Ever since they stopped filing mass lawsuits against music sharers, public hatred for the RIAA has dropped a bit. Yes, they're still doing evil things behind the scenes, like pushing for "three strikes" and supporting ACTA, but those acts aren't publicized as well as the mass lawsuits were.

By contrast, the MPAA is constantly in the news about the latest evil thing it's been doing. The same goes for similar organizations like the BSA, IFPI, and AFACT.

I think the RIAA is yearning for the days when they were the most hated copyright organization, even if they don't consciously realize it. This is one of their attempts to get back in the game and earn some well-deserved public enmity.

You're right. Let's allow big corporations to do whatever they want, and let the free market decide. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Sure, we'll end up with one massive carrier with absolutely horrid service and no competition, but it came about because of the free market, so that makes it okay, right?

Remind me again which part of "promoting the general welfare" that falls under.

Correction: Those are the laws the sites are alleged to have violated. No court has yet ruled that Rojadirecta broke any laws.

Anyway, I would contest your implied assertion that linking is copyright infringement. Rojadirecta does not host copyrighted content, it links to sites that may do so.

> So we shouldn't have any laws then because they *might* be unjust or because law enforcement could potentially overstep their authority?

We shouldn't have unjust laws. We should have measures in place to prevent and punish abuse of power by the government.

> This site broke the law.

Which law?

> They got shut down.

No, they didn't. The site isn't hosted in the US, and is legal in the country in which it's hosted. The US domain registrars revoked their .com and .org domains.

> They happened to have a forum. If you have a church in a meth lab you can't claim freedom of religion when the building is seized.

Feel free to tell us which law Rojadirecta breaks when they link to other sites. Then feel free to tell us why US laws should apply to a Spanish website.

Welp, there's another reason to hate the DMCA. Thanks for that.

Rojadirecta does not host copyrighted content. It links to other sites that may do so. If you believe that linking to sites that may host copyrighted material is illegal, then you can introduce some support for this position. Otherwise, this is most definitely a First Amendment issue because the government denied Rojadirecta an avenue for expressing itself.

> This perp did a crime

Feel free to tell us which US law Rojadirecta breaks when it links to other sites.

Feel free to tell us which law Rojadirecta breaks when they link to other websites.

> The motivation for seizing the domain was not speech.

Of course it was. Rojadirecta does not host any copyrighted content; it merely links to other sites that do. Until a court ruling explicitly says otherwise, linking is protected speech. By seizing its domain names, the US government was preventing people from accessing Rojadirecta's website, and therefore denying Rojadirecta their right to free speech.

According to the EFF:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who believes that this ruling is questionable, and is one step closer to a World Wide Web that is completely at the mercy of copyright holders.

I strongly disagree. Anonymity is a necessity for true freedom of speech, in order to ensure that people can speak their minds without fear of any consequences whatsoever. Anything else gives you a chilling effect on speech, wherein people may censor themselves because they don't want to be ostracized by their community, or fired from their job for going against the corporate political position.

What support do you have for your assertion that you should always attach your identity to anything important that you publicly say? Do you realize how many important historical figures have used anonymity and pseudonymity to publish their speech without fear of oppression?

Smaller government also has less hold over corporations, who will grow to fill the power vacuum filled by shrinking government. End result: The consumer is raped by the corporate world.

Larger government may be better able to contain corporations, but the end result of that is that the citizen is raped by federal power.

You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. What exactly is a free society to do?

As you know very well, copyright law has nothing to do with peoples' personal information.