bediger

On the other hand, sometimes I wish I had the presence of mind to falsely accuse others by saying they are doing what I'm actually doing. Of course this requires a lot of gall to carry off. Don't know that I've got that, either.

But, seriously: if it's all about trademark protection, why not call it "Stop Online Trademark Infringement"? Why bother to conflate it with copyright infringement (a.k.a. "piracy", arrr, mate!), even in the title of the bill?

Either SOPA is a mess because the concept of "IP" has led to conflating trademark problems with copyright infringement, OR it's a deliberately bad piece of legislation, introduced under one name in order to get it passed, but intended to be used for entirely different purposes. I know, false dichotomy fallacy, but still...

Once we establish harm, then we can propose solutions. Once we propose solutions, we can see if any solution actually cures the problem, and doesn't cause more problems than it solves.

That's basic policy making 101. Don't make everyone look at your Beautiful Assistant while you shove the problems induced by the solution behind the black curtain.

I also agree with your reason for "IP" as a misnomer.

I wanted to speak in a general or philosophical sense. not in a legal, specific sense. The internally-inconsistent concept of "Intellectual Property" founders on the rock of independent invention, if you reason from first principles, rather than attempting to propagandize your way through to some kind of state-enforced monopoly.

It's just too easy to re-invent a particular bit of "IP". I mean, I've done some of those on-line "C Programming Interview Test Questions", and come up with something identical to the given answer, except for choice of variable names.

Independent invention just ruins "IP" as property.

Wait, didn't Mark Twain write that?

Nevertheless, where are all the people, pundits, piemen and PR flacks that arose back when Dan Geer et al raised that monoculture issue? Whenever someone seriously raises a software monoculture as an issue, The Big Guns come out to discredit that someone, and to dismiss the issue. Where are the pundits now?

Your response irritated me beyond its level of highhandedness. And I finally figured out why: I actually do like Gilligan's Island. I even bought "The Professor's" tell-all book, "Here On Gilligan's Isle". It doesn't matter if I like "Gilligan's Ilsand" or not, it's of low quality. The acting was low, the writing was low, and the production was laughable. That hasn't kept me from liking it, or regarding it as High Bulldada.

Sherwood Schwartz and CBS should be ashamed of putting out such schlock, whether I like it or not, and you should be ashamed of deciding you know what my aesthetics are.

But I'm also curious: why does a movie made by people supported by another job, or philanthropic donations, or one funded by advertising not meet the standard of "pro quality"?

Similar, popular music.

I probably wouldn't even miss Pixar movies at this point: we're getting to the point that "amateurs" can do them.

Yes, I'd gladly do without all that TV and all the movies, and most or all of the books. Oh, and the popular music. Especially the music by Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato and Ashlee Simpson.

"Deserves to be paid". Humbug. That's the beginnings of an aristocracy that "deserve" to rule.

You have a monopoly on (or monopoly power in) a market, not in something given away for free. If Gruber had said "Monopoly power in adword advertising", maybe, but then he'd have to make his case differently.

But one could substitute "copyright infringer" for "unlicensed peddler", and the gist of the argument remains intact. Heck, you could substitute "mild drug dealer" and the gist of the argument is still true. I live in Denver, Colorado, we've legalized "medical marijuana", and it's definitely a growth industry, same as the "unlicensed peddling" probably is.

So, if we allow "unlicensed peddlers" to succeed, and I'm actually all for it, where do we draw the line? With "unlicensed marijuana peddlers"? With "copyright infringers"? Do we just say the heck with it, and let all companies do whatever they want to their workers and their customers?

I mean, it seems fairly obvious that we need to regulate some industries (mining) which have an amazing history of abusing workers, and other industries which have an amazing and nauseating history of abusing customers. But where do we draw the line and say "This regulation is bizarre and counter-productive"?

Maybe disassociating the comments and discussion from the original stimulus is a good idea?

When profit is disassociated from revenue, a lot of padding will go on. See the USA's defence industry for another example.

The term of copyright has not just gotten longer, it's gotten less determinate: author's life + some number of years. Instead of a simple date calculation, we have to go reference mortality data, too.

Those two things are a pretty massive change, making it difficult to tell if obscure works have entered the public domain or not.

The grounding in the USA's federal constitution allows copyright but for a very well-defined purpose, increasing the size of the public domain. How much material went into the USA's public domain on January 1st, 2012? Answer: none. Current copyright law in the USA has slipped it's mooring, and become something other than a limited monopoly to encourage creation.

As far as implementing and enforcing copyright to suppress expressions, check out The Air Pirates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Pirates). Arguably, the lawsuit is all about Disney using copyright law to suppress something that was valid free speech.

About (2):

I don't see your point at all, unless you're strictly hanging on "hyper-connectedness". The internet works by copying into caches or buffers: it's one giant technical infringement. Without stricter-than-SOPA laws (see Fritz Holling's 2002 effort: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-866337.html) "copyright" per se is probably un-enforceable without a radical overhaul of the current peer-to-peer internet, and all the associated electronics.

I've come to believe that we're about to see the end of revealing clothing, at least for women. After all, which woman wants to appear on "Paul Blart's Home Alone Stimulation" videotape, just because they dress stylishly or revealingly or just have a nice rack?

I'm surprised that more stuff like the "Splash Mountain" flashing shots hasn't appeared on the internet. You'd think that mall cops would share their "Best Daisy Dukes" (or whatever) tapes, and that eventually, some would leak.

Yet, research in human-computer interaction barely acknowledges the command line's existence. It's a strange omission, since the core principles of human factors engineering still apply to the console.

Why is this? I've also noticed a corollary, that interface testing for "experts" doesn't really use expert testing. One paper I've read (name eludes me) about text editor usability had the nominal "expert" users ignoring regular expression searching, and just scrolling about randomly for the assigned phrase.

Either truly "expert" users are so few and far between that researchers can't find them, or the researchers can't tell who qualifies as an "expert" and who doesn't.

But I guess that in the case of SOPA, those who imagine themselves plagued by the problem aren't the ones that have to suffer the consequences of the bad solution.