SOPA Box

Politicians never cease to amaze me. We have the democrats telling us that we need to raise taxes on mean rich people for the good of the few on programs. The Republicans say that rich people should, get this, be treated like every other citizen.  In reality, neither party is effective, people who make significant money generally pay less taxes(percentage wise).  New taxes on a certain group will not cure that, fixing current tax law or a flat tax will.

I Digress.

Now republicans and democrats are banding together to protect the gravy train of funds from lobbyists of the movie, music and drug industries. Putting those three industries together, puts my brain in joke overload.

For those who have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, I'm talking about a pair of anti-piracy bills pending in the house and senate, SOPA and PIPA(HR 3261 and S.968). Our politicians would like you to believe these bills are being passed to protect intellectual properties on the internet. They are not!  We already have a bill for that purpose. It was passed in 1988 and is called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act(DMCA). The DMCA protects the intellectual property rights by allowing the property owner to go after the person or group that infringes on their rights. Sounds pretty fair and straight forward to me, but I'm not a corrupt politician. Well the industries that are lobbying realized how hard it was to enforce this law overseas, so they've decided (through the politicians they've bought) to write these two new bills. In essence the two new bills allow the property holder to not only go after an alleged 'infringer' without due process but force the search engine, ip or website to block the content or face legal recourse.

Let me try and put this in a way that even a politician may be able to understand. Let's say that I create a product(intellectual property). This product starts getting knocked off(pirated) by a company in Badlandistan and freighted by an American shipping company(search engine, website or isp) to a port in N.J.(persons computer). Currently I can sue the company in Badlandistan for damages. Due to political climate, its tough to sue a company in Badlandistan, so I lobby congress for a bill. Now, I don't have to sue the company in Badlandistan, I don't even need to start legal action. I can force the American freight company to inspect every crate(streams of information going over the internet) and force them to not ship the knockoff goods. Wow, that sounds like a slam dunk No knockoffs can get through from that shipping company. There are several problems with this methodology.

1. There is no due process provided in the bills, so the property owner can blame everyone of infringement and force the shipping company to not do business with them.
2. It doesn't stop the flow of illegal property, just forces it to change routes. 
3. It violates everyone's privacy because all crates, not just the illegal ones would need to be opened, searched and verified as good.
4. It unfairly puts the job of enforcement on the shipper and not the property owner.
5. It forces the cost of all those legitimate goods to go up because of the increased responsibilities placed on the shipper.
6. If the shipper fails enforcement, they are breaking the law.

The above analogy is only pointing out an infinitesimal portion of these bills. I could write pages of negatives against their entirety. These two bills are a bad idea. 

Everyone with at least half a brain (sorry most college students and all politicians) agrees that intellectual properties need to be protected. They should not be protected at everyone’s expense.

Best quote on the topic: "When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn't do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites."
Chris Dodd – ex-Senator (D) from Connecticut, cause for one of the biggest financial failures in this country and now head of the MPAA(I guess the Republicans aren't the only ones stroking big business in return for a big payday when they can't get reelected.).

Be proud Connecticut, now your ex-senator believes China is a good model for freedom of speech and human rights.

Update 1: I left out that President Obama did the right thing and said he would not support these bills even if they passed.   

Update 2: The bills have been indefinitely put on hold in the house and senate.  The MPAA via Dodd(dud) has threatened to pull all campaign funding, but not lobbying money.