Yes, people will start claiming PIPA and SOPA are unnecessary, and they may be taken of the table. Hurray!
Of course, this now means that much of the evil stuff in PIPA and SOPA is already reality, but instead of being angry about it, we're now breathing a sigh of relief.
In the mean time, the feds will start taking down sites left, right and center, and across the globe, without any form of due process. And we'll be cool with it, because things could have been so much worse with PIPA and SOPA...
We're not seeing "infringers charged" here. Megaupload is gone. The entertainment industry has been playing judge and jury, with the feds as their executioners, and the justice department giving it a thin veneer of legal process.
PIPA and SOPA are more of less a reality without the laws actually being passed. That in itself is way scarier than the actual content of those laws. And thanks to this wonderful sleight of hand, it will now be perceived as if it were a good thing.
While MegaUpload has indeed been destroyed, it is not obvious that the judge will agree with those actions - after the ICE domain seizures, Rojadirecta brought suit against the US government, apparently thinking it can win (see e.g. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110613/12021514673/rojadi...). The DoJ would like PIPA/SOPA to be reality, but that doesn't mean that it is.
That is why everyone point at victory in the SOPA fight, I say that there won't be victory unless a constitutional amendment protects our rights and we don't have to take arms against a new law every year.
"The Congress shall have Power (1)... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts (2), by securing for limited Times (3) to Authors and Inventors (4) the exclusive Right (5) to their respective Writings and Discoveries (6)" (Article I, Section 8)
(1) This is a grant of power, not a mandate. Congress may exercise it, but is not compelled to do so.
(2) The goal is for the public benefit, not for private gain. It is meant to advance our knowledge and culture, not provide a permanent rent-seeking scheme.
(3) There is nothing "limited" about "life of author + 70 years"; the life of the author is technically indefinite, and furthermore 70 years is on the order of a person's life expectancy. The original term of copyright in this country was 14 years from date of publication.
(4) In no way is this protection afforded to publishers, producers, distributors, or other people whose contribution to the work is laborious but not novel. Novelty is subject to protection, not labor.
(5) Nowhere is there a requirement for violations of this "exclusive Right" to be crimes; nor is the government charged with enforcement of it. Copyright was meant to be a civil, not criminal, matter.
(6) The recording of a musical production or motion picture is not a "writing or discovery" and is thus not technically subject to these protections to begin with.
As I understand it, all of these limitations have been overridden by various treaties signed by the United States. Nevertheless, if you're going to use the Constitution as the source of your argument, it's best to know that what we have and what was intended are two drastically different things.
In that regard, the play has been a lot like the NDAA. In reality, we're already detaining Americans indefinitely without charge - and those are the 'lucky' ones. With others, we simply dispatch drones to assassinate them.
"All this bill does is codify existing practice" was the same argument used in that case. "And anyway, there are rigorous procedures in place."
Rigorous secret procedures, that is. Kind of like the rigorous procedures that pertained to water-boarding.
Yes, people will start claiming PIPA and SOPA are unnecessary, and they may be taken of the table. Hurray!
Of course, this now means that much of the evil stuff in PIPA and SOPA is already reality, but instead of being angry about it, we're now breathing a sigh of relief.
In the mean time, the feds will start taking down sites left, right and center, and across the globe, without any form of due process. And we'll be cool with it, because things could have been so much worse with PIPA and SOPA...
We're not seeing "infringers charged" here. Megaupload is gone. The entertainment industry has been playing judge and jury, with the feds as their executioners, and the justice department giving it a thin veneer of legal process.
PIPA and SOPA are more of less a reality without the laws actually being passed. That in itself is way scarier than the actual content of those laws. And thanks to this wonderful sleight of hand, it will now be perceived as if it were a good thing.
Maybe not yet checkmate, but definitely: check.