SOPA is dead the news of the day says …and good riddance. Texas GOP representative Lamar Smith’s bill (originally co-sponsored by 31 representatives) was supposed to be designed to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. However, the powers to stop this type of piracy were so broad that the internet as we know would have ceased to exist. Anyone linking or in any way promoting a website that engaged in these crimes would be under the gun to be pulled off the web. Wholesalers, retailers and the general public – if they haven’t already – need to understand what SOPA is.

This is how SOPA was designed to work:

The intellectual property-rights holder must first notify, in writing, related payment facilitators (such as Paypal) and ad networks (such as Google Adsense) of the identity of the website, who, in turn, must then forward that notice and suspend their services to the identified website, unless the so-called violating web site provides a counter notification explaining how it is not in violation. The “rights: holder could then sue for relief against the website owber, if they receive counter notification, or if the payment or advertising services fail to suspend service in the absence of a counter notification.

The final section covers penalties for streaming video (such as Youtube) and for selling counterfeit drugs, military materials or consumer goods. It would have increased penalties and expand copyright offenses to include unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content and other intellectual property offenses. Criminalization of unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content would have a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months.

This bill would have effected more than just the big players like Google and Craigslist. Any website knowingly or unwittingly that contained links to outside websites – which may or may not have copy right infringing material – could be taken down. An ecommerce drop shipper could face charges for items their website displays. A website with a forum that anyone in the public and use to discuss topics could be done away with.

Are we not a country who believes in innocence until proven guilty? We treat corporations like people when it benefits Big Corpa to do so. Many smaller businesses operate websites that are used for ecommerce or contain outside user generated content. All of these businesses will be criminals …without the burden of proof being placed on the accuser.

PIPA is the Senate version of the bill. It was actually proposed months before SOPA was, however its language limits the websites that can be effected are those whose goal is only to support the intellectual property rights, anti-digital rights or counterfeit good violators. The goal being to stop websites such as ThePiratesBay from being viewed in the United States. However, PIPA could still be abused by large corporations choosing to hinder competition by smaller wholesalers and retailers. Wholesalers and retailers would need to provide detailed evidence that they do not infringe on any copyrighted material that the accuser may own. That burden of proof would be very difficult to manage for a small business with limited means to hire lawyers.

The difficulty if PIPA were to pass is quite similar to SOPA and includes language in its bill that would make it so domain name servers would be forced to stop a website from being seen by the public. All an accuser would need to do is make claim to the courts that they have made a diligent effort to contact a company they feel has infringed their copyright and that the accused company did not contact them back. Large media corporations – particularly the film and music industry – could hamstring innovation and start-ups of competing websites by making infringement claims with little basis.

These past several weeks have seen a rallying cry from a diverse range of internet users. Free speech advocates, e-commerce businesses with international contacts, large internet search and directory companies such as Google and Yahoo and others have come together to oppose both SOPA and PIPA. Many websites – including Wikipedia, Craigslist and others held an official day of protest on January 18th, 2012 blacking out their sites all together or at least their front pages. These and other efforts to reach out to the public have seemingly worked. US Congress was overwhelmed with the cry and hue from American citizens opposing these bills. But they are not actually dead yet. Merely shelved to be re-written and resurrected in the weeks to come when the public’s attention span has lapsed.

The American public – no matter their political stripe – has grown tired of the onslaught against their Freedom of Speech and other rights being watered down. We have seen the courts swing back to the side the general welfare of the public with the Federal Appeals Court ruling that video recording the police in a public place is a constitutional right for all U.S. citizens. American companies dependent on the internet can only hope that the courts will rule in the best interest of all … and not the lobbying groups of a few big moneyed industries.

It’s December and in the northern hemisphere the weather is getting pretty nippy. So what’s the in way to stay warm for the winter of 2011-2012? According to the top ranked fashion designers it’s the cardigan, a knitted sweater with either buttons, a belt, or a zipper in the front. While some people think of cardigans as a female fashion item they’re not only popular among men now but were in fact originally created for men. While not one of the very oldest of  fashion items, the cardigan has an interesting history and range of styles all of its own. With brown wool with thick buttons and tan cotton yarn with a trendy belt, cardigans are what your fashionista consumers are looking for to keep warm.

Cardigans were originally created for British military to wear not only under their protective clothing for warmth but also as an alternative to a thin waistcoat at formal events. In fact the name “cardigan” comes from James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, a noted British military officer. Due to this, in its earliest days cardigans were considered semi-formal wear for men in the winter months, most often worn by men serving in the military. However in the 1960′s cardigans were adopted into popular fashion, worn by ladies and men alike with the rising popularity of not only military wears but also clothing made with natural fibers such as wool.

These days, cardigans are the chicest thing on the runways of Paris, Milan, and New York in all of the biggest fashion lines. From Chanel to Stella McCartney to Dolce & Gabbanna, unisex cardigan sweaters are all the rage. The current big trend tends to be the buttoned variety, popularized by The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton as well as her younger socialite sister Pippa Middleton, a current fashion plate whom the paparazzi can’t seem to leave alone. It should also be noted that the wool of alpacas, rather than sheep, are becoming more popular due to the less itchy quality of the fiber. Not only that but alpaca yarn tends to naturally come in rich whites, browns, and blacks thus requiring no artificial dyes unless an unusual color is desired.

Cardigans vary in price from wholesaler to wholesaler, particularly based on style and quality of the product. Fortunately though almost all reputable fashion wholesalers carry them in varying cuts and colors as well as fiber, so you can feel free to shop around and find the perfect style and price for your particular consumer base. While alpaca is the current “in” fiber we here at Retailer’s Wholesale Guide advise against getting too excited about it due to the fact that sheep’s wool or artificial wool is much cheaper than alpaca due to ease of raising and spinning. If, however, you do wish to get into this new and unique fad it might be wise to contact alpaca farmers themselves who often spin and weave their creations. They may be more expensive on initial purchase but the high price you can set for them, a standard well made alpaca wool cardigan going for about $125 retail, you can make a good profit and expect enough profit to buy something nice for everyone for the holidays.

If you are in the licensed apparel and merchandise business you have reason to be pleased. At least you do if those NFL jerseys you sell are legitimate. If you sell knockoffs you best head for the hills Ma Barker because the feds are looking for you and will seize your domain name if they feel the need.

The Department of Justice and Customs Enforcement have already taken down 130 websites they say were selling fake jerseys and knock-off handbags. They included sites with names such as reeboksite.com, shopsbag.com, verycheapjerseys.com and officialpumashop.com.

This is the third such sweep since 2010. The first took out 82 sites offering illegal music and video downloads. The second came in February 2011 aimed at sports related content streams.Some of whom had no illegal content of their own but merely linked to other sources for the copyright infringing videos.

Now on the surface this make look like a triumph for those in business legally by punishing illegal competition. However, there are some fairly serious questions regarding the legality of the seizures. For example, the domain grabs are made by government agencies without anything even remotely resembling due process. No one is asked to prove their legality, no specific violations are documented, and no warnings given.

It is also easy to question the real effectiveness of the seizures when you consider that it is pretty easy to simply buy a new domain name and have your heinous copyright violating merchandise on the market again. Not to mention that over the course of these seizures no one has been prosecuted for any crime. If copyright violations are so dangerous why leave these criminals loose to menace free enterprise again?

Senator Ron Wyden(D-OR) is not a fan of the domain grabs and made his position clear in a letter to the Immigration and Custom Enforcement director John Morton. His letter said in part,”In contrast to ordinary copyright litigation, the domain name seizure process does not appear to give targeted websites an opportunity to defend themselves before sanctions are imposed. As you know, there is an active and contentious legal debate about when a website may be held liable for infringing activities by its users. I worry that domain name seizures could function as a means for end-running the normal legal process in order to target websites that may prevail in full court. The new enforcement approach used by Operation In Our Sites is alarmingly unprecedented in the breadth of its potential reach.”

One of the domain seized in the great pirated sport broadcasts mentioned above was a site called Rojadirecta.com. A site operated out of Spain and determined legal under Spanish law. SO some questions could be raised over US agencies feeling that they need not consider the legal precedents and concerns of other nations.

Back in May 2011, the Department of Homeland Security demanded that Mozilla, maker of the very popular Firefox web browser, to do away with an add on that would redirect users attempting to visit a seized domain to others hosted outside the US and thus more difficult to shut down. Mozilla refused and the issue is still pending.

While copyright enforcement is an important issue to copyright holders and they are certainly within their rights to bring suit and seek legal remedies, I have to question the expenditure of governmental monies and potential constitutional violations as being an appropriate price to pay to pursue what are low threat crimes and seemingly civil matters.

There has long been a debate in our society on the use of hemp as raw material for manufacturing. The debate of course centers on the fact that hemp and marijuana are the same plant. However, there is a very significant difference. In order for a hemp plant to produce THC, the chemical in marijuana that produces the high that makes it so popular, the plant must be prevented from completing its fertilization process. A plant that undergoes the natural fertilization process contains almost no THC and won’t produce the euphoria associated with the drug form of the plant.

Historically hemp production has been a vital industry in the United States and elsewhere. The ancient Chinese used hemp to make paper and nearly everyone used the plant to manufacture rope and sails. Charlemagne made it a law that most farmers had to raise some hemp and could pay their taxes in hemp seeds. The Gutenburg bible was printed on hemp based paper. One of the reasons that Napoleon invaded Russia was to put an end to the Russian export of hemp to England. George Washington raised hemp on his plantation. Henry Ford was a huge proponent of hemp production.

It has been suggested that hemp was made illegal in the United States for reasons that had far more to do with economics than concerns over drug use. The DuPont Company had recently developed a process to make paper from trees and cloth from petrochemicals. William Randolph Hearst owned 800,000 acres of forest he wanted to use for making newsprint and the newspaper magnate helped generate a public hysteria that led to the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 that made hemp production illegal.

While growing hemp is still against the law in the U.S. many countries encourage the plants cultivation and American businesses are allowed to use imported hemp for production. Twenty-two states have legislation that contradicts the federal ban on hemp production. A partial list includes North Dakota, Montana, Virginia, and California. The National Conference of State Legislators has endorsed domestic hemp production for years.

Many companies take advantage of imported hemp to manufacture an amazing variety of products ranging from clothing to paper, from jewelry to building materials.

It is easy to lump all proponents of hemp cultivation into a hippy heap and disregard their efforts as an attempt to legalize marijuana. Undoubtedly there is some truth to this but it’s a mistake to discount their environmental arguments because they might smoke pot. It is certain that if hemp production returned to its pre-1937 levels the need for cutting down forests for paper production would be greatly reduced if not eliminated entirely.

Among the more popular of hemp products is clothing. Hemp makes an excellent and durable alternative to cotton. Clothing made from the material is available all over the Internet. Everything from t-shirts to underwear is available on websites located both in the United States and abroad. Generally speaking since hemp clothing production lags far behind cotton and synthetic materials they are much more expensive. However, the target markets for these products are willing to pay more to support what they see as a political issue.

Hemp products are probably best added to a product lines already associated with hippy and alternative culture items. For example, a business selling massage oils and supplies could add a hemp based oil or yoga mats made from the plant.

It isn’t possible to list all the types products made from hemp but merchants can rest assured that just about anything that can be made from cloth or paper. There are hemp belts, towels, wallets, tablecloths, and even diapers and bean bag chairs.

No matter where someone stands on the environmental and political issues associated with hemp production there is no denying the growing economic potential of hemp items. Everyday consumers are growing more and more informed about the unlikely alliance between left wing environmentalists and farmers looking to regain a once highly profitable crop. Searching online will show that hundreds of businesses feel that hemp products will turn a profit. It seems likely that as the population learns the difference between hemp and marijuana that a come back for the fiber is inevitable.

Nobody on Facebook gives a damn about your online retail marketing strategy. At least according to a study released earlier this year by Forrester Research and GSI Commerce. The two market research companies analyzed data gathered between November 12th and December 20th, 2010. They found that there was almost no relation between social media marketing and direct retail purchases online.

GSI executive Fiona Dias was quoted on Mashable.com as saying, “The best analogy is in the South, a lot of people go to church on Sunday. If you go with the theory that you should market where the people are, then you should be running off to market during church services. Facebook has the same analogy. Buying things from retailers is maybe 10th on the list of things they want to do on Facebook.”

Personally, I don’t find it especially surprising that folks using social media don’t like being pitched to. They want to connect with friends, play games, and humiliate strangers. They like to feel in control and like they are participating in this wild-westesque environment free from the maudlin manipulation of direct marketing.

It is easy to poke a few holes in the study. For example, while only 2% of sales came directly from social media, how many sales were driven by customers visiting and then returning at a later date to purchase? How many sales were driven by a generally positive view of a product or company that was driven by social media?

Others claim that consumers using social media as a direct purchasing tool spend more per sale than those that do not. For example, the New York Times quoted clothing retailer American Eagle as saying that their social media driven customer spent 57% more per sale than other buyers. That number is so impressive that I confess I have doubts about American Eagle’s veracity.

In my opinion this doesn’t mean you should run out and get rid of your Facebook page. There are certainly signs that Facebook is helpful in establishing brand identification and customer response. Reaching out to established customers with honest responses to complaints builds loyalty and provides opportunities to make new sales.

However, it might be time to reign in expectations. Instead of thinking of social media as a TV channel and simply marketing, develop a program that invites customers to your business. Transparency and participation build trust, and trust builds customers. The businesses that do the best job of creating dedicated customers will sell more products.

The e-reader is still a booming seller in the technology department. It turns out we weren’t bored of books, we just can’t be taken away from a screen for very long. The market now rich with a variety of models from different companies, e-readers can be both affordable and rather prestigious. Sales continue to nearly triple annually, and we haven’t hit it’s peak yet. Market research suggests upwards of 26 million units will be sold this year alone, and will sell well next year.

It comes as little surprise that the first commercially successful e-readers were released in Japan. The Sony Librié had the weight of a book without all the fast and responsive page turning. Despite being functionally handicapped, the device sold well. It sold so well that it actually made a few successful passes at the English market, and influenced the product that would define the e-reader for the English market.

In 2007 Amazon released the Kindle. Following a now well tested and safe trend set by Sony; the Kindle was a huge success, and continues to be Amazon’s top tech seller. It’s success made the e-reader a household product before dinner time, selling out of five months stock in five hours.  Even in the face of smartphones and tablet PCs, the e-reader remains one of the most desired tech products this season. And with more and more companies offering alternatives, prices are going down and the technology is getting better.

The most popular name in the e-reader market is still Amazon’s Kindle. It’s most recent ‘Kindle Fire’ model sports a color screen, touch display, and a tablet-competitive price tag of $200. It’s currently Amazon’s hottest tech item, and most desired. Amazon has a number of other models with prices as low at $99. It’s a safe bet the e-reader will be Amazon’s hottest tech seller this holiday season.

Another familiar e-reader name is the Barnes & Nobel Nook just introduced in 2009. They paved the way for colored screens and extended features like web browsing, now found in Amazon’s Kindle Fire.  The Nook is certainly a competitor though; similar features, similar price tags ($140 – $250), and has a bit of seniority with backlit screens. The association with Barnes & Nobel alone wins this product plenty of sales.

The pioneer of the market, Sony, is still producing competitive ebooks like the Librié. Their current most notable model the the Sony Reader: a bit pricier, starting at $150, the Reader is a sleeker looking option. Though sticking with the easy to read monochrome electric paper (or e ink if you like the letter e), the device sports a crisper screen and strong wifi support along side a thin build. Sony is also providing more and more models that take advantage of the Android App market, and it might be good to keep them in mind for the future of e-readers.

Less familiar but more impressive the the Kobo ‘Vox’. This Tablet/e-reader hybrid sports a-list features with a very competitive price tag. Full color backlit touch screen optimized for outdoor reading, support of the Android app market, and all for $200. Might not be as familiar of a name, but savvy consumers will appreciate the difference. This product also dips heavily into the rather ritzy and popular tablet pc market much more than it’s competitors.

Dominating the Russian market and making it’s way State side is the Ectaco jetBook. The jetBook sells itself as an educational device while also sporting rather commercial features like voice recognition.  Ectaco has a large variety of models from $90 to $400. Though it’s not taking on many tablet PC features, the jetBook is certainly a device to keep an eye on.

So don’t let the noise about smartphones and tablet PCs fool you; the e-reader hasn’t peaked. With growing competition, plummeting prices and modern features; consumers are still strongly drawn to these pieces of science fiction. The growth of the tablet PC industry will only benefit e-reader sales as fresh features get passed down to these more affordable devices.  Might be smart to catch this craze while it’s still growing.