Many websites and blawgs will be blacked out today in protest of laws pending before the House and Senate, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, SOPA/PIPA. I’ve decided not to go dark in protest, while websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit, focal points on the web, bring home the point that these laws threaten the existence of the internet. Being a mere speck of dust on the periphery of the web, I hope to add more through commentary than blackness.
Unlike others, I am not a believer that information demands to be free, in the sense of copyright being an archaic concept and infringement an entitlement. I believe that people who create content are entitled both to own it, monetize it and prevent others from stealing it. Yes, stealing it. If someone else created it, then it’s not yours to do with as you please, no matter how much you want to or think you ought to be allowed to. If you want content, create your own.
But believing in the virtue of protecting the creation of content does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that these shockingly overbearing laws are the means by which enforcement of content ownership should be protected. The internet has created innumerable problems with enforcement of copyright, with servers far away delivering content to any computer for the asking. It’s inadequate to ask nicely that people not steal.
Yet the answer to this problem isn’t to wield a hammer so large and powerful that it will undermine the internet, shut down upon demand and without recourse any website, no matter how large and significant or small and inconsequential. Worse still, the hammer is placed in hands so untrustworthy, so self-serving and manipulative, that the potential for damage to digital society is beyond anything imaginable.
There was a world before the internet. Many of you can’t imagine it, and dread the notion of returning to it, but it was there, and it wasn’t nearly as awful as you might think. Yet, it’s over. We live in a digital world now, and there is no turning back, any more than we could return to a world without electricity. The vitality of that world is undeniable; it’s the engine the drives almost everything we do. That a handful of companies, and an august group of elected officials, believe they can harness it, control it, limit it, is likely the most dangerously foolish bit of arrogance possible.
There are graver injustices in the world than SOPA/PIPA, but there are few attempts to make law that will be more fundamentally destructive to society. The internet is bigger than any company, and country, even the Exceptional United States of America. The internet is more fundamental to our existence than anything else in our culture. Aside from food, water and air, it is basic to our lives and continued existence. It didn’t have to be this way. We could have lived quite well without it. But now that it’s here, not that we’ve tasted and lived through it, there is no turning back.
The world wide web is not something to be controlled. It is bigger, and more fundamental, to society than anything we’ve ever known. Perhaps our government is emboldened by our willingness to be herded like sheep at the airport, or to be made to stand against a wall upon command of armed men. But these affronts pale in comparison, unfortunate as that may be.
We may suffer silently the indignity of transitory attacks on our freedom because we believe that it will be over quickly and we can move on. There is no moving on when the internet goes dark. Close down a website by unilateral fiat and you will unleash a backlash the likes of which society has never before seen. You cannot take away the air, the food, the water, and expect no one to care.
This is greater than any nation, no matter how powerful it believes itself to be. The interests of companies in protecting their content, to protect their revenue, is so utterly puny in comparison to the storm these laws will cause. The myopia of such insignificant interests believing they can control the internet will wreak havoc around the world. The people in power, and behind the power, are full of their self-importance, their ability to rule us to protect their petty interests. Once they realize they have awoken a sleeping giant by pushing the people beyond their breaking point, they will be forced to come to grips with the realization that they have finally pushed too far.
The title of this post is a Latin maxim meaning, “that which I approve, I cannot disapprove.” Should the elected officials of this nation fail to grasp the damage they are proposing to unleash upon society, they will never be able to undo the harm that will follow. They will never be forgiven. Their arrogance will not be forgotten. It will be too late.
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I’m pushing for a new law, the Stop Onroad Drunkeness Act, or SODA – the law will permit the government to shut down every road on which a DUI is recorded. By cutting down usage of motorists on these roads we can clearly begin to reign in drunk drivers…
With all due respect, you are more than a “mere speck of dust”. I’d call you a large ball of very informative dust.
In the land of specks, the dust bunny is king.
Excellent post Scott, can I repost it at my site?
Ironic question (or is it wrinkly, the opposite of irony?). Be my guest.
I noted the irony silently as I posted my request. Nevertheless, I prefer permission to claiming a right under the Fair Use Doctrine. THANKS for the permission.
And I appreciate your asking.
I ended up linking you rather than reposting. Cleaner that way, plus it drives traffic – lean as it may be – to you.
When I started college, you either had to buy a CD or pirate an MP3. CDs were terrible because you’d break them, you’d lose them, and you couldn’t jog with them. In contrast, you could reproduce the MP3, jog with it, back it up, do whatever. The MP3 format was so much better, but the recording industry wanted to push CDs down everyone’s throats.
However, people wanted their music in digital format. While piracy was illegal, downloading music was almost like a form of civil disobedience. Eventually the music industry was forced to say “Yeah, we need to offer music to consumers in a better format.” They found out that selling MP3s instead of fighting this new format was a better approach, evidenced by the success of iTunes.
In 2012, everything you want is available at your fingertips for purchase. You want that new Ke$ha CD? You can buy it with one click on Amazon or Apple. You want to watch the Tudors? Amazon will stream it for you. (I watched the entire series over Christmas). You can listen to any song you want over Spotify or watch any movie or whatever on Hulu absolutely free of charge. Video games? You can get all the games you want off of Steam and most of them are under $20. There is amazing amount of legal content out there.
Amazon and Apple even offer “cloud” services, which means if I download something on my office computer, I can listen to it on my home computer and on my phone. Whoa! Yes, $1 a song and my music is forever backed up and on all my computers.
I think that piracy had a legitimate aspect back in 2000. 12 years later you’re just being a thief.
Unfortunately, I think that people of my generation think it’s okay to pirate stuff. Everything should be free in the minds of many people. They don’t think about how much money goes into producing the content they enjoy.
In fact, I talked to a young lawyer today who admitted to pirating stuff off bittorrent. I told him that in addition to a lawsuit for copyright infringement, he could probably be nailed by a disciplinary board for theft by deception. He said “Wow dude, I never even thought of that.” Yes, downloading stuff you don’t have a right to is a form of theft.
That’s why I only listen to the voices inside my head.
Bingo. I suspect it’s become another entitlement. It’s their right to get it, now and free. Someday, when they have to earn a living to feed a family, they may think about how they took the food out of someone else’s mouth. Maybe.
That was very well written.
In 2000, the lousy sound quality of illegal – and yes also the legal ones – mp3s was its own penalty. The labels were not selling legal mp3s then because the technology did not exist at the time to create good quality digital music downloads. So no, there was not a legitimate aspect to music piracy in 2000.
Maybe its because I am a musician myself, but I can never see it as legitimate to put out lousy versions of a musician’s work without their permission even as a protest against greedy labels who refuse to give the kids who value convenience over quality what they want.
You wouldn’t make the argument that if someone stole a bunch of McDonald’s hamburgers and was giving them away for free it would be legitimate for you to take them because it was more convenient to just take the free hamburger than going to a fancy restraunt and eating a good steak as a protest because the steakhouse refuses to sacrifice their quality for your convenience. Yet you seem to be making the exact same argument for music.
And yes, when you were a teenager in 2000 that put you at odds with most of your friends, but sometimes that happens when you care about quality.