Yeah, you can make online videos on making bombs, too, if you do not mind US Hellfires blowing you to hamburger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

The distinction between hosting copyrighted material for illegal downloading and "merely" linking to place that do is important ONLY because laws against the former do not prohibit the latter. A primary aim of SO/PIPA is to close that loophole, which is necessary; where SO/PIPA err is in casting too wide a net, including unwitting or even third party violations and eliminating safe harbor protection. Shutting down Pirate Bay for linking to copyrighted material for illegal download is only right; shutting down RAFO because I link to a Huff Post article is going too far, especially if it happens before Ben even knows I posted the link.

I love a good analogy, but the one with books on bomb making instructions is inapplicable. The issue is not sites with links to INSTRUCTION ON HOW to commit illegal acts, but sites links that is an illegal act to even click. Yes, search engines do that, too—if prompted; they are not set up for that purpose and do not volunteer the links. Safe harbor provisions would protect them, regardless, an example of why those are vital, but disabling US connections to foreign pirate sites would obviate even that need. Comparing that to the Great Firewall of China is hyperbolic alarmism everyone recognizes as such; it does not convince anyone of anything except that the people making the comparison are uncredible and wildly biased.


They may be one and the same, but only the uploading is really problematic. It is a non-issue for licit downloading; when I recently paid for a download of a legal copy of Baldur's Gate I&II (since my decade old store bought copies are somewhere in my house in TX 7000 miles from here) I did not facilitate hundreds of illegal downloads around the world, because the third party site was licensed to sell the game and does not participate in piracy. Had it been a site that DOES pirate, and if my downloading had therefore not only been illegal itself but facilitated other such downloads, it would be a different story, but its moral would would be "do not assist pirate sites with making money off giving away other peoples intellectual property."

Downloading stolen media IS a crime (even though I would not make it one, provided no money is involved,) but the only law worth enforcing would be against making money off such downloads and/or assisting others in doing so. If illegal downloads are impossible without doing that, too bad; while I would not criminalize downloading other peoples intellectual property if no money is involved, even I do not consider it some kind of "right" that merits protection. Even if it WERE, the extent of such a right would still end at the point it infringed on that of another, which aiding people stealing from them certainly does. So find a way to (illegally) download without also (illegally) uploading, or do not (illegally) download at all.


Sounds like you put the cart before the horse: Does it not make more sense to say the most profitable games are always the most heavily pirated? Since the most profitable games are the ones with the highest demand and/or price tag, making them natural piracy targets? Saying the opposite is like saying, "Francis Drake actually HELPED Spain, because pirating their shipping made them more money from American gold and silver." Well, Elizabeth II knighted him for "helping" Englands mortal foe anyway. How much piracy hurts or helps legitimate sales is only an educated guess (at best,) but we are still back to "Big Media is only guessing at how much piracy costs them, because we cannot know their sales without piracy—but here is what those sales would be anyway and, look piracy actually HELPS!" Pick a horse and ride it.


Yes, if people refuse to pay the price someone asks for their property OR do without it they can simply steal it, but it is illegal and they are subject to prosecution.

Meanwhile, new laws could greatly curtail that for intellectual property, there is just no need to swoop up legal and/or harmless activity into the bargain, let alone create a quick and easy way to remove sites one dislikes and subject their users and operators to prosecution. We can block access to proven pirate sites and prosecute their operators where we have jurisdiction; we can do the same to the advetisers sponsoring them. That will not "break the internet," not that internet access is a constitutional right to begin (though the UN laughably decided recently it is a human right; one can only pity the billions of humans forced to subsist without it prior to my birth. ) We just should not also target anyone who has ever knowingly or otherwise traded a single email with operators of pirate sites, or allow Freepers to shut down Kos (or vice versa) by simply posting a link to copyrighted material and reporting it to the copyright holder. We certainly should not allow some random Freeper/Kos user to shut down the opposing site by simply CLAIMING it posted unspecified copyrighted material without permission.

Meh, I wash my hands of it; rational netizens will do as requested and submit the requested suggestions of how a rationale new anti-piracy law will look. Hopefully there will be more than a handful, because you will have less luck convincing Congress no new law is needed than you did with me. Once again, if the only legislation they have to choose is the one Big Media singlehandedly wrote, it will inevitably pass by default, likely by Christmas. Burying our heads in the sand or complaining about its needlessness and excesses will not change that. Someone must make the case to Congress for an alternative, because they will enact SOMETHING in the end. Stop pointlessly denying that and decide what you want that "something" to be.