The Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator suggested changes to our laws that will help creators large and small enforce their rights.  Intellectual property—particularly American intellectual property–is one of the most highly prized targets of free riders both foreign and domestic.  While some of the IPEC’s proposals may seem forceful, they actually harmonize some of the gaps in the law and further support well-defined property rights.

Even if you have questions from a libertarian perspective on the duration of intellectual property rights, during whatever term you think appropriate those rights still are property rights.  Enforceable property rights are at the bedrock of our free market.  And if the government is not the backstop for egregious—often criminal–violations of those rights, then what good are the rights in the first place?

During the Bush Administration, the Congress created the office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, a White House position that was first filled by President Obama but that will continue into the future regardless of the President’s party.  While the title sounds grandiose, the IPEC performs an important facilitating role to focus the resources of the Federal government on the stick part of IP rights.  If you are on the side—my side—that believes strongly both in a free market and also the property rights that are the basis of it, at some point you want the government to help level the playing field.  While I loathe the idea of government seizing private property for any reason, including eminent domain, I equally loathe the government essentially allowing—through a failure to enforce the laws–big corporations and pirates to seize private property.  Government should enforce these private property rights and reduce free-riding and negative externalities occurring due to piracy. 

As I watched Chairman Goodlatte’s recent hearing in the House IP subcommittee on the theft of America’s intellectual property assets, a fundamental question came to me that no one asked.  Few would argue that a creator has the right to call the police when their physical property is being stolen.  When it comes to IP, somehow it’s different to some people.  Opponents of intellectual property rights often think that creators should be forced to pay for private litigation against large corporate interests, or pursue transborder pirates in China, Russia or CatchMeIfYouCan-istan–even though these shadowy operators sell US IP in the US illegally. 

(more…)

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner recently hosted a dinner for the man who’s holding the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison. The Hollywood community and their human rights lobby were oddly silent on this event. Could it be because Hope and Change has been placed over all those “Free Tibet” bumper stickers in Hollywood?

Most notably missing on the current subject of China’s human rights record is Richard Gere, a man who has championed the Tibetan people for years and one who I believe to be sincere in his cause. In 2008, Mr. Gere took to Washington and said this about the Bush administration and Tibet:

But the Bush administration was not silent on the subject and did more than just show the public where Tibet could be found on a map. In 2007 Bush hosted a very public event for the Dalai Lama (also a Nobel Peace Prize winner) and awarded him one of the highest U.S. honors and called on China to open talks with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing reviles as a separatist.

In 2009 the current administration snubbed the Dalai Lama before Obama’s trip to Beijing, later holding a private meeting with the exiled leader in the Whitehouse Map Room away from the press and then sending his Holiness out the back door. (more…)

How low can Sean Penn and his Hollywood helpers stoop when it comes to manufacturing convenient political fiction dressed up as fact for the tarnished silver screen? When you see an editorial in the Washington Post that’s this bad, this low, it would seem.

Hollywood myth-making on Valerie Plame controversy

We certainly hope that is not the case. In fact, “Fair Game,” based on books by Mr. Wilson and his wife, is full of distortions – not to mention outright inventions. To start with the most sensational: The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post’s Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly on the program, and it was not shut down because of her identification.

The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger. In fact, an investigation by the Senate intelligence committee found that Mr. Wilson’s reporting did not affect the intelligence community’s view on the matter, and an official British investigation found that President George W. Bush’s statement in a State of the Union address that Britain believed that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger was well-founded.

Penn didn’t simply jump the shark with Fair Game, he looks to have gone full-Fonzi with a jacket and shades. Sadly, such a lack of integrity and appreciation for truth isn’t limited to Hollywood these days. Lies, like mistakes, reverberate and should have consequences when they are this dishonest and glaring. But don’t look for a currently mostly liberal Washington to hold Penn, or Hollywood, to account for what amounts to blatant dishonesty when it comes to America’s recent political history. (more…)

It’s hard to say this, but say it I must: one of the reasons that so many current conservative films don’t get distribution or gain success is that they stink.  You heard that right.  Many of them simply suck.

Yes, political bias is the main reason conservative films don’t get distribution; there are a ton of crappy liberal films that get distribution.  But that doesn’t change the fact that some of the most highly publicized conservative modern entrees into the field of film have been total artistic and popular bombs.

Filmmaker Michael Pack

When a conservative film gets made that is actually high quality, it’s a surprise.  So when I saw new documentary, The Last 600 Meters, I was shocked.  It’s gripping, engrossing, enthralling.  It’s a movie every American should see.

The Last 600 Meters tells the story of the two deadliest battles of the Iraq war — the Battles of Fallujah and Najaf — from the perspective of the soldiers who fought in them.  We see through their eyes – the footage and stills were taken during the actual battle.  We meet the strong, resilient, sensitive and brave men and women of the armed services who do the fighting and the killing and the dying that we won’t do. (more…)

Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has all the trappings of a Tarantino film – from the rich cinematography and soundtrack to the unpredictable action and character development. Tarantino has directed and written another effort that, as usual, is in a class of its own. 

“Basterds,” misspelled the way Brad Pitt’s moonshining Lt. Aldo Raine character carved it into his rifle, takes place in German-occupied France from 1941 to 1944.  Tarantino makes a point of specifying “Nazi-occupied France,” justifying to the film watcher the extreme measures needed to deal with this particular type of human evil.  That National Socialist German Workers’ Party membership never numbered more than about 20 percent of the adult German population is beside the point; the Nazi Party in the guise of Hitler (played by Martin Wuttke) controlled the Wehrmacht from the top.  

“Basterds” follows three characters.  ”Chapter 1″ introduces Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) a young Frenchwoman whose dairy farmer family is wiped out in 1941 by the Germans and Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), who directs the killing.  Landa is a member of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence service of the SS and the Nazi Party, who considers himself a detective asked by his government to find every last Jewish person in France.  In “Chapter 2″ we meet U.S. Army Lt. Aldo Raine. Raine’s crossed arrows insignia on his collar identifies him as a member of the First Special Service Force, a U.S.-Canadian commando force called the Devil’s Brigade.  Lt. Raine leads a small band of soldiers, all of whom happen to be Jewish, on a mission of retribution, mayhem and terror behind enemy lines, the goal: take 100 “Nazi scalps” each.  (more…)

The White House Blog on Tuesday, August 4th titles an entry “Facts Are Stubborn Things.” In it is posted a video of Linda Douglass, the Communications Director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, trying to diffuse criticism of the Obama Health Care takeover by showing two clips of President Obama re-stating his oft-heard yet irrelevant contention that the new Health Care “Reform” bill will not take away the health care options of anyone who likes his or her current provider.  Of course, facts are stubborn things, and the facts (read: common sense) stubbornly refuse to support Obama’s talking point.

Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics knows that what he is saying is patently false.  The moment the government nationalizes medical insurance, it will undercut all other insurers since the Government doesn’t need to make a profit, whereas insurers do.  Employers, always mindful of their bottom line, will immediately transfer over to the Government plan and all ability of the insured to choose their provider will be lost.  The resultant overload of the government system will force the rationing of health care services.  Soon, the other insurers will be forced out of business and Voilà!, we will have arrived at the goal, previously stated by the President and others like Barney Frank, of a single-payer, Government-run system–just like the failing, overburdened socialized medicine systems of Canada and England. (more…)

The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course. The city fathers, they’re trying to endorse, the reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse. But the town has no need to be nervous. The ghost of Belle Starr, she hands down her wits, to Jezebel the nun, she violently knits. A bald wig for Jack the Ripper who sits, at the head of the Chamber of Commerce.

Mama’s in the factory, she ain’t got no shoes. Daddy’s in the alley, he’s lookin’ for food; I’m in the kitchen with the tombstone blues. “Tombstone Blues” – Bob Dylan

Perhaps the sudden death of pop icon Michael Jackson had many Hollywood stars contemplating their own future obituaries. But the industry, which has been strongly committed to promoting the dangers of man-made global warming, was strangely silent on the Waxman-Markey bill which squeaked though the House last week. The United States economy, i.e., actual real human beings who live in America, continues to suffer from the enormous Obama-lead government’s allocation of resources by massive deficit spending and taxes. The axis of deception changes with each specific fiscal proposal. (more…)

As the forces of evil gather around the world in cabals of socialism, collectivism, and despotism, all thrilling at the enthrallment of our own President, we few gather here to watch a show that, tame as it may be, feels like the last place in America where some basic common sense is allowed to save lives. Obama may want to give cover for the next attack by discrediting the methods the Bush administration used to keep us safe, but in between lame “green” ads about global whatever-they-call-it-now, Jack Bauer just keeps laying down the law. And being absolutely ridiculous the whole time.

Tonight’s drinking game: Jack Head Twitches!

Make sure to use the new live-blog software.

This week’s Washington Times column:

Sometimes I just don’t get the Republican Party.

Back in 2004, a smart, good-looking moderate Republican Hispanic ran for Congress. At the time Victor Elizalde was just under 40 years old and working as an executive at a big-time Hollywood studio. As an ethnic minority, a family man and a rare open conservative in an industry dominated by liberals, Mr. Elizalde represented hope and change for the Republican Party.

Yet because he was running for Henry A. Waxman´s safe seat, Mr. Elizalde got no support from the Republican Party . In fact, no one in the party´s leadership took notice of him. As a result Mr. Waxman trounced Mr. Elizalde with 71 percent of the vote. (more…)