Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:49 am Post subject: Oh, the Anarchy of the Cybersphere!
Recall some of the earlier threads about SOPA, where proponents or sympathizers of the deranged bill spoke of how "Internet Freedom" was infringing on poor, starving artists, intellectual property and how there weren't any tools, whatsoever, under America's already draconian copyright laws to address the matter? Well, looks like they've been proven wrong by reality.
In other words, many SOPA opponents were confused and even shocked when they learned that the very power they feared the most in that bill — the power of the U.S. Government to seize and shut down websites based solely on accusations, with no trial — is a power the U.S. Government already possesses and, obviously, is willing and able to exercise even against the world’s largest sites (they have this power thanks to the the 2008 PRO-IP Act pushed by the same industry servants in Congress behind SOPA as well as by forfeiture laws used to seize the property of accused-but-not-convicted drug dealers). This all reminded me quite a bit of the shock and outrage that arose last month over the fact that Barack Obama signed into law a bill (the NDAA) vesting him with the power to militarily detain people without charges, even though, as I pointed out the very first time I wrote about that bill, indefinite detention is already a power the U.S. Government under both Bush and Obama has seized and routinely and aggressively exercises.
I must ask strident copyrightists - when is enough, enough? Will it take the government issuing death sentences over ambiguous-case copyright disputes before you develop sympathy for proponents of a free Internet? _________________ http://www.voterocky.org/
Joined: Jan 31, 2011 Age: 23 Posts: 5022 Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:07 am Post subject:
not to mention that any such "possession" of knowledge goes against everything that gave us civilization, the free sharing of ideas and concepts. _________________ //through chaos comes complexity//
the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.
I saw this. It's ridiculous. The US should not be able to apply their laws anywhere but within their own country.
What I want to know, though, is why didn't they do this with The Pirate Bay? Do they only have agreements with certain countries, Sweden not being one of them?
Shutting Megaupload down probably had ulterior motives behind it, namely to send a message. Yet, Megaupload was shut down on completely legal means. The process was done through extradition on a wealthy criminal running around the world from the law. Founder Kim Dotcom just wanted to get rich illegally, he is no Julian Assange.
