Thank God It's Friday

Well, SOPA is done, at least in it's current form.  It's done for the right reason, I think, but that's difficult to figure out for sure.

See, it's generally good thing when Congress reacts to the voice of the people in a real time sense.  One primary question is whether the outcry was the voice of the people or the voice of a few of the people.  The other primary question is whether this was one of those rare cases wherein leadership has to say "no" to those that leadership is responsible for, for the good of those they are responsible for.

Personally, I think the answer to the first question is "not likely" and to the second, "it wasn't."  I'm not sure enough of the people even knew what SOPA really was to call it a bona fide "voice of the people" and that more especially, because I think most of what "the people" knew - and most of what the people who were protesting knew - was second hand, agendized, tailored information.

I've now read the document (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:) and it occurs to me that it was a fair faith effort to protect intellectual property in the US.  That's a Constitutional mandate, by the way, readers.  How they were trying to do it was too much like giving someone a Sherman tank and telling them to hunt squirrels, and trusting them to not burn down the woods.  So, it's good, I think, that it's off the radar in it's current form.

I am somewhat bothered, however, by much of the justification I've seen around the net about why it was a bad idea.  Basically, several of the major players have said things (per news reports) that are essentially "you gotta just let this bad stuff happen."  There's a fundamental problem with that, as anyone should be able to see without much argument or question.

Intellectual property piracy is wrong, no matter how you shake it.  If any of you make a record, ok, a CD now, with you singing your songs, and someone buys one copy, and makes a gazillion copies and distributes them, by sale or by gift, that's stealing, plain and simple.  No matter who does it, no matter where they do it, it's still stealing.  The other forms of piracy are equally theft.  Ignoring that because it's convenient to ignore it is merely a pointer to the most significant problem in our society: right and wrong mean nothing, but convenience means everything.

While it's good that SOPA in its current form has failed, it's willful neglegence to not mention the other issue that showed its head during the debate.   I'll not hold my breath for anyone in power, or anyone I've seen making lots of noise on the net, to take up that banner.

Sad.

Al