Dodd continued to talk, drawing the ire of many when he went on Fox News and basically admitted to buying votes in Congress. He said:

Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.

This prompted someone to create a petition on The White House’s petition site We The People, asking that Chris Dodd and the MPAA be investigated for bribery. The petitioner described Dodd’s act as “a brazen flouting of the ‘above the law’ status people of Dodd’s position and wealth enjoy.” Apparently, more than a few people agreed because the petition currently has over 31,000 signatures. That means it has reached the threshold to merit an official White House response.

And The White House has responded….kind of. See for yourself:

Thank you for signing this petition. We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on Whitehouse.gov. However, consistent with the We the People Terms of Participation and our responses to similar petitions in the past, the White House declines to comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action.

If you head on over to the Terms of Participation, you’ll find this applicable note:

To avoid the appearance of improper influence, the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government in its response to a petition.

Now, it would be a lie to call this response a shocker. This is why the internet community has expressed such a lack of faith in this process. If The White House was actually looking into this, it would befit them to not go into details about it – but even if they were, they could respond in a better way than this. At least the petition shows us that there are plenty of people out there watching, and when someone mentions political bribery on national television, it won’t go unnoticed.

[Hat Tip to TechDirt]

Now Wheaton is calling MPAA boss and former Senator Chris Dodd a liar. He says that jobs aren’t being lost because of piracy, but the bad business and culture of Hollywood itself. On his tumblr, he reacted to the news that Dodd threatened congressmen over their opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

Wow. Chris Dodd is not only an asshole, he’s a stupid, tone deaf asshole. And so are all the asshole Democrats who are on the wrong side of this issue because they want money from Hollywood. Guess what, Democrats? You’re finally starting to reclaim the populist mantle that could help you win back congress and keep the White House. You may want to, you know, get on the right side of public opinion you idiots.

He then clarifies his position on piracy and its effects on his job:

I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost more jobs to runaway production, than anything associated with what the MPAA calls piracy. Chris Dodd is lying about piracy costing us jobs. Hollywood’s refusal to adapt to changing times is what’s costing the studios money. That’s it.

It’s nice to see more actors speaking out against Hollywood’s corrupt practices and their buying out of senators. Maybe Wheaton and Wales can form an alliance to get Dodd fired.

They announced today on their blog the addition of Physibles, data objects that are able to become physical. They believe that 3D printers are leading the charge into a future where we’ll be able to download everything from cars to food.

Today most data is born digitally. It’s not about the transition from analog to digital anymore. We don’t talk about how to rip anything without losing quality since we make perfect 1 to 1 digital copies of things. Music, movies, books, all come from the digital sphere. But we’re physical people and we need objects to touch sometimes as well!

The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We’ll be able to print food for hungry people. We’ll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We’ll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one.

The current list of physibles available to download are a Pirate Bay pirate ship, a whistle, a tabletop robot model and a 1970 Chevelle Hot Rod model. As a joke, there is also a 3D printable Chris Dodd.

They firmly believe that the future of sharing is their new physible data. They joke that they should rename themselves The Product Bay, but they had no graphical artist to make it. They claim that in the future, they’ll be able to download one.

For those who aren’t aware, 3D printing is considered the future of art and item creation. It allows users to scan in a 3D object and create the same object via a layering technique that creates the parts. The price of 3D printers is expected to come down this year making them financially accessible to regular consumers.

For a handy primer, here’s a video explaining the power of 3D printing:

Wales and Dodd have been arguing at opposing ends of the SOPA / PIPA battle, more generally the argument covers differences in opinion regarding how to deal with the perceived threat of online piracy. In response to SOPA and PIPA, Wales led the charge o protests by blacking out Wikipedia for 24 hours last Wednesday. SOPA and PIPA, two pieces of legislation that Dodd and the MPAA support, have been put on the backburner as the House and Senate have delayed action, respectively.

Dodd has been critical of the shelving of both SOPA and PIPA, even calling the massive internet SOPA Blackout led by Wikipedia an abuse of power. Wales addressed that at the DLD conference:

“10 million people contacted Congress,” Wales said. “That’s not an abuse of power, that’s democracy. [Dodd] had best get used to it.”

According to comments made as part of Sundance’s Cinema Cafe series, it looks like Dodd is softening his rhetoric when it comes to the internet protests that seem to have had such an impact on Congressional action on SOPA. From the Hollywood Reporter:

“It’s a watershed event, what happened,” Dodd admitted, noting that opponents’ “ability to organize and communicate directly with consumers” was a game-changing phenomenon that he hadn’t seen in more than three decades in public office.

Dodd seemed to have a sense of humor about the recent beating he’s taken as spokesman for the mainstream entertainment industry, the kind of “chaos” that the former Senator had hoped to leave behind when he left office in January 2011. “Up until a week ago I thought that was a pretty good decision,” he joked. But the message Dodd most seemed to want to get across was that “the white noise has
made it impossible to have a conversation about this,” he said. “We’ve gotta find a better way to have that conversation than we have in the last two weeks.”

In no way is Dodd backing off his support for legislation like SOPA, but at least he recognized the power of collective internet protest.

As you probably know, Dodd has been under fire recently for some comments he made on Fox News:

Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake. …

I would caution people don’t make the assumption that because the quote ‘Hollywood community’ has been historically supportive of Democrats, which they have, don’t make the false assumptions this year that because we did it in years past, we will do it this year. These issues before us — this is the only issue that goes right to the heart of this industry.

The gist here is that Congress needs to remember who writes the checks, and need to fall in line with their interests. These comments are obviously teeming with hints of corruption, so much so that an online petition at the White House petition site had been started asking for an investigation of Dodd and the MPAA for bribery. The signature currently has 26,470 signatures and has hit its threshold to warrant a White House response.

His update to the MPAA blog reflects that subdued anger:

We applaud those leaders in Washington who have chosen to stand with the millions of hard working Americans all across this nation whose livelihoods are threatened by foreign criminal websites designed to steal. As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves; American jobs will continue to be lost; and consumers will continue to be exposed to fraudulent and dangerous products peddled by foreign criminals.

With today’s announcement, we hope the dynamics of the conversation can change and become a sincere discussion about how best to protect the millions of American jobs affected by the theft of American intellectual property. The threat posed by these criminal operations has been widely acknowledged by even the most ardent critics. It is incumbent that they now sincerely work with all of us to achieve a meaningful solution to this critically important goal.

He does call on for the tech and film sector to come together, which is new for him. Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf and wants to cooperate on Internet legislation that works for everybody.

That is, unfortunately, probably not the case.

"I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality. Because once providers start to privilege some applications or web sites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out, and we all lose. The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history. We have to keep it that way."

In fact, Obama is making technology a central part of his plans for Executive office, revealing yesterday his plan to use Internet technology to open up government and make it more transparent.

Probably won’t happen – that open government thing – but it’s a nice thought. Nevertheless, he’s made a clear promise to uphold Net Neutrality.

Which is more than we can say for Clinton. Though she’s supported Net Neutrality legislation in the past, she has yet to mention it on the campaign trail, even within her Internet agenda released last month.

And that has organizations like MoveOn.org and other traditionally Democrat supporters nervous. MoveOn sent out word today for members to contact the Clinton campaign for fear she is backing away from her previous stance.

You know, because she’s never been known to waffle before, right?

Oh, wait.