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Permalink Reply by Rolf Herklotz on January 15, 2012 at 5:24am

Thank you Troy, have a nice week ...

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Permalink Reply by TROY on January 15, 2012 at 7:53pm

It's funny that the morning after posting this, MSNBC's Chris Hayes is hosting a discussion about SOPA (stop online piracy act) that would essentially grant corporations the right to control and block the sharing of data on the Internet vs those who want to preserve the "anarchy" that seems to be working just fine, with piracy being rather moot in its impact.

This "Old Soul" political system might not last long. 

I like what Alexis of Reddit.com says, which is that Innovation, not Legislation, is the solution, citing the positive impact of sites that provide affordable and immediate access to the same data that is usually made inaccessible or riddled with obstacles that would normally be pirated. For instance, Spotify provides "Freemium" and affordable subscriptions for accessing millions of artists and songs, which is naturally more appealing to people than breaking the law and searching for quality pirated material, and provides a healthy solution (healthy politics) for the sharing of data.

I have no issues with online "piracy" at this point. It has done nothing to harm anyone or any industry (all long-term research has shown just the opposite). Piracy has done more to allow for sharing of information, experience, and arts than if controlled by corporations.

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Permalink Reply by Brian_W on January 15, 2012 at 8:44pm

Troy, we know. Unfortunately, this one is going to be ramrodded down our global collective throats. The way the bill is written, it allows for any website linking to a website which has been merely accused of hosting copyrighted material to be shutdown and the owner of said site to be charged with a felony, punishable with 3 - 5 years if the link to the copyrighted material is considered to be intentional. Additionally, the United States has thus far promised to suppress trade with any nation which does not pass a similar law within their own nations. The sites in question will have their domain name removed from the domain name (ie, www.google.com would give an error: not found, whereas http://74.125.237.112/ would point to Google, for example) and any US-based financial support services (ie, PayPal) forbidden from providing services to the website linking to an accused copyright infringing site. 

Only through expensive litigation would the site owner be able to go to court and would be responsible for proving their site did not intentionally link to the "infringing" content. Given the vast technical wisdom of the inner workings of the internet by our most trusted courts, I expect this to go over ..... swimmingly.

Ofcourse, just as the PATRIOT Act was used to .... no, not investigate terrorists, but to investigate drug crimes, I'm sure that SOPA will only be used with the responsibility and integrity shown countless times by our elected representatives.

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