Thursday, January 19, 2012

Piracy


Instead of just hating on SOPA and PIPA, can the tech community have a meeting of the minds and make valiant attempts at innovating a way to reduce piracy in a "free Internet" in the same vein that the legislators are attempting to do so with these bills?

It seems to me that everyone just dislikes the bill without really considering any other option. I heard vague statements from Wikipedia's founder on television and other vague disdain for the bill without stating exactly what is so bad about the bill other than it will bring down the free Internet or change it permanently. Censorship among other topics were the biggest concern with all of the black-out protests, but what will be censored. I don't really see how any speech will be censored. I only saw illegal content on the chopping block which seems reasonable, if you are one to adhere to the law. The only thing that I found particularly damning was the action against a company without due process and such. So, with that said, if certain parts were removed and or changed, would the tech industry support it? Is there any amount of legislation or more specifically stronger legislation that the industry would support?

Piracy is already against the law, so why is there seemingly a demand for a stronger law? Has the tech community really done enough to stave off piracy? Or has it essentially turned a blind eye to it so to speak and thusly deserved the SOPA bill fight on capitol hill because of its lackadaisical stances? I guess I feel that this bill wouldn't be on capitol hill if the tech industry had done its part to reduce piracy in coordination with the content creators who are drumming the support for stronger laws.