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Not that I would ever really want to get into a discussion that just compared piracy to abortion and I'm not really sure if I should even continue... but let's

Not that I would ever really want to get into a discussion that just compared piracy to abortion and I'm not really sure if I should even continue... but let's gingerly wander down that road for a just a minute. It seems you are wholeheartedly opposed to abortion but are disgusted with combating it by means of spying on pregnant women and assassinating doctors. I think I am safe to assume you would be fine with legislation that strictly tried to make it so inconvenient for abortion clinics/doctors to operate that they would just opt to stop. Or legislation that just made it illegal to do it. You don't need to spy on pregnant women to know if a clinic/doctor is doing abortions. So now let's talk about piracy in the same terms. Spying on internet users to see what they download would be sort of like spying on pregnant women (disgusting). Assassinating doctors... well... I don't think there was any clause in SOPA that involved killing anyone caught with torrents so we'll skip that part. ;) Shutting down the torrent sites would be along the same lines as shutting down the clinic/doctors. If that could be done without spying on your Internet usage, then it seems we have a winner. I think is about as far as I'm comfortable taking that analogy. Sorry.

bgilroy26 15y ago
I think the work of writing a good law in this case would involve identifying the proper target. As much as they are the darlings of our young people, sites like sidereel etc exist solely to exploit the creativity of others for the purpose of gathering eyeballs. Do you have ideas for how you could make these sites difficult to run without harming the infrastructure of the internet to the extent that it isn't worth it to put the law on the books? The trouble is that the government can already shut down sites like these in many cases, so the goal isn't to write a law that helps to catch them at all it needs to be enough of an improvement over what we already have to justify the work to create the law and enforce it. Just to throw out there, (because it's easy for me to do, I'm not the one who has to come up with the ideas) but any law that offshore's all of these sites to more lax countries, but leaves sites standing that are easily accessible from the US aren't very effective. At the same time, other nation's sovereignty should not be violated by these laws. The basic situation is that the ease of communication that the internet provides means that law enforcement is facing a sisyhean challenge if it plans to fight this criminality with sticks. The problem is already being solved by the availability of legal alternatives. Adults feel uncomfortable flaunting the law and if somebody allows them to avoid that, they will earn attention.
- jack-r-abbit 15y ago
  I think we agree that it would be very difficult to make a SOPA-like law that had all the good and none of the bad. I have no ideas how to make such a law. I'm not a law maker. But that is not a reason to fight tooth and nail against anyone who ever tries to do it. That was really my only point.
  - bgilroy26 15y ago
    Hahah, I know. You're right.

bgilroy26 15y ago

I think the work of writing a good law in this case would involve identifying the proper target. As much as they are the darlings of our young people, sites like sidereel etc exist solely to exploit the creativity of others for the purpose of gathering eyeballs. Do you have ideas for how you could make these sites difficult to run without harming the infrastructure of the internet to the extent that it isn't worth it to put the law on the books? The trouble is that the government can already shut down sites like these in many cases, so the goal isn't to write a law that helps to catch them at all it needs to be enough of an improvement over what we already have to justify the work to create the law and enforce it. Just to throw out there, (because it's easy for me to do, I'm not the one who has to come up with the ideas) but any law that offshore's all of these sites to more lax countries, but leaves sites standing that are easily accessible from the US aren't very effective. At the same time, other nation's sovereignty should not be violated by these laws. The basic situation is that the ease of communication that the internet provides means that law enforcement is facing a sisyhean challenge if it plans to fight this criminality with sticks. The problem is already being solved by the availability of legal alternatives. Adults feel uncomfortable flaunting the law and if somebody allows them to avoid that, they will earn attention.

jack-r-abbit 15y ago
I think we agree that it would be very difficult to make a SOPA-like law that had all the good and none of the bad. I have no ideas how to make such a law. I'm not a law maker. But that is not a reason to fight tooth and nail against anyone who ever tries to do it. That was really my only point.
- bgilroy26 15y ago
  Hahah, I know. You're right.