This post is for posterity/in case you didn’t know about this/because I want to voice my take/because I like to point out how viewing our elected leaders in Washington as “authorities” on almost any subject is terribly misguided:
So, every so often, Congress gets this ridiculous idea that they need to exert some control over the internet. “Its for the children,” or whatever. This round is another attempt by the MPAA to stop online piracy. While I’m sure that idea is good, the proposed “solutions” are far worse than the problem. Basically, my interpretation of the events is that the entertainment industry has an outdated business model, and rather than embrace new opportunities, they want to use the force of law and all that entails to enforce their existing methods of making money. If they really wanted to stop piracy, they would embrace online streaming rather than fight it. But they don’t. They’d rather send men with guns, like the thugs they are.
Anyway, I signed the petition voicing my opposition to censoring the web: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
Fark.com has some relevant links if you want to know more about the awful legislation our elected leaders are proposing (The links below are quoted directly from Fark.com, please don’t sue me or shut my blog down):
“PIPA In A Nutshell:
- http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41911.pdf – provides the absolute best summary I’ve seen of the bill, if you don’t want to read the actual bill itself. It also states the concerns about the bill.
- http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/coica-v-20-protect-ip-act does a great job of explaining WHY the wording is vague, instead of just stating the the wording is “too vague” (which is vague in itself, and what I’ve seen most places )
- http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/newsfeed/files/2011/07/PROTECT-IP-letter-final.pdf – Letter from 108 law professors, again pointing out the problematic sections of the bill.
- For reference, the bill itself: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s968rs/pdf/BILLS-112s968rs.pdf“
