas line explosion in San Bruno, California, destroys 53 homes and damages 120 others. 7 people die, 20 are injured and 6 were missing for a while. It was another brutal reminder of the inadequacies of fossil fuels and each incident kept the idea from leaving peoples' heads or becoming used to it, even if most were more concerned with finances for the time being.
Remains of a portion of the natural gas pipeline after the explosion.
However, a surprising news that became its own news was in regards to the file-sharing site known as Limewire. Namely, because of how a federal judge ruled that the website's ability to share music for free was illegal and violated copyright laws. Normally, copyright law wasn't a big deal, but the growing talks surrounding Limewiere did get more people interestes into looking it and began another examination into copyright law. Copyright law wasn't discussed as much since the expansion of the public domain a couple years ago and the expiration date of copyrighted works for deceased individuals. However, Youtubers talking about it has led to growing interest and so on. People began watching the case more and while it looked Limewire would likely end up losing, it would become a pyrrhic victory over for the RIAA. Project MAY in particular had some interesting things to say as some artists who worked with the RIAA commented on the situation. The fact they were trying to seek over $70 trillion dollars, more than the global GDP, got them scorned and ridiculed over on social media and naturally spread over on talk shows and pundits. However, on a more serious matter was on the distrustful nature of the RIAA when the "Work for Hire" controversey came into the news. As the news reported, that back in 1999, Mitch Glazier, a Congressional staff attorney, inserted, without public notice or comment, substantive language into the final markup of a "technical corrections" section of copyright legislation, classifying many music recordings as "
works made for hire", thereby stripping artists of their copyright interests and transferring those interests to their record labels. Shortly afterwards, Glazier was hired as Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Legislative Counsel for the RIAA, which vigorously defended the change when it came to light. The entire shadiness of the situation led to a vehement backlash on the RIAA and furthermore on lobbying. Project MAY in particular commented on this and comparison to their work regarding fan input and connection between musician and fan rather than through the shady middlemen of people like the RIAA. Even if the wording was repealed last year, it left a bitter taste in the mouths of people and various larger record labels were viewed with growing distrust and suspicion. The economic troubles likely fueled this as it brought memories of explotative executive elites hoarding the profits, especially when cases like
Capitol Records, Inc. v. Thomas-Rasset were mentioned. What seemed like it would be a minor case grew to be a surprising clusterfuck, likely in part to the connotations of econimic disparity, the chicanery and greed of corporate elites over the little guy and the problems plaguing copyright. While Limewire did indeed still have to pay, many of these companies would be cast a dark shadow. Project MAY began growing some more while others began considering using their methods such as Indiegogo to do so for funding.
Logo of the defunct Limewire
Beyond this, the world continued to turn. Natural disasters continued to occur and global assistance was more vital than ever in a time of economic problems and crisis, with answers being demanded to solve the problems at hand. However, it would seem things would be going all right. The elections would be coming and going though who won and who lost would become trivial with a colossal bombshell that would shake up the news. That of "Cablegate", released by Wikileaks. Beginning on Sunday, 28 November 2010 when
WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous
whistleblowers—began releasing
classifiedcables that had been sent to the
U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and
diplomatic missions around the world. Dated between December 1966 and February 2010, the cables contain diplomatic analysis from world leaders, and the diplomats' assessment of host countries and their officials. The entire matter set off a firestorm for everyone. According to what was known, military personal Manning was involved with entire leak when discovering plenty of startling and disturbing information she believed would be needed to be known. The entire thing set off debates about national security vs freedom of the press and this would end up covering all over the internet in regards to the ordeal. Charges through the Espionage Act was being suggested while a growing number of people were calling for the people behind it tpo be recognized as a patriot for exposing corruptuon.It was quite the scandal and while both parties latched onto it to tackle what they saw as a massive breach of security and espionage, the problems of the worsening economy began taking it into increasing priority. Many would note the entire thing of "Cablegate" would change things forever and come to be the first to fully challenge the problems of the US government and of status quo from the years.
The Wikileaks logo
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"Mr. President! Mr. President! Revolution has broken out in Tunisia!"
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"It's not just Tunisia, but it's spreading all over the Middle East!"
www.vox.com
