Google SOPA-PIPA blackout today joins Wikipedia, Craigslist, Reddit

by Bill Palmer

Google has blacked out its logo tonight in solidarity with Wikipedia, Craigslist, Reddit, and other websites in solidarity against controversial SOPA-PIPA legislation. “Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.,” Google states when users click on the black far covering its multicolored logo. “Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA. The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.”

Editor’s note: Beatweek Magazine and Beatweek.com stand in solidarity with Google and other websites which are going dark today. While we fully support the intellectual property rights of the musicians we cover and artists in general, SOPA and PIPA are bad bills which would harm the ability of legitimate content sites to remain in existence while ultimately doing little or nothing for the artists. This legislation was written for corporations, by corporations, and doesn’t benefit any actual humans.

We chose not to take Beatweek.com offline today because we’ve just published our CES tech coverage and we’re ramping up our NAMM music coverage today, and we don’t want to punish our readers at this unique time of year. But as a user of the internet, we urge you to contact your Congressperson (the majority of members of Congress have not yet taken a position on these bills and can still be swayed), link to this article or to Google’s eloquent landing page, or help enlighten your fellow humans about this damaging legislation in whatever way you see fit.

Craigslist seller tries to get rid of his kids

A recent Craigslist listing from the “we can only hope he really was joking” category saw a man in Rochester, New York try to use the service to sell his own kids. After someone saw the listing and reported it, local authorities invested the matter and found the father to be claiming that the whole thing was just a joke. However, he may be in legal trouble anyway, for causing “public alarm” with the idiotic listing and may face a fine up to $1000 and may even go to jail. One has to wonder if perhaps the man’s kids would better off if they had in fact been sold to better parents.

“iProng” for sale on craigslist

I’m selling “iProng” on craigslist. I want to be clear that I’m not selling my publication, or any of its intellectual property. It’s just that we’ve changed our name from “iProng” to “Beatweek” and so the iProng name is no longer of any use to us and I thought it might come in handy for someone else. I know, you’re skeptical. But having helmed a publication under the name “iProng” for years, I can tell you first hand that this name has unique powers. A few examples:

- Under the name “iProng” you can publish well rounded content focusing on music, iPhone, iPod, and social media, and yet all you’ll ever get asked about is how the name is pronounced.

- You can become sufficiently influential in the music world that you can land interviews with chart topping musicians and living legends alike, and you can have correctly identified today’s biggest pop stars while they were still obscure, and yet most people will misperceive your publication as either being an “iPod site that dabbles a little in other things” or a porn site.

- Friends and strangers alike will congratulate you for having the guts to publish under such an “intentionally dirty” name, and when you try to explain to them that there’s nothing dirty about it and that it’s actually a clever take on the word “multiprong,” you’ll find that none of them has ever heard of that word – leaving you with the warm and fuzzy feeling that you must be smarter and better educated than any of them.

- You can attend multiple trade shows in which a vendor sees the name “iProng” on your shirt, asks you with a straight face whether it’s pronounced “I pee wrong” and then proceeds to pitch you on his product. Talk about an ice breaker.

Can you think of any other brand name that could put you in the above scenarios? Exactly! This name is magical. And I haven’t even gotten to the best part. After a few years of publishing under the name iProng, you can switch away from it in favor of something more mainstream-sounding (sorry, “Beatweek” is already taken), and when you do you’ll find that the number of people who want to work with you, be interviewed by you, or have their product covered by you, will shoot up tenfold in a matter of days. Review samples will magically start arriving in a quicker timeframe. People will congratulate you on the total redesign of your website, and when you point out that nothing has changed about the design of the website, they’ll swear that it “looks a lot better” anyway. Your email inbox will instantly swell up to the point that you’re working sixteen hour days just to keep up with all the amazing opportunities being hurled your way.

And really, will you be able to enjoy any of the above changes unless you first slave away under a name like “iProng” for a few years? And that’s why I’m offering the name to someone else who might want to try it out for awhile. In fact, you might want to hurry up and head over to craigslist before I change my mind; I’ve been so busy trying to keep up with the new world that’s just opened up to me that I’m thinking of changing Beatweek’s name back to “iProng” for awhile just so we can be less desirable and people will leave us alone and I can get caught up and get a good night’s sleep

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In all seriousness, a big thank you to all of you who have stuck with us through the name change, and to all the new people who’ve just recently found their way to us – it’s been a truly exciting few weeks. It looks like I should also thank those of you who stuck with us for all those years when we were publishing under a name that everyone apparently hated. But the past is the past. In fact, and this is saying something considering how many years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never been more excited to see what comes next than I am right now. Beatweek it is, and the sky’s the limit – but do hurry over to craigslist before I change my mind and change our name back. After all, I really could use a good night’s sleep.

Much thanks,
Bill Palmer
Editor in Chief
Beatweek Magazine (formerly… eh, nevermind)

http://beatweek.com