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The WSJ's point, that Wikipedia has never blacked itself out on any other political issue, is factually incorrect - odd that a newspaper can't take the time to do its research, but Wikipedia blacked out in Italy after passage of a similar law there making it responsible for user content. Oddly enough, Italy backed down as well.

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.

"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."

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.

I agree. I think it's important to argue against the WSJ's actual points, not dismiss them because of conflict of interest.

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.

The reason you're not seeing much comment on the WSJ article's actual content is probably because it's behind a pay wall and so inaccessible to most here.

On the other hand, the "traditional" press has centuries-old ties with governments, diplomacy, it's even part of the constitution in most countries, so if you want to compare apples to apples, you have to also notice that the media establishment is defending its (now outdated) exclusivity over content distribution.

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

> 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.

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.