I have some sympathy with Kibbee’s comments. Just ignoring the copyright problem outright is very trendy, but it’s not just going to go away.
This guy on The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/17/beyond_sopa/) has some interesting points.
XKCD manages to make a decent living without worrying about people copying his stuff, but I’m not sure that approach could work for all content creators.
So, as Jeff says, they’ll be back.
When I have travelled to the US I find the openness of corruption in everyday life shocking.
I stay at a hotel and ask for a taxi. As I get into the car the driver is busy passing cash to the doorman as payment for selecting his company. Paying a bribe so that the next taxi request will also go to their company. Why should your politics, which relies so heavily on corporate “donations” be any different.
SOPA isn’t over yet:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120117/12563317437/its-baaaaaaaaack-lamar-smith-says-sopa-markup-to-resume-february.shtml
and it may not even be the real problem:
http://tech.turbu-rpg.com/393/the-worst-thing-about-sopa
Off topic:
I need to register to be able to post comment. But if I want to register using my Facebook account Typepad wants to have the right to post stuff to my FB wall. No way Jeff!
@Heroic
Could not have stated it better myself. Thanks.
@Lessig
Consider Heroic’s point.
What you hint at wanting in your book “Republic Lost” is that YOUR idea of democratic government (by legal per-person limits on campaign donations) would somehow be better than the current. Somehow, the information problem that precludes wise government would be overcome (Hayek - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek#Spontaneous_order).
As Heroic also states,
SOPA/PIPA are endemic to any government that views itself as the “controller” or “captain” or “manager” of society. That is, government with power for ANYTHING is a government with the power to do crappy things.
While your specific calls for campaign finance reform are more practical than my very general rebuke, I still ask you:
Given a government with ample power to write so many laws, taxations, etc. how do you plan to simultaneously dampen all people’s willingness to influence that power to their own ends?
-J_Tom_Moon_79
…oh, and vote for Ron Paul!
rendering all of English language Wikipedia inaccessible
It wasn’t inaccessible, everything was there, just like any other day, with a simple overlay and hidden content. Everything could be restored to normal within 15 seconds of opening the page. I guess that was intentional, they didn’t black out totally. Good thing “average” people didn’t know how to see the “real” content, cause it defeats the purpose.
Corruption is in Europe as well. My favorite one are Software Patents being discussed and passed at European Commission for Fisheries (3 times). At least there is European Parliament which stops most of this nonsense.
You are clearly right. The effort should not stop here but I feel I have to quote one of your former congressmen.
“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we fucked up the endgame.” - Charles N. Wilson.
I’m afraid that the same thing is going to happen again. And again.
Related enough that I suspect you’ve already read it, but if not definitely worth 2 minutes of your time:
I think Cory Doctorow explains this situation quite well. It’s because politicians don’t know how to tackle the issues of technology like they do with other problems. I agree lobbying is a huge problem and I don’t think we’ll actually win any “war”. What I do think will happen is there will be some slippery slope in that something similar but not as radical as SOPA/PIPA pass which leads to other bills to fix the issues with the previous. It won’t be until the congressmen or the average joe can’t go to wikipedia to do a quick query or youtube to pass some time on lunch break because the sites are sued out of existence that someone it will really become an “issue”.
Great post.
We came up with this in the MSO Tavern:
SOPA ist tot, aber der Schoß ist fruchtbar noch, aus dem dies kroch.
http://chat.meta.stackoverflow.com/rooms/89/conversation/sopa-ist-tot
“But please, please also join us in attacking the far more pernicious problem of lobbyist money subtly corrupting our government.”
If you think fighting lobbyists is the answer, then you probably also think cough medicine is good for tuberculosis.
Lobbyists are a symptom of the problem. The real problem is the centralization of power far beyond anything imagined by those who founded our government. The whole point behind the separation of powers and the checks and balances placed on our federal government is to prevent exactly what is happening today.
You can’t pass enough anti-lobbying laws to fix this. We need to fight against the notion that every problem needs to be addressed by an all powerful government. Face facts–politicians are too stupid and too easily corrupted to be trusted with anything important.
You have your cause and effect backwards.
Money flows into politics because that’s where the power is. Expanding government power always brings in the desire for more influence. Further expanding the power of government to regulate political speech and campaign money will only further increase corruption.
The same people howling most about SOPA/PIPA are the people who want the government to come in an enforce regulations over “net neutrality”. They want to expand the power of government to run the Internet, yet start crying when the government comes in to start to run the Internet.
For the record, I’m against SOPA/PIPA AND enforcement of net neutrality regulations.
Great article. Yes, stopping SOPA isn’t really the problem when you look at the big picture. The bill will just be altered and passed when the media isn’t looking, secretly tucked into some other bill at the last moment, or something like that.
The only way to stop the corruption in government is to stop voting, or, write in a candidate, anyone besides a republican or democrat. If no one went to the polls on election day, or no one voted for a democrat or republican, it would be a huge victory for the people. But, we all know that it will never happen.
People are too caught up in the soap opera that is politics without even realizing they are being completely duped. Left/right, democrat/republican, doesn’t matter. Both sides are owned by the same corporations/lobbyists, etc. They only differ on the surface, look deep down and they are two arms of the same beast, with the same agenda. On the surface, they take a different path, but both paths lead to the same outcome.
That is why nothing ever changes, regardless of who is in power, and why only those two parties are even given the chance of winning. It’s all a game, and the only way to stop it is to stop playing.
It really bugs me when people talk as if fixing “lobbyist money” will make it All Better.
There is no incorruptible interest. Even if campaign finance reform fixes today’s problems, you’d then have to keep an eye out for tomorrow’s.
Vigilance is the price of liberty. You’re going to have to read politics and history and economics and current news to properly watch your government. Government will never “just work”. Any claim to the contrary is just someone’s rhetorical device.
This is not a fight for/against human liberty, it is a fight for/against the freedom of objects becoming, well, what they want to. The fight against the concept of universal computation, will be lost. That is not the point. The point is, how much suffering and cruelty can or can not be avoided, in the process of defeating stupidity.
Thank you for this post and for posting the Lessig video.
How did these dangerous bills come to exist in the first place? There’s a dark secret that Wikipedia, Google, and TED aren’t telling you. WE are responsible for SOPA. When WE torrent a movie because “information wants to be free” or “Hollywood is a bunch of fat cats” we are breaking a social contract. When we hand our family member a DVD full of free books for the new Kindle they got for Christmas, we are putting a nail in the coffin of the free internet. Want to stop SOPA? Respect the rights of artists to distribute their works as they see fit.
I’m no fan of SOPA/PIPA. It’s draconian. And I’m even less of a fan of Son of SOPA or whatever may come next. And there’s only one way to stop it. Show respect. Otherwise, we’re going to get exactly what we deserve.
“Average people don’t understand how the Internet works and thus can’t comprehend the danger.”
Spot on, but a little inaccurate. These are dumber than average people when it comes to the Internet, we are talking about lawmakers and congressman.