Don't forget that the public generally only knows about the things the media tells them about and -- in the list of SOPA sponsors there are a huge number of big media players -- all eager to use it to protect their content.

Hence, we've seen very little (if any) objective mainstream media coverage of SOPA and what it will mean to the average joe citizen.

Unfortunately, the real power to shape the minds and opinions of the masses lies in the hands of the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the other media barons.

We're stuffed mate!

What a shame it is that 90% of the public are so complacent and unwilling to take action to protect their rights from the goose-stepping content cartels.

Imagine if, even if just for a month, *nobody* bought any music from members of the RIAA, nobody went to any theatres to watch movies from the MPAA, or bought their DVDs or even hired their DVDs.

Can you just see the look of absolute fear that would envelope them?

Even if we could find enough people to reduce their sales and rentals by 50%, that would send a very strong message that perhaps, when it comes to copyright "it's better the devil you know [filesharing] than the devil you don't [boycotts]"

Unfortunately, any move to organize a campaign of abstinence or a boycott would be doomed to failure -- because most people just don't give a damn anyway.

We get the government (and the storm-trooper tactics) we deserve they say. Maybe they're right :-(

Here are my experiences with YouTube and content owners attempts to defraud me of my own original content. I posted this a week ago:

The US recording industry is stealing from ME!

This seems to be a big (and getting much bigger) problem with YouTube as it tries to suck-up to the big content owners in a way that is starting to seriously impact other original content creators.

NOWHERE is safe. Just look at how easily the US administration got the NZ authorities to do their bidding in the case of Kim Dotcom and MegaUpload.

Even though there is a basic tenet in US (and NZ) law that "a person is considered innocent until proven guilty), they still broke down his doors, terrorized his pregnant wife, took all his assets and threw him in prison.

He *may* be guilty of the charges leveled against him -- but until those charges are proven, he ought to be treated as an innocent man -- surely?

The obvious moral of this story is that the USA is still acting like it is *the* global policeman who is entitled to take whatever action it sees fit, wherever it wants to, anywhere in the world.

And the USA wonders why it has so many enemies?

Even the most reserved and tolerant peoples will rise up against the USA if it keeps beating them with a stick in the way it seems to be doing of late.

We're told that copyright crime is bad because it funds terrorism... well maybe it's the copyright holders who are helping create terrorism by giving an increasing number of people good reason to see the USA as an evil empire.

I'm not against copyright -- hell, I rely on copyright protection to ensure I can pay the bills. However, I despise the way that the MPAA/RIAA etc have corrupted the US legal and democratic systems to their own ends.

Wake up America -- these corporations are rapidly becoming *your* worst enemy!

When I presented with a chronic sinus infection the doctor told me that antibiotics were pretty much useless against infections in this part of the body because it was mainly in the mucus and there was no blood-flow in mucus so the ABs couldn't properly permeate that medium.

Never the less, he gave me a course of ciprofloxacin which, I'm told, is one of the "least ineffective" ABs for this kind of infection -- and one with some nasty side-effects.

The infection did abate for a while but (despite the fact I took a 2-week course) it came back.

With nothing to lose, I decided to try a natural remedy which is an "over the counter" supplement containing garlic and horseradish.

Voila!

It hasn't totally killed the infection but keeps it at such a very low level that you wouldn't know it was there. However, if I stop taking the pills I can feel the infection returning so I just pop a pill every couple of days and my quality of life is restored - with no side effects (it's odorless garlic).

I'm not one of these "save the planet hippy fad anti-establishment alternative therapy" types -- but sometimes I think we are just too quick to accept that hi-tech drugs are the only answer to problems.

I'm posting this from the future -- it's already 2012 in this part of the world (woohoo!)

I wrote my first column for 2012 today and in it I speculate that SOPA, if it's passed into law, might just be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

While governments all over the world seek to control, regulate, restrict and constrain the internet so as to protect their own power to impose ideologies on those who elect them to power, I have a feeling that SOPA could be just one step too far and might act as a catalyst for the kind of uprising they are trying to suppress.

2012 could be a watershed year and the byte may finally become more powerful than the bullet -- or the ballot.

Read it if you're interested. 2012, the year of the cyber-rebel?

As outlined here, only the completely stupid will be caught by this law.

More important should be a closer look at the raison d'etre for originally creating copyright laws and how that's been corrupted by the movie studios and recording labels with their fat lobbying wallets.

As described in the linked article, it's time copyright protection was scaled back to recognize that if the rights-owner refuses to sell their product to a particular market then there can be no losses associated with its unauthorized distribution. To allow rights-owners to prosecute people for copying that which they would otherwise be happy to pay for but aren't allowed to is a license to extort!

At least they didn't just have a drone fire a hellfire missile into his apartment.

No, Lulzsec are doing that, now that they have control of the drone craft by way of their carefully crafted virus ;-)

My first "computer" was a hand-built 2650-based system with just 1Kbyte of RAM and the only programming language available was machine code (hand-coded from assembler and) entered through a hex keypad and debug ROM monitor.

You kids with your BASIC, Ruby, Javascript etc, you don't know how good you've got it :-)