Hello Matt,

MM>At the request of Lee, I seperated the paragraphs if anyone wants
MM>to give this topic a second chance.

Thank you for re-presenting this topic.  SOPA (and PIPA) were
officially "postponed" on January 20, but will we back soon in
a revised form.

 MM> To   : All
 MM> Subj : ISP's are hirelings for the police state

 MM> - Maybe this is a good example why we should go back to dialup days and
 MM> still use bbs's.

 MM> Understanding SOPA and copyright laws in the context of liberty.

Protecting content is a worthy goal.

SOPA is an acronym for Stop Online Piracy Act.  The bill was written and
designed to crack down on copyright infringement by restricting access
to certain sites that host pirated (stolen) content.

What certain sites were targeted by SOPA?  One could say those
targets were "rogue" overseas sites, such as The Pirate Bay.

Copyright infringement is already illegal, thanks to The 1998 Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, which lays out enforcement measures. However,
that piece of fine legislation is not enough in today's modern world.

SOPA supporters, such as Time Warner and Motion Picture Association
of America, claim that online piracy leads to U.S. job losses beacuse
it deprives content creators of income.  Legislation is needed to fix
a system that is broken, the present system being unable to adequately
prevent criminal behavior.

After tech companies voiced opposition, the White House said it
would not support legislation that mandates manipulating the Internet's
technical architecture.  Shortly thereafter one of SOPA's lead sponsors,
Lamar Smith, agreed to remove SOPA's domain-blocking provisions.

 MM> Remember that battle over SOPA, in which the worlds largest websites beat
 MM> back a congressional threat that would have changed the Internet forever?

SOPA supporters, such as Time Warner and Motion Picture Association
of America, are much larger than the handful of small tech companies
that opposed SOPA.  :)

 MM> It was pretty obvious within a day after this Pyrrhic victory that the
 MM> existing laws in place were enough to give the government the power
 MM> to wreck the digital world.

The system was already broken long before SOPA was even being discussed.

 MM> But how would it happen? How would government end digital freedom? Well, the
 MM> excuse is obvious. It is intellectual property. This phrase serves the same
 MM> purpose for would-be censors that terrorism does for warmongers. It is a
 MM> way to ramp up government control while kicking sand in the faces of those
 MM> who would oppose such control.

One more time.  Protecting content [intellectual property] is a worthy
goal.  The individual who created that content [intellectual property]
is the owner of that content [intellectual property].  Stealing that
content is theft.  Otherwise noted as copyright infringement, which is
illegal.

Does the term "digital freedom" mean a license to steal?

 MM> Are you for terrorism? Are you for theft? Its rather easy to detect normal
 MM> theft.

Copyright infringement is theft of intellectual property.
SOPA legislation was meant to repair/fix a broken system that
is incapable to adequately prevent criminal behavior.

 MM> One day, I have a planter on my porch. The next day, the planter is on your
 MM> porch, and it got there without my permission....Now
 MM> imagine a different scenario. One day, the paragraph above appears on the
 MM> website for Laissez Faire Books. The next day, it appears on your Facebook
 MM> page or blog. But it is not thereby removed from lfb.org. Instead, it is
 MM> copied. A second instance of the paragraph has been created, taking nothing
 MM> from me. My paragraph still exists. And lets say this happens 10 billion
 MM> times in the course of a few minutes, as can happen in the digital world.
 MM> Is this a case of mass looting, or is
 MM> it a mass compliment to me? Copyright law sees this as theft. But how can
 MM> that be?

Because it deprives content creators of income.

Musicians and songwriters such as Madonna and Lady Gaga have learned
this, and have devised very innovative ways to prevent theft of their
own work.  But what is needed is federal legislation, so that others
can benefit.

 MM> The whole merit of the digital world rests on the remarkable scalability of
 MM> everything digitized. Thats the basis of the economy of the Internet. Its
 MM> capacity for inspiring and achieving infinite emulation and sharing is
 MM> unparalleled in history. Its what makes the Internet different from
 MM> parchment, vinyl or television. Remove that, and you gut the unique energy
 MM> of the medium. Intellectual property law became universal only about 120
 MM> years ago. It was gradually expanded over the course of the century,
 MM> invading the digital realm in the 1980s and expanding its coverage ever
 MM> since. How do you make copies illegal in a medium that specializes in its
 MM> capacity for sharing, multiplying, linking and community formation? You
 MM> need totalitarian control.

An alternative to SOPA has been proposed, known as OPEN.
Draft legislation of OPEN is online, and the Web community
has been invited to comment and revise its contents.  Here
is the url -

http://keepthewebopen.com/

However, SOPA supporters do note that OPEN has some serious drawbacks -

"The Open Act does not do enough to combat online piracy, and may make
the problem worse." - Lamar Smith (R-TX)

 MM> - from
 MM> http://www.humblelibertarian.com/2012/03/isps-are-hirelings-for-
 MM> police-state.html



 MM> Matt

Excellent topic for discussion.
The battle lines are drawn...

--Lee

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