WSJ comes out for SOPA
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
Second thought: "But just because you would expect it of them doesn't make them wrong. What points do they make?"
Final thought: "Oh look, a paywall. Oh well..."
It seems their mission to overzealously block content on the internet was impeded by their decision to overzealously block content on the internet.
That said, Rupert Murdoch has grandstanded in the past in rather transparently self-serving ways ("OMG google news is indexing my sites! but i don't want to make them stop, I want to make them keep doing it and pay me for the privilege somehow.")
The language mirrors Murdoch and the piece is not well written, there's a stench of editorial interference here.
Anyway. Usually Mr. Murdoch is perfectly willing to put his name to shamelessly self-serving saber-rattling and rent-seeking pieces (e.g. "omg BBC. british media is government controlled. please get rid of my competition.")
The article itself, FWIW, is basically a straw-man argument saying that anyone against SOPA is a bunch of dirty Commies who think it's a God-given right to pirate everything for free. If you'd like to read it (ew), Google the URL and click the resulting link. Or hack your Referer: or pretend you're Googlebot. I regret that I was only the second or third person on the comments page to say it was a load of BS and not the first.
Postscript (2): as user mapgrep pointed out below, the WSJ has a bad habit of labeling editorials 'Review and Outlook'. Meh.
(This is linked from the front page of wsj.com also, so it's not just an obscure corner of the site.)
Let's not kid ourselves, the WSJ does have a pro-corporations agenda, it's owned by Rupert Murdoch; in Europe most people consider it a far-right paper. The Financial Times in comparison looks almost like a socialist rag.
I thought the article was pretty fair to be honest. It called out the DNS issues as being egregious and they highlighted the constitutional basis of copyright which most people forget. They also highlighted the difference between individual piracy and piracy for business as an important point (the exact sentence is "This isn't college kids swapping MP3s as in the 1990s. Rather rogue websites set up shop overseas and sell US consumers bootleg [media]"
My main criticism is they made SOPA seem a little more benign than it is. They say...
"The notion that the SOPA dragnet would catch a stray Twitter Link or Facebook post is false"
Well, I don't see how that is false. My main issue with SOPA (now that the DNS part has be taken out) is it could be used to allow media companies to shut down legitimate indie products because they resemble commercial offerings. Because the bar is set so low as far as initial proof is concerned.
Anyway, the bottom line is the article is worth reading and it isn't just "Murdoch Henchmen Towing the Line". I wish they'd let it out of the paywall so you could see that.
After the first day of the hearing, more than 20 amendments had been rejected, including one by Issa which would have stripped provisions targeting search engines and Internet providers. PC World reported that the 22–12 vote on the amendment could foreshadow strong support for the bill by the committee.
The Committee adjourned on the second day agreeing to continue debate early in 2012.[11][151] Smith announced a plan to remove the provision that requires Internet service providers to block access to certain foreign websites.
Oh, and the full article is available if you access it through Google. I assume that's an above-board way of reading it.
So basically no, i'm of absolutely no use to you on this.
(For the record, I believe that only innovation will solve these problems, not suppression).
Setting up a false dilemma of "copyright owners" vs "others" is incorrect and evil spin. Everyone be sure to note that many of the sites and people against SOPA (e.g. Google, Tim O'Reilly, etc) are all major copyright holders and beneficiaries when you talk with people about this.
What if a different formula was used instead, like "one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers"? It'd be much more correct and impartial, technically (ownership can be proven; "respect", not so much), but the spin would feel quite different.
That's not very productive. Anyone on the pro-SOPA side can say exactly the same thing about e.g. Google. One of Google's major divisions, Youtube, was built in part on piracy. And Google itself does help people find pirated content; that's not something immoral, and they do make it difficult, but Google benefits from some copyright infringement in the sense that it means they're a better default search engine, since some fraction of queries are for copyright-violating content.
And the WSJ article does make a similar point:
Wikipedia has never blacked itself out before on any other political issue, nor have websites like Mozilla or the social news aggregator Reddit... They've taken no comparable action against, say, Chinese repression.
This is not the first thing so awful that websites choose to take such action--it's the first awful thing that threatens them so much.
The WSJ also points out that the most egregious part of SOPA--DNS-level censorship--was removed in the latest draft. They don't make an exceptional argument, but they do make a superficially reasonable case; someone unfamiliar with the way the Internet works would likely find it pretty convincing.
SOPA/PIPA is an awful, awful idea. But if the WSJ claims that it's a good idea, and you claim that the WSJ only says so because corrupt, then you lose by default. The WSJ can have a good argument that defends their economic interests, or that is hypocritical in light of what they've been caught doing in the past. SOPA opponents are in a very similar situation.
As an outsider (i m not in the US) one can see that it's not just the corporate interests of Google/twitter/facebook etc that are threatened, but also the transition from the old "mass media", (where mass manipulation was possible) to something new.
In the end, the whole SOPA debate should motivate people building startups to think up new ways to monetize intellectual property, not just ignore the problem
If we're being objective about this, then we should acknowledge that YouTube still carries a vast amount of illegal material. These days they get safe harbour because of the DMCA takedown provisions, but Google are still knowingly providing a tool that is and always has been widely used to break the law.
The thing is, the big studios may be able to afford people to monitor such popular sites full time and have a well-oiled takedown process, so the DMCA provisions balance things out for them. The small, independent outfits can't and don't, though, and the bottom line for them is that the law says they have exclusive rights but in practice those rights aren't enforceable.
The provisions of SOPA/PIPA are obviously over-the-top, but there is a legitimate reason for some of these organisations to complain about the current situation.
Real quick, my reaction to their points: yes, changes have been proposed to the bill, but I'm not clear on exactly what has been removed, and I'm not confident that what remains would leave the internet's infrastructure intact; they conflate "open source" with people who are pro-piracy; they conflate people who oppose copyright with people who oppose censorship.
Wikipedia takes action when the Internet is threatened - that's just common sense. Which may be why the WSJ editorial page can't grasp it.
What? Google doesn't benefit from copyright infringement if it goes out of its way to make infringing material difficult to find.
Google doesn't index infringing material because some people search for that, and returning them the results they're looking for is good for Google's bottom line. Rather, Google indexes infringing material because infringing material is out there, and Google indexes everything, because that is easier than not indexing everything ( see also: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php ), and returning the best matches it can is what it does.
That alone is enough to render the article useless, a very bad piece for a generally high-quality blog (can we just call newspapers blogs from now on? it's technically the same thing)
On the other hand, the internet doesn't yet offer a good way for creators to get rewarded for their work. Donations are too arbitrary, itunes despite its popularity is tied to music corporatism and so is spotify. What other startups are working in novel ways to monetize intellectual property?
Selling DRM-free downloads is working extremely well for many; Bandcamp comes to mind. Plenty of indie content creators do just fine handling piracy by ignoring it.
(I am not using the term fascism hyperbolically. Murdoch is, I think, properly classifiable as an authoritarian collectivist -- a fascist.)
Edit to add: Please make a compelling case why I should take the time to read an article that starts with an amusing replacement of the letter A in the headline with a quartet of all-seeing eyes.
See, that's why I used URL shortener - if somebody was giving me a link beginning with domain "divinecosmos.com", I'd think they are insane, and skipped that link without even blinking.
However, sometimes, things are not what they seem at the first appearance. I don't think I can or should attempt to really explain it here. Just give the article a try.
Mussolini referred to corporativismo, which he defined as a large number of people working together, not specific to the modern corporation.
You shouldn't relay bad information if you're actually ignorant of Fascist history under Mussolini.
It's not exactly the same thing in the modern U.S.: in totalitarian corporatism (fascism) the government co-opts private businesses and installs puppets of its elite. That's not what we've seen over the past 30 years. In anarchic corpratism (which is what the American upper class and right wing had in their golden era-- the Gilded Age-- and have been implementing since the late 1970s) it goes the other way: the business elite invades the government and makes it generally powerless to stop them. This form of corporatism is more limited and therefore more benign. "Anarchic corporatism" seems like an oxymoron, but the fundamental idea behind it is that business elites (which need not put up a unified front, as states must do for morale reasons) call the shots, but nonetheless compete. It's "anarchic" in the sense that the government is not supposed to be king-making or impeding specific players.
What we're seeing, amusingly, is that the elite has no real ideology. In 1980, they were predictably conservative and relatively principled, if wrongheaded. They were anarchic corporatists and proud of it. What the Bush, Jr. Era has shown us is that when this elite successfully co-opts the state, these people start to like unlimited state power and intrusion (Patriot Act, SOPA)... even if they say they're for "small government". So anarchic corporatism leads to the totalitarian kind over time; the TL;DR summary of that is "power vacuum".
Just treat them as propaganda.
If there is to be any sort of compromise, we can't just shut our eyes and plug our ears when the traditional media says what it needs in a law.
The internet disrupts this, so it is a threat. Even so, for the most part, it's still amazing how deaf dumb and blind the conversation on the internet is in that the mainstream media, who define the terms and scope of the debate, are the only link to the world outside of immediate perception for the participants.
Also the WSJ being One of America's most respected newspapers hasn't been true since Murdoch purchased it and started inserting opinion into front page news stories.
(The WSJ could avoid a lot of confusion if it labeled its editorials "Editorial." Instead it labels them "Review & Outlook," a term only regular readers of the opinion section will be familiar with.)
Off Topic: Whenever I read WSJ I always think of Weekly Shounen Jump and then I'm like that makes no sense, this has to be about the Wall Street Journal. It's never about Manga.
"Some lawmakers have noted that PIPA and SOPA would not affect anyone of the Web sites participating in the blackout."
I assume the argument being made here is that they're domestic sites and would not be affected by the legislation. And since they're not pirating anything what do they have to worry about. I could see someone reading it and thinking this is much to do about nothing. But this bill really puts pressure on domestic sites to comply and as we all know will just push the pirate sites to find ways around the law. So really, the sites most affected by these laws will be domestic and law-abiding.
Might that wake 'em up?
Much of what fuels anti-SOPA/PIPA sentiment is rooted in the principles of individual freedoms and the preservation of a commons that makes the exchange of information, ideas and enables commercial, individual and scientific innovation (amongst a whole long list of other awesome things that the Internet fosters). Taking retaliatory measures against those that exercise those freedoms, as distasteful as their position may be, is exactly the type of behaviour that SOPA proposes. We can each choose not to support those organizations that seek to control the Internet at the behest of Big Media and Hollywood, but to institutionalize controls constraining those that support it is, in my opinion, a victory for SOPA.
Rejecting submissions from SOPA supporters on a private website just isn't the same as manipulating the machinery of government the way bill supporters have done.
But to your point, I wasn't commenting on the manipulation of government (a point that I also don't agree with - I think the government is complicit, not manipulated) but on the manipulation of technology to stifle freedom of expression. I don't see a huge difference between building filters that target torrent sites and building filters that target SOPA supporters. Nor do I think it makes a difference whether this is initiated in response to legislative demands, or some sense of "what is right".
YMMV.
In one sense, it is a bit hypocritical. However, we are dealing with the same mentality that supported "You are either with us, or against us." The WSJ's main audience are people who don't give a flying damn about rights, they only care about money.
So you have to hit them in the money. Hard. Painfully.
It sounds like you're more concerned with censoring WSJ than maintaning the quality of HN.