The line in support of ACTA and SOPA has always been this: the Internet has a piracy problem. We're just trying to fix it. If you don't like our method, why don't you suggest an alternative?
I have a huge problem with that. Copyright infringement is already illegal. We already have the DMCA to enforce it. If ACTA and something like SOPA pass and piracy continues, then what? The problem hasn't gone anywhere, and the same people will be back with an even harsher "solution" and the same old argument. This argument, extrapolated, is a never-ending death spiral into Internet totalitarianism.
The author makes a big rhetorical/logical fallacy: (s)he describes the "problem" that the internet has without ever explaining what exactly the problem is (its existence is just implied).
The issue is exactly the oposite. There is no problem with the internet, but the industries, that see internet as a potential new source of (parasitic) revenue, are creating a problem so that the politicians ca solve it.
> but then how do we make money without intellectual property rights
> We talk of freedom, artistic expression, and creativity, but at the end of the day, someone has to get paid.
Well, who said that art must be paid for, and that it must be paid for by the customer? In my opinion, art made for profit is not art, true art comes from within, and is expression of the soul, which would need to be expressed even if there was no money coming from creating art. Even so, the politicians and lobbyists emphasise the "successful" artists, those earning big bucks, but really there are many artists that are only losing/spending money doing their art, but still do it. After all, we're all artists.
Furthermore, that artists have to "make a living" is a relatively new idea. In the past, artists had donnors, rich people who financed them so that they could create in peace, without worries.
In reality, the people making the most money off artists (that's musical performers mainly) today are the recording companies. It used to be that you needed to sign with a record label to market your music, sell your music, and book live concerts. The internet has put that power into the artists' hands. Artists can "make a living" without "making it big" with the internet. The record labels are running an antiquated business which is no longer needed.
The author conflates value with money all through this article - saying that if something doesn't make money it is worthless. This is simply ridiculous.
examples:
> How does the internet create and sustain value?
> ...at the end of the day, someone has to get paid
> Without the structure, the economic exchange will not get beyond the barter level.
> The industry has to begin to demonstrate what legislation it wants
The author takes the idea of "intellectual property" for granted. What about the problem of independent invention? The telegraph, telephone and lots of other major inventions had multiple pretenders to the throne of "inventor". I think that this fact make "IP" into something less than property.
The problems with this article extend further into its underpinnings than merely assuming a problem without explaining what the problem is.
What I dislike about the article (apart from the sensationalism he admits to in the first paragraph) is how he is is trying to equate current state with "Wild West" and heavy regulation and censorship with "civilized modern age".
But that's not how it works, at least according to most people who know something about the Internet. ACTA is not "inevitable civilizing of uncivilized land", turning Wild West to Modern Age, it is something turning Modern Age to Orwellian dystopia.
That's why arguments like "if you don't want ACTA, you have to propose something yourself" won't work on people who don't buy the "OMG IT'S SO SAVAGE, IT NEED CENSORSHIP" meme.
The only 'problem' ACTA, SOPA and PIPA actually solve is that outdated business models are increasingly unprofitable.
Any of the other problems around the IP regime - for example, the extremely destructive effects of software patent abuse, or the unchecked power of large organizations to issue fraudulent copyright takedowns - are not remotely addressed by any of these bills or by past bills.
Engaging with these people isn't helpful because they're in complete denial about reality. It may be true that the vast majority of political forces and financial forces are aligned in favor of stuff like ACTA and SOPA, but that's not because the bills solve a real problem; it's because those bills make rich people richer, so naturally they're going to spend money to pass them.
I don't understand this "the internet needs to be tamed" perspective that people approaching from this angle always come from. How does this make any sense at all? Is there something actually, demonstrably wrong with the current anarchic structure of internet governance?
Or is the answer to that simply "We don't have powers we would like to have to better our own position" from entrenched real world political blocs?
"We see stuff that we don't like. Some of it is stuff that you wouldn't like. Some of it is stuff that paid lobbyists are telling us not to like. We don't understand the Internet, nor international law, and we want to do something about this stuff that we don't like. Some of that stuff is actually serious and causing harm to real people. Some of it is stuff that paid lobbyists claim is causing indirect harm (unemployment) to real people."
I'd like to see better, stronger, cleverer measures taken against images of child abuse; against the people who abuse children for those images; the people who make those images, or who share those images, or who distribute those images, and probably against people who possess[1] those images.
I'd like to think there's effective ways for international law enforcement to track people trading things like plutonium or other specialist radiological materials.
Many people would happily give up some freedoms to give law enforcement powers needed for those things.
So it's baffling to me that regulators point to movie piracy or mp3s or fake handbags. Most people don't care about fake rolex watches; they certainly don't want to allow weird privacy violating laws to be passed just to crack down on sellers of fake rolexes.
[1] I accept that more research is needed. If someone can show me excellent quality research that possession of images of child abuse reduces a person's risk of abusing a child in the real world then I guess possession becomes less problematic.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/06/30/child-por... There does seem to be some evidence to indicate that this is actually the case. However I don't think it should even be granted that just because a a digital item has the potential to be abhorrent to human sensibilities, this is adequate justification for the policing of all digital content. Even assuming child pornography is not, there could be other digital items within this category (images of snuff, detailed plans for wardrobe lab production of biohazardous / infectious diseases, whatever) that certainly are.
My objection isn't that there is zero potential for some degree of damage from those things, but that actually policing them is one hundred percent utterly impossible. All allowing legal enforcement agencies to try does is give them wide ranging fishing powers and the curtailment of civil liberties in the general populace. So not only do any attempts to actually accomplish anything in this area fail on principle, they simply give people in power a skeleton key for the abuse thereof by justification of whatever digital closet horror you can be manipulated by.
The mathematics of the situation is this; Digital content can be stored and transmitted completely privately and there can be no method by which this can ever be exposed. The consequences of this fact are limited to the transfer of knowledge only, from which nobody can directly be harmed.
Although I am an anarcho-capitalist so I even carry this theory over into the real world, at least in the real world the objection that real people can be directly physically hurt or killed by the absence of strong centralised authority to keep various boogeymen at bay has some basis in reality if you accept that is the best way to prevent those negative externalities.
Online, the worst that can happen is that you are mentally exposed to some deeply unpleasant things. And typically this is only in the case that you have searched for them extensively, so it appears to be the definition of a limited harm victimless crime.
The problem is that it's not the people asking for this. That's why people are protesting SOPA/PIPA/ACTA. That's why people in several European countries took to the streets protesting their government's involvement in ACTA. Even worse, ACTA was drafted in secret, away from the people the agreement is going to affect. When the special interests in RIAA and MPAA and the like have the power to bring governments together to draft a treaty in secret, you can't be surprised when the people take to the streets, and I'm of the opinion that you can't morally defend ACTA unless you had a hand in crafting it, or got paid by someone who did.
I have a huge problem with that. Copyright infringement is already illegal. We already have the DMCA to enforce it. If ACTA and something like SOPA pass and piracy continues, then what? The problem hasn't gone anywhere, and the same people will be back with an even harsher "solution" and the same old argument. This argument, extrapolated, is a never-ending death spiral into Internet totalitarianism.