samsplace:

dysfunctionarian:

dangerguerrero:

dysfunctionarian:

Re: The SOPA/PIPA issue

I’ve got two people on my dash making important opposing points regarding the issue that I think are great things to consider when taking a stance. On one side…

samsplace:

I’m glad everyone is so concerned about SOPA/PIPA

However every day that bit tormenting sites exist money is taken out of my pocket. It is stolen in lost residuals which both contribute to my pension and health care, and are also paid directly to me as part of my compensation for my work. So after you are done posting your little black square on Facebook, or blacking out your tumblr or calling your Congressperson or whatever maybe you can devote some time to proposing a better solution. Anyone who mocks our elected officials for proposing what is apparently a bad solution is no better than those they call out absent a better answer.

Now for the other side.

dangerguerrero:

RELATED: If I may put my lawyer-guy hat on for a moment, I can’t stress strongly enough to all of you how terrible the whole SOPA/PIPA thing is. I know lots of people and sites are drilling this into everyone’s head today, but I don’t want the message to get overwhelmed by the noise. Not only will this bill throw a giant wrench into the Internet, it also has SERIOUS Constitutional ramifications. It gives mass copyright holders (Disney, record companies, Viacom, etc.) the ability to restrict people’s speech and take away their property (websites) without due process. That, to be very clear, is unacceptable. Freedom of speech and the protection from the government taking your stuff are two of the most important elements of a free society. Opening the door to allowing corporations to shut people down without the proper safeguards — a trial, or at least a showing of good cause in front of an impartial judge — puts all that at risk. I hate to be Admiral Slippery Slope here, but this stuff works like a leak in a dam. You start making tiny exceptions, then those lead to bigger exceptions, then those start spreading and spreading, and next thing you know water is spraying everywhere. I’m not saying we’re going to turn into a restrictive society like China or Iran overnight (or at all), but I AM saying that as a society that values individual freedoms, we can’t turn over this much power to people with profits in mind instead of our well-being. Nope. Can’t have it. Not in America.

I’d add more of my own insight, but I’m still typing one-handed for fear of ripping the stitches out of my other hand (and pain).

I understand the point Sams Place is trying to make, and I am sorry for the effect copyright infringement has on artists and creators of content. To a large degree, the system is broken, or in need of a major overhaul. I don’t think anyone sensible is arguing otherwise.

Here’s the thing, though: it’s not MY job to fix it. I will openly admit that I don’t know how. But just because I don’t have an answer doesn’t mean I can’t be upset about blatant, glaring flaws in someone else’s idea. That’s why we have experts — they’re the ones who need to come up with the ideas. And if the idea they come up with — and for the record, SOPA was not created by “experts,” it was basically written by lobbying groups for copyright holders — pisses all over the Internet and the Constitution, I don’t have to grab my abacus and run to my laboratory to solve it before I raise my hand and point that out.

I don’t know how to do auto repair either. That’s why I take my car to a mechanic. And if he returns it leaking oil and periodically catching fire, I don’t have to give him my crackpot theories on why it’s happening. I can just go to a different mechanic and ask him to do it better.

Reblogging to further the discussion. Great points.

Dangerguerrero is correct that it’s not his responsibility, and I was being a little flippant about needing to provide a solution before you criticize. My point stands, though, that I’d love to see some of this passion put into finding solutions for the piracy issue. A lot of extremely smart people have joined together to voice their opposition to this bill. Well some of those same people need to figure out a way to protect content providers. SOPA/PIPA may not be the answer, but the alternative is not going to be a continuation of the status quo as too many people are being hurt by internet piracy. If no one in the tech community comes up with better solutions you’re going to wind up with some variation of the currently proposed legislation. So go ahead and put your little black boxes up, and then go back to the people who are telling you to protest and ask what they propose as a solution to the problem.

Before you can come up with a solution to the problem of piracy, you (and I don’t mean you personally, Sam; this is an indefinite “you”) have to recognize one simple fact:

You’ll never stop it.

There will always be people with the abilities to overcome any technical hurdles, including the enforcement provisions in SOPA/PIPA. DRM? Made to be broken. Website takedowns? The content moves, or ends up on a USB drive, or gets distributed via a local peer-to-peer networking. The amount of effort needed to pirate something might increase, but it’s a small incremental cost. Meanwhile people trying to enjoy a work legitimately find they can’t copy that movie they just bought to their iPad, or that the DVD a friend sent them from overseas doesn’t work because of region encoding, or that their favourite website has been taken down because of a spurious claim by a copyright holder over content that wasn’t actually in violation of any laws (as could very well happen under SOPA/PIPA). They, not pirates, are the ones dissuaded from going about their business.

If I want to download something from last week’s SNL (as an example), I can’t do so legally because of rights issues. My only option would be to find an illegal upload somewhere. The industry’s actions would force me to break the law to enjoy their works. Does that serve anyone’s interests? Of course not—but it’s what the industry has demanded. Everything the entertainment industry has done to try to stop piracy has served as a perverse incentive to engage in it. The solution? Forget about trying to stop it by technical means. Make it easier to buy and enjoy something legally than to try to find a torrent. Stop screwing around with DRM and region encoding and software rootkits, stop trying to limit how people use the media they’ve already purchased, stop making it hard for people to buy your product. Go after the large-scale pirates, sure (and I’d think the makers of counterfeit disks would be a far bigger economic problem than torrent sites), but lay off consumers. They’re the people whose support, economic and otherwise, you need—and if you continue to make it difficult for them to give you their money, you’re going to get to a point where piracy is the least of your worries.