Aestu wrote:
SOPA is the wrong answer to a legitimate issue: piracy, and protection of intellectual property rights.
Before the invention of the internet, if someone pirated a book or a patent, it was possible to seek legal means to forcibly stop them from doing so. Just because today's intellectual property is less tangible - or more lucrative - doesn't negate the need for a legal means of intercessory action against pirates.
The problem with SOPA is that it will only really benefit wealthy corps and trial lawyers. Corps with lawyers on retainer will be able to use the law to harass people by burying them in paper and legal fees, even if they have no case whatsoever.
The debate over SOPA, as I see it, is way off base. Those against the bill, for the most part, don't offer a solution to the problem - they just want the status quo, and don't care, or understand, the need for intellectual property rights.
Most of the anti-SOPA people, including, arguably, Wikipedia and Google, are really in the "free beer" and not "free speech" camp.
There is no free lunch. The argument shouldn't be about why SOPA is bad - it should be what the alternative should look like.
The answer, in my mind, is exactly what no one wants. More government - government to accept the role of great equalizer. Creation of a regulatory agency - a new patent office - that hears grievances without the need for private lawyers. Legislation defining exactly what intellectual property rights are and how they may be enforced.
I think a very radical step may be necessary - online chatroom courts - as that is the only way to overcome the fundamental issue here favoring corps, which is the necessity of travel and other expenses to defend a claim.
In the final analysis, the only alternative to SOPA is forfeiting the free lunches. Paying for content. Banning advertising-based revenue streams and charging a user fee for things like Google and Wikipedia that are reliant on "free" content.
People aren't willing to do that, so we get SOPA.
Why is it that all of your proposed solutions to anything always go from reasonable to batshit insane in just a few lines?
