"Comedy Nation This Week" - January 20, 2012

Here's yesterday's episode of "Comedy Nation This Week" podcast with me, Laurie Buckley, Dave Plunkett and host Bill Bronner:

The panel discusses SOPA, PIPA, the North Carolina GOP Primary, the cruise ship disaster and more.

Tripptitorial: Corporations Want to Control Everything!

From this day forth, I will no longer be known as James Tripp. I will be known as James Tripp, Inc. I recently incorporated to avoid federal election spending limits and for the limited liability because I’m liable to do anything. Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet. Twas Hamlet’s corporation.

People are not corporations. Sure, anybody can put an Inc. on their name, but a corporation is so much more than an individual. For example: an individual would not think to patent his own DNA, but a corporation would! As a matter of fact, I don’t own the licensing on several of my chromosomes, which can sometimes be a problem.

Corporations want to control everything! They want to control the internet! I’m afraid to look at porn on the internet, because they’re probably looking at me! The big media companies would like to turn the internet into something they can control, but they can’t control James Tripp!

I don’t care about the intellectual property rights of corporations; they’re rights they stole from my friends! I remember the non-union deals everyone was getting on those cable shows that ruined stand-up in the 80’s and 90’s. They were $300-$500 buyouts for unlimited rights. Now the producers of those shows are selling the performances on DVD, on Hulu, Netflix and any other means of distribution not yet created and none of my friends are getting paid anything! But Budd Friedman was able to buy a new monocle. Now he can see out of both eyes. Fie on corporations, I say! Fie!

You know what scares big media corporations? In the digital age, intellectual property originators don’t need them. We no longer need the middle man and creative corporate accountants to get paid. We just need to set up a website and reach our audience directly. That’s what scares them.

Corporate interests want to put a stop to this. They want to keep artists on the plantation. They’re trying to change the way the internet operates to make it more like radio and TV where they control the content.

They want to reshape the internet, which was created by the government with taxpayer money, so that their content and services---and those of companies that pay steep fees---will travel quickly along a “fast lane.” Everything else, like “Comedy Nation This Week” would be stuck in a “slow lane.” They want to charge different prices for different things. They also want to be able to charge website owners rates for them to be able to access their customers. They want to make money off of both sides.

SOPA and PIPA are a flanking a move in the corporate attack on net neutrality. You think traffic’s bad in LA, wait until you get in the internet slow lane. Hey, I have enough troubles already. Not only do I have road rage. I have walking rage. Now I’m gonna have internet rage.

Maybe it’s time to re-regulate the mainstream media. Regulation of vertical monopolies is not necessarily a bad thing. This is James Tripp, Inc.; I’ll be back next week with another Trippitorial, God Damnit!