Comment Nerd-rant deconstruction (Score 4, Insightful) 525
Policy makers
... knew that music sales in the United States are less than half of what they were in 1999, when the file-sharing site Napster emerged, and that direct employment in the industry had fallen by more than half since then, to less than 10,000.
These statements are not backed up. Given the industry's history of exaggerating their claims, I put the onus on them to prove that these numbers are in any way correct.
Consider, for example, the claim that SOPA and PIPA were “censorship,” a loaded and inflammatory term designed to evoke images of crackdowns on pro-democracy Web sites by China or Iran.
Yet the author's use of "theft" and "piracy" are totally neutral, without any intent to evoke particular emotions in the readership?
When the police close down a store fencing stolen goods, it isn’t censorship, but when those stolen goods are fenced online, it is?
This is being purposefully obtuse. The claims of 'censorship' were about collatoral damage: that the laws would have a chilling effect and would be open to abuse. No one was directly equating "shutting down online counterfitting sites" with censorship. (Although, of course, the difference between shutting down a physical store and an online presence is indeed that the Internet is all about communication/data-transfer, and curtailing communication is essentially censorship.)
They also argued misleadingly that the bills would have required Web sites to “monitor” what their users upload, conveniently ignoring provisions like the “No Duty to Monitor” section.
This is an interesting claim. But if the author is sure that the "No Duty to Monitor" section protects conveyors of content, then why not spell that argument out in detail? Why not quote from the bill, and explain how this protection works? That is the very crux of the disagreement, it would seem, yet the author just mentions it in passing.
Apparently, Wikipedia and Google don’t recognize the ethical boundary between the neutral reporting of information and the presentation of editorial opinion as fact.
This is perhaps the only valid point in the entire piece. It is true that Wikipedia and Google (in very different ways) strive for some measure of neutral transmission of information. I can see how one could argue that using their position as trusted sources of information to spread their own viewpoint is an abuse. However:
1. This is begging the question, by assuming that what Wikipedia and Google were reporting was incorrect. But that is precisely what the debate is about: is it true that SOPA/PIPA would lead to collatoral censorship? If the claim is true (and as far as I can tell, it is), then Wikipedia spreading that information was just another manifestation of them spreading truthful statements.
2. These entities do have a right to let their opinion be known.
3. The opinion piece provides no reason why these companies would be misinforming the populace. What is it they hope to get out of it? Their stated reason is simple: that they wanted to stop the legislation because they couldn't continue operating under the legislation. The author provides no evidence, not even spurious reasoning in fact, for any other motivation. So, one could accuse them of being mistaken, but to accuse them of pushing an ideology is wrongheaded.
“old media” draws a line between “news” and “editorial.”
This is laughable. Mainstream media has a well-documented history of injecting bias into their reporting (everything from their selection of what to cover, to how events are described, to thinly-veiled editorials/opinions masquerading as 'balanced reporting').
The violation of neutrality is a patent hypocrisy: these companies have long argued that Internet service providers (telecommunications and cable companies) had to be regulated under the doctrine of “net neutrality”
...
This is a red herring of the highest order. The debate about net neutrality is about a very specific kind of neutrality.
And how many of those e-mails were from the same people who attacked the Web sites of the Department of Justice, the Motion Picture Association of America, my organization and others as retribution for the seizure of Megaupload, an international digital piracy operation? Indeed, it’s hackers like the group Anonymous that engage in real censorship when they stifle the speech of those with whom they disagree.
I see. Equating the massive outpouring of opinion with a minority of people who engage in illegal hacking (I'm surprised he didn't pull out the "terrorist" card). He can't fathom that the public actually believes what they are saying. He is certain that they are either misled or criminals (possibly both).
Perhaps this is naïve, but I’d like to believe that the companies that opposed SOPA and PIPA will now feel some responsibility to help come up with constructive alternatives.
... The diversionary bill that they drafted, the OPEN Act, would do little to stop the illegal behavior and would not establish a workable framework, standards or remedies.
So in one sentence he bemoans that the opposition is not coming up with any alternatives, and two sentences later mentions offhand that the opposition has, indeed, suggested an alternative. But he doesn't like that alternative. Moreover he calls that alternative 'diversionary'. As we can see, he is certainly above using "loaded and inflammatory terms" to make his point.
We all share the goal of a safe and legal Internet. We need reason, not rhetoric, in discussing how to achieve it.
The irony of course is that the original legislation was being pushed through without any public discourse. They wanted it to happen without the input of a myriad of stakeholders (like, the public). Only now that the entire process has been laid bare do they call for reasoned discussion. Again, his entire essay is incredulous that the public has the audacity to disagree with his plan. He is annoyed not so much with what Google and Wikipedia's opinions are, but that they brought this debate to the people... and that in an open, reasoned debate, his extremist plans cannot survive for long.