[MD] SOPA and PIPA

[118]

Hi Horse,
I agree with you.  As I am sure you have heard, the vote on this bill
has been delayed today by H. Reed since he realized he will not get
the 60 votes to move forward.  A lot of this bill is being pushed by
Hollywood, which as you say is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Hollywood has great lobbying power in this country since they have the
attention of the public.  Often actors will pose as knowledgeable
leaders on things they should stay away from.  This is the "star
power" fallacy.

Earlier I presented this bill as an example of an inbalance between
the biological and social levels.  The bill would be a "top-down" or
dictatorial approach where the social level (as presented by the power
of the government) dictates what we Should do.  The biological level
would be inherent in the personal freedom of speach (and accrual of
money).  If one or the other dominates, we get either totalitarianism
or anarchy.  This balance is a tricky one, especially since once laws
are made, they are difficult to remove.  The trend throughout human
history is therefore a domination of the many by the few.  This is
what is happening in the US over the last century.  Fortunately we
have "free" elections to try to resist this human tendency.

I find it useful to place these current events in the context of MoQ.
In this case it would seem that we have a battle between personal
Arete and societal Arete.  I believe the Sophist were on the personal
side.  This seems to have changed when Plato, and especially
Aristotle, seem to argue for the societal aspect by the severe
classification of things into "the way things need to be viewed", or
Truth.  I believe that through the embracing of Quality, we are trying
to reverse this trend of societal dominance and reestablish a balance.

Personally, I see piracy as the theft of personal property, and we
have laws against that in this country.  Unfortunately "off-shore"
Somali's do not need to abide by these rules.  However, I do not see
the need for a dictatorial Law of the Land as the right means to
resolve this.  The more we make laws, the more personal Arete is
destroyed.  We are no longer responsible for our personal actions, the
government is.  This is a growing trend in this country with all the
things that the government is trying to control.  A rebalance is
necessary.  Unfortunately, this can become a pendulum.  But, that
makes things interesting, and gives people meaningful causes.

I understand your position as a musician.  Do you think the freedom of
publishing on the internet gets one out of the multi-million dollar
stranglehold?  If so, how does one protect one's personal property
once you have published it?

Cheers,
Mark

On 1/20/12, Horse <horse at darkstar.uk.net> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Interesting link regarding SOPA/PIPA:
>
> http://go.theregister.com/i/sct-mid33/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/19/sopa_is_gone_are_you_happy_now/
>
> The rise and defeat of SOPA/PIPA seems to revolve an initially badly
> thought out threat to destroy the internet as it now operates countered
> by lots of screaming and shouting
> Instead of using reason and persuasion on both sides what we see are,
> basically, threats and name-calling.
>
> Here's a quote from the article:
>
> "Even an open-source revolutionary like Marc Fleury groks this, writing
> in support of SOPA:
>
> Increasingly the western world relies on IP to make a living. Since we
> produce less "real world" goods and more "digital world" goods we open
> ourselves to piracy. If we are to move to an information based economy
> there needs to be a limit to the infringement of IP.
>
> You or I may disagree, but it would be useful if we were to do so
> through thoughtful conversation, rather than 140-character bursts of
> indignation, self-censorship of websites, etc."
>
>
> Why do we want (or need) to move to an information based economy?!? Is
> this a real need or is it a created need - i.e. created by those that
> stand to profit by it to the detriment of those that don't.
> It seems to me that the main recipients of the benefits of an
> information based economy are those that do the least in order to gain
> the most.
> Here's an example:
> Musicians are the artists that create a 'consumable product' - i.e.
> music. The vast majority of musicians get little more than a tiny
> fraction of the proceeds of their endeavours and yet a multi-billion
> dollar industry revolves around what they produce. Most artists don't
> even own the IP that is being fought over in SOPA/PIPA.
>
> IP, like money, has a place in the world but it is not the be-all and
> end-all of existence. A balanced economy - one that has both real world
> and digital world good - makes more sense than an economy based solely
> or mainly on one or the other.
>
> Horse
>
>
>
> --
>
> "Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
> deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
> — Frank Zappa
>
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