Why SOPA endangers America's Internet leadership | Hacker News Reader

Why SOPA endangers America's Internet leadership

arstechnica.com

86 pointsllambda7 comments

While I certainly acknowledge everything that America has done for the Internet from its beginning up through now, it's long since established itself as a global institution. As such, shouldn't the faculties in charge of running it be global institutions as well?

The premise of the article seems to be that America needs to be careful lest it lose its current Internet dominance. I'm an American myself and I'm very proud of the fact that we initiated something as amazing as the Internet. However, is it fair for us to hold that dominant position in perpetuum? The Internet is a global community.

(edit: spelling, structure)

As such, shouldn't the faculties in charge of running it be global institutions as well?

My opinion is no, but it's just that. On the one hand I can see why you would think that, but the second half of your comment sort of belies the first: The internet is a global community.

Outside of that though, the ramifications for SOPA are, in my view less tied to simply what the American government will (potentially) be able to control on the Internet, and more likely to create a slippery slope of legislation regarding free-speech at the behest of private industries.

I don't think SOPA has much to do with Internet governance. It doesn't contemplate any changes to IP addressing, DNS, or BGP. It doesn't really attempt to reach outside the US. (ACTA is another matter.)

shouldn't the faculties in charge of running it be global institutions as well?

This has been discussed in great length elsewhere, but I'll give a few points. While in principle of course the whole world should have a say in Internet governance, in reality all the specific proposals that I've seen are about making the Internet worse in some way. The good thing about ICANN is that it's so ineffectual and slow-moving that it can't cause much damage.

Consider the global telephone network which is regulated by the ITU, an organization that appears to be 100% captured by telcos, many of whom are national PTTs that make AT&T look friendly. Right now the ITU is trying to figure out how to take control of the Internet from ICANN so they can "recognize local values" (i.e. censorship) and make everything much more expensive by e.g. eliminating settlement-free peering.

This headline alone has made me reconsider my hatred for SOPA.

Yeah, as bad as SOPA sounds, if the main reason against it is to have the internet even more centralized in the USA (think ICANN, DNS root servers)... poof, the worldwide support suddenly vanished.

An old remark was, "Never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel", of course, meaning that never argue in print with a newspaper.

Well, now there should be an update: "Never argue in public with a community that communicates at a trillion bits per second.", of course, meaning that it's not wise for someone in Congress to anger most of the US users of the Internet.

So, just from these two remarks, SOPA and bills like it should have little chance of passage.

Indeed, there have been remarks in the technical news that in the last week or so the SOPA proponents backed into an "Internet buzz saw".

Or, what community could hope to beat the US Internet users in ability to collect good data on both FAQs and fine details about SOPA, get names, phone numbers, and office addresses of SOPA proponents in Congress, and make phone calls and send e-mail messages and letters either on paper or via FAX? I can believe "buzz saw".

I have not wanted to fire all my political ammunition against SOPA yet because I fear that showing all the leading arguments against SOPA will, yes, result in the death of SOPA but also in the rise, as a phoenix, of Son of SOPA with new dangers and, net, just as dangerous.

But from what I have seen in just a little investigation, e.g., as in

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8003799.stm

with

     Page last updated at 14:29 GMT, Friday, 17
     April 2009 15:29 UK

     Court jails Pirate Bay founders

apparently existing copyright law, in this case in Sweden, and routine legal action have been sufficient actually to put in jail all of the founders of Pirate Bay not 'on the lam". And, Pirate Bay didn't actually host any movies or recorded music but just had links to Torrent sources.

So, it sounds to me like existing copyright law is close to strong enough for the purposes of the MPAA/RIAA.

Actually, being able actually to lock up the Pirate Bay founders sounds to me like the current copyright law is already too strong, that is, too much weakening of freedom of the press and freedom of speech: To see this, an analogy would be to lock up authors of crime and spy novels because they provide information that a criminal might use. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dame Agatha Christie, and Tom Clancy did nothing violent but did provide information that might let others be violent; Pirate Bay sent no movies or music but did provide information that would let others receive such. Heck, it sounds like with the position of the MPAA/RIAA we should also lock up authors of books on physics, chemistry, and engineering because such books can be used to build a wide range of weapons.

Gee, let's see: Via Google we should be able to find an effective recipe for classic gun powder. One of the key ingredients is saltpeter, that is, potassium nitrate (KNO3). Hmm .... There it is: Can buy it 5 pounds at a time at Amazon. Now, as I recall, all we need is some sulfur and charcoal. So, by the standards of the MPAA/RIAA, we should lock up the founders of Google and Amazon?

My father used to buy ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) in small pellets in 100 pound bags. He used it as a lawn fertilizer, and the results were dramatic: The grass turned dark green, got dense, and jumped; we had to mow the grass about every other day; Mom was proud to have the greenest lawn in the neighborhood! Ammonium nitrate was readily available if only because a few miles into the country people were growing cotton, and NH4NO3 did similar things for cotton. But, as we should expect from all that nitrogen, NH4NO3 can be one heck of an explosive. Just ask some of the people in Galveston, TX! And apparently if mix NH4NO3 with fuel oil, then can pull down some buildings. So, by the standards of the MPAA/RIAA we should lock up the founders of lawn and garden stores and heating oil suppliers?

I'm against stealing copies of movies, recorded music, etc., but I'm not for shooting the Internet in the gut, and shooting the Internet in the gut IS what the MPAA/RIAA with SOPA would do. Protection of books and music have had to evolve with technology from the printing press, music recording, radio, TV, tape recorders, CD and DVD burners, VCRs, set-top boxes, Blockbuster, Netflix, etc. and, net, will have to continue to evolve.

Net, I don't condone improper use, don't want to hurt the Internet, don't have easy answers for all of the concerns of the MPAA/RIAA, but wish them well; a reasonable solution should be possible without shooting the Internet in the gut. If not, then I'm sorry MPAA/RIAA: The Internet, PDF files, etc. have seriously hurt publishing on paper, but those publishers didn't shoot the Internet in the gut; your business model might have to evolve.

Efforts of the MPAA/RIAA to shoot the Internet in the gut did and will encounter a "buzz saw".

To see how sopa hurts us, you have to open the third eye and see what was destroyed when a government has the ability to crush anything on the worldwide internet. A theoretical Web site, say in Africa, which allows citizens across the world to be part of a new nation which has no central authority. No president, czar, Congress or representatives. A radical new nation. One where the hive dictates the course, not the elite.

If USA can crush this idea from growing in Africa because they can block it in the USA on account everyone in California wants to join it... A threat to national security. A new system that is pulling away us citizens.

We are harmed when this 10x better system dies quietly in the night, having been choked of support by the elite protecting the powers that be.

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