It's not ever going to be over. The OPEN act is next, and next year we'll have another two or three. They've been trying ever since the DMCA in the late 1990s and this will not stop until they're all broken on a personal level. It's in the business interests of companies like Facebook and Google to flood candidates with funds now.

You do realize that when someone else makes a movie or writes a song or creates a television show for profit, you don't have a Constitutional right to steal it just because it's on the internet, yes? I mean, I know that you've never created anything anyone would want to steal or really do anything but laugh at, but the principle of intellectual property is basically understood by you, right?

No?

Oh. Well, that explains a lot about your political philosophy, Goldstein.

@ 2, why don't you post that about a thousand more times? You know, just so nobody misses it?

@ Goldy, Kos and other liberal bloggers have been berating Democrats constantly, from the day they started up their sites, and usually for not being liberal enough. Where have you been?

@ 3, that's a beautiful strawman you made there. Can I borrow it this summer? Going to be growing corn again.

@3 then you pursue people through sane and rational avenues and laws, not nonsense that pulls down the 1st Amendment and drops a steamer on it's chest. By the rationale of SOPA/PIPA et al, if I posted links to infringing content here on Slog, then Slog is at risk. That's absurd, and would shut down the entire modern Internet, as it would essentially require Internet businesses to pre-screen ALL content for legal risk.

That defeats the entire point of the shared internet, comments sections, anonymity, and hundreds if not thousands of legitimate online businesses that make their money by creating communities to varying degrees. Why would we destroy one entire realm of business, to protect another? Jesus Christ.

There are things to be done about privacy, but the current proposed legislation is pure lunacy in all it's forms.

Until the Supreme Court rescinds the unconstitutional ruling that Corporations are People, this will never be over.

Ever.

By the way: Don't start none, Won't be none. Nuff said.

@3 You do realize that if you've built an end table for profit and I have a machine that can examine that end table and create a duplicate right here in my home while leaving your end table intact, that's not theft, right? Ned Ludd lives!

Joe @6 is right. I'm a part time working artist, and I do have an interest in protecting my work from internet piracy. But these proposed laws were crazy and overblown responses to a legitimate problem. I would support legislation that was halfway sane, but SOPA/PIPA was terrible and deserved to die.

@3: If someone else steals a refrigerator and dumps it on my lawn, have I committed a crime?
Seattleblues, kindly keep your trap shut about things you don't know jack shit about.

@3 - As someone who writes and acts professionally, I have to say that I suspect "intellectual property" is something we invented to make up for the fact that artists, unlike other professionals, are not compensated for their time or labor. As inventions go, we could do worse, but we still have to recognize that it's an imperfect construct, ill-defended at best by draconian measures like SOPA/PIPA.

@10

If you ask someone to steal the refrigerator, then yes, you are complicit in the crime.

If you frequent a website paid for by advertisers knowing that websites content to be illegal, ignorance of provenance is not an excuse. And yeah, when you see a movie posted that came out 2 days ago on the big screen, you and the advertiser know damn well the content is stolen. You wouldn't go to a car lot that sold hot cars. You wouldn't pick up someone's wallet or purse in a crowded restaurant. But somehow if it's online it's fair game? That really the moral stance you want to take Junior?

Maybe these bills were a bit draconian. When the folks who rail against it work to find legislation that accomplishes the purpose without their objections I'll worry about that. Until then, it's just a lot of folks who want free entertainment at the artist and producers expense.

Blues @3,

I mean, I know that you've never created anything anyone would want to steal or really do anything but laugh at, but the principle of intellectual property is basically understood by you, right?

Um, you might want to bother to learn a little bit about me before making stupid assertions like that. In fact, various incarnations of my public resume have long included my claim to be "the creator of the world's most widely pirated rhyming dictionary software." So I know more than most the struggle of trying to make a living off my own intellectual property.

These laws, SOPA and PIPA, won't help. What they will do is make it a helluva lot easier for government officials and corporations to legally harass, prosecute, and sue people like me into silence. And they won't save Hollywood.

@ 12, you answered the question you wished VL would have asked, not the question he asked. Would that be because he's right and you're wrong?

You are aware of the megaupload case, aren't you? At the moment it seems that the current laws are working just fine. If you disagree, you might want to put up an actual case instead of posting the stuff you make up and think sounds so good, and then post, whether it answers someone else's comment or not.

For some of us, Seattleblues, the notion of a small, non-intrusive government means that no legislation to accomplish a given purpose is better than draconian, censorious legislation to accomplish that purpose. If conservatives had the courage of their convictions, they'd be with the rest of us suggesting that an absence of legislation is preferable to bad legislation.

Matt @4,

@ Goldy, Kos and other liberal bloggers have been berating Democrats constantly, from the day they started up their sites, and usually for not being liberal enough. Where have you been?

Where have I been? I've been one of those liberal bloggers berating Democrats, all the while fending off accusations that I never berate Democrats.

Again, it's not like I'm a mystery. I've got a public resume and portfolio.

Don't bother debating Seattleblues. When called to the carpet--as we just saw--he will not answer a challenge directly, because he's too much of a pussy to ever admit he's wrong. He's been doing this crap forever.

Goldy, I will say this slowly, since I do appreciate how hard you try, even if you are pathetically wrong almost all the time.

Democrats. Aren't. Liberals. And. Neither. Are. You.

But I'm sure you think you can juggle and you can do anything.

@ 16, then whom were you addressing?

Yoo hoo! Goldy! Who doesn't know that liberal bloggers berate Democrats? You implied that that's a common misconception.

@20, Well, Rob McKenna for one:

"He's a hack. He's a partisan hack. He's just there to parrot points from the other side."

@12: Matt from Denver said it all. I don't know where you got all that bullshit from.
If someone links to potentially illegal content on someone else's website, the owner of that copyrighted content can have that website shut down without a trial. Under SOPA and PIPA, the Weinstein Company and/or the New Zealand Film Commission could now have The Stranger's website shut down without any trial taking place. Is that fair and just?
Answer the question, you putz. If someone dumps a stolen refrigerator (or washing machine or hay baler) on my lawn, have I committed a crime?

@ 21, thank you. It takes some stretching to translate that to what you said, but whatever, it's a blog...