Letter to my Representative

First, some background: ganked the following for dsgood

U.S. TRADEMARK BILL WOULD REMOVE FREE SPEECH PROTECTIONS
The U.S. Congress is currently considering the Trademark Dilution Revision Act, which critics say would remove important free speech protections. The bill as it currently stands would remove three exceptions from part of the present trademark law: news reporting and commentary, fair use, as well as non-commercial use.
http://tinyurl.com/p6bua [Editor and Publisher]

Sent the following to Betty McCollum:

I am writing to you regarding HR 683, The Trademark Dilution Revision act. I am asking you to propose or sponsor an amendment to this bill that would preserve exceptions for news reporting and commentary, fair use, and non-commercial use that the current language of the bill seeks to abolish.

These exceptions are essential to free speech in both the journalistic and academic arenas which rely on fair use to provide useful reviews or provide evidence to support intellectual debate.

Past years have seen major assaults on the right of Americans to make use of their countrymen's ideas as copyright extensions have reached the point where they are no longer merely preserving benefit for the natural person who created the work, but seem to aim to give estates and corporations monopolies on knowledge in perpetuity.

With such extensions in place, it becomes all the more imperative to allow exceptions for news reporting, commentary, fair use, and non-commercial use, lest the building of ideas become the sole province of those who can afford to defend an Intellectual Property dispute in court.