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Comment by Myrth | Hacker News Reader

Someone needs to send a couple of millions DMCA takedown requests from random sources to random targets, to make this problem visible.

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Hurting innocents in the pursuit of political reform isn't the way to go.

Several places in the world have shown that to be effective. And that would be real physical harm.

When has terrorism been an effective way to invoke change in a democratic society?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

Colonists objected to the Tea Act because they believed that it violated their rights as Englishmen to "No taxation without representation," that is, be taxed only by their own elected representatives and not by a British parliament in which they were not represented.

Again, and in hopes of a more substantive reply: when has hurting innocents been an effective way to get what you want in a society with political representation for its citizens?

Ok, how about not fully random sources and targets, but ones that somehow involved in DMCA lobbying and enforcement. That would remove the "innocent" from equation.

The IRA has members in parliaments now. Negotiations with the Taliban have changed their method from arms to words. I could probably find a few more by spending a little time researching.

The sending itself wouldn't be hurting anyone. The responding parties would have to make a decision to hurt innocents or not, and maybe actually forced to do some due diligence, that is expected of them. And maybe voice out that current requirements make this hard or impossible for them.

The hurt was imposed by the law.

Utilizing the law to its letter and to impose the fundamental flaw in it is simply making that hurt visible.

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