Over the past year I've been kicking around an idea I've affectionally coined "Media Veganism". The concept grew out of opposition to the SOPA and PIPA acts going through the US Congress at the time. These acts, which proposed to "To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property" and "Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property", poised many technical, legal and ethical concerns for individual citizens and consumers.
Both PIPA and SOPA, and earlier DMCA, had a roster of corporate supporters, chief among them the Major Entertainment Media Enterprises. Despite the fact that the primary source of revenue for these enterprises were the consumers of the United States, these enterprises were promoting legislation that would severely restrict our rights. If we continue on the theme of 'disservices done to the American people by the Major Entertainment Media Enterprises', recall reports of copyright cases being brought against individuals by the same corporations. Often these cases would involve claims of exorbitant damages against individuals.
If we consider the commodity status of entertainment media, it's easy to conceptualize why Major Entertainment Media Enterprises would desire influence over the utilization of their media, from production, to distribution and use. "If I'm not doing anything wrong, what have I got to worry about?" While a valid point and one that's easy to adhere to, I contend that the money you're spending on entertainment media is going towards eroding your rights. I further contend that the corporations you're empowering with your purchases are controlling the media that you're capable of purchasing, and thus controlling what you can see, think, and hear.
Of course, we as consumers, have choices as to where, and from whom, we consume our entertainment media. We can chose to continue consuming media from the corporations that wish to degrade our rights a consumers and citizens, or we could curate our entertainment and divest from these damaging corporations. That is, we could vote with our money.
Media Veganism /noun/: Abstaining from Entertainment Media produced, distributed and promoted by Major Entertainment Media Enterprises.
Borrowing from the Vegan practice of "abstaining from the use of animal products and rejecting the commodity status of animals". Media Veganism attempts to abstain from Entertainment Media produced and distributed by Major Entertainment Media Enterprises and rejects the commodity status of Entertainment Media.
A dull but minimal approach to this philosophy would be to abstain from entertainment completely.
Instead, I'd encourage curation of entertainment and preference of options that are absent the influence of Major Entertainment Media Enterprises. Of further benefit would be to pursue local choices, which promotes local artists and thus local economic growth.