12 Reasons Why SOPA is Worse Than You Think

I don't want stupid products, just my individual freedoms.

Freedom is the right for individuals to do whatever they want as long as they do not infringe on others.

Virtually all members of Congress have at one time or another openly criticized, even condemned countries like Iran and China for blocking web sites from their citizens.

Your points about nature are basically valid and need addressing. But censorship has never improved any society in the history of the world. The internet is the only arena remaining for freedom of information. As such, NOBODY BETTER FUCK WITH IT!!!!! ... especially Libertarians who believe in anything goes style societies can actually function in the modern world. Five year olds have more sense.

What's your point?
The Internet is for everyone.
Everyone, regardless of political ideology, has a right to voice their opinion on this issue.

My point is just a big "howdy doo" to shanklin and his merry band of raiding libertarians.

I guess you were not around Current back in the day when shanklin led frequent raids on the Current community, in hopes of converting community members to his cult of libertarians and score page views for his church's website.

And yes, everyone has a voice here, including you and me. It is a beautiful thing, don't you think?

Peace and Liberty to all!

Yes, it *is* a "beautiful thing", and I am completely unaware of any "cult" factor, but that doesn't mean I believe you, either. (fwiw, I've only been at Current for about a year.)

However, within the last two years I have been exposed to one "other" online cult, and I will say this from that experience:

"No one can convert you (or anyone) of anything unless you *allow* them to do so."

Indeed: the whole mess smacks of EFFORT for Congress!

Most U.S. Legislators today have shown themselves to be nothing more than privileged egotistical troglodytes who only want to increase their own wealth at the expense of those who aren't wealthy. These ass hats wouldn't last 5 minutes on a even playing field with the rest of society.

With statism, things like SOPA are inevitable.

No it isn't, and nothing about Libertarianism is a guarantee against it either.

If anything, its fierce combativeness about the unimpeachable importance of property rights makes it a great candidate for what a Libertarian administration would do. It's that same obsessive attitude that inspired such draconian measures in the first place.

In a true libertarian/free society, property rights would be enforced through voluntarily funded dispute resolution organizations (which would be more efficient than the state) and most likely things like patents would not exist, but copyrights would be in effect in most areas,.... maybe not. Point being, enforcement can only be fulfilled through voluntarily funded means.

Generally, the libertarians think the concept of intangible property, such as intellectual property, patents etc. is an oxymoron and they don't believe in it.

Any perceived policy benefit of making an illogical recognition of something that is intangible e.g. "ideas" as "property" could be achieved instead by the law of contract, which is a more natural fit.

Blah blah blah, utopia, blah blah blah.

Sorry, I don't take hypothetical universes seriously. Human beings are assholes, and property is an incoherent concept without laws.

That's dumb. You don't think that if you invent or make something you aren't entitled to make money off of it?

Plus it's an abuse of the word "tangible." A book is tangible, as is a song or a piece of machinery. If we define tangible as being only what it exists in reality, property itself makes no sense, since it's just an arbitrary social agreement.

Also, if you believe it can be enforced through contracts, how is that any different?

You're saying, "it's wrong for the government to enforce copyright and intellectual property. Private people should be allowed to make measures as draconian as they want and the government should enforce that instead."

Since when was a patent or copyright a prerequisite for making money off an invention? Certainly you could make a lot more with a monopoly provided by a patent or copyright, but it is not a requirement. Also I thought we generally frowned upon monopolies?

"Tangible" in this context denotes physical and material. Whether there is a social arrangement among humans or not, the physical is still here. Intellectual "property" is not tangible, it only exists because of a social arrangement and nowhere else and hence is not "property."

With that understanding, yes a book is tangible. But you don't claim to copyright the paper and the binding do you? You are claiming to copyright the words and ideas expressed within, claiming they are property. A song is not tangible, the sheet of music is. A machine is tangible yes, but the design is not. The paper and ink you use to symbolized your design is tangible, the ideas that collectively make up design are not. The point is when you patent or copyright you are not copyrighting the the physical thing symbolized by your ideas. Instead the theoretical underpinnings of copyright and patent is that you are claiming ideas and words are "property". Which is trying to put a square peg into a round hole. it's illogical.

The logical fit is contract law and this is different as the theory that underpins contract law is a different creature from the theoretical foundation of property law. Practically speaking this means different rights, duties and most importantly remedies.

I am too unsure as to what you are trying to say I am saying in your last paragraph for me to respond. Got to go to sleep now.

In other words they fund themselves to enforce compliance . . or not. . . oh yeah, that'll really work!

Corporatism , you mean.... that is who will be suing startups into oblivion over property rights ...

The corporations are who wants this bill . Disney has long been an enemy of the small artists , via lawsuits . A friend of mine painted an image that was vaguely like a disney character ... and was threatened with legal action . She had to change her art ... Do you realize how many disney characters there are ?! Since they are archetypes , they can be hard to avoid .

No , a growing number of people realize that , a resource based economy would eliminate most corruption .

A copyright just protects you from being sued to the poorhouses that no longer exist . You need a copyright . Clearly you are not understanding the situation .

The catholic church does it ... oh wait .

In a stateless society, there would be no government licensed, no government protected, and no government backed corporations like there is in unethical/violent statism today.

Please tell me, how would there be government licensed and protected corporations without a government to license and protect them?!?

You really think libertarian = Ron Paul/libertarian party?!?!? LMAO!!!

If so, you are WAY off and you have no idea about a free society.

Well said. Thank you for the sanity.

Dude, you posted that fucking video again! I bet that pathetic video has been posted more times on current that any other video ever! You need some new material!

Patents and copyrights aren't necessarily monopolies, they just ensure that actual content creators are compensated for their work. I was under the impression that, depending on how the specific copyright or patent worked, it's allowed to be used by anyone so long as they pay royalties or are covered by fair use, etc.

As for it being a "logical" fit, that assumed property is some inherent law of nature or something. There's nothing "logical" about property, it's just a legal definition, it means whatever we want it to mean. And it can be regulated however we want to regulate it.

Square the circle, in other words.

I will agree, however, that I don't think it's right to treat IP the same way we treat other, real, physical property. But I don't see how eliminating IP makes anything, anywhere better.

I like public domain laws and shit like that. If it's all private contracts, you could do all kinds of ridiculously stupid shit, like requiring that all copies be destroyed upon your death or something.

No, a copyright doesn't protect YOU from being sued. It allows the holder of the copy right to sue you. But if you are sued by Hollywood for uploading a clip of one of their copyrighted awful movies to a file sharing website, if you are sued, you will be sued to the poorhouse.

In law words such as "property" and "contract" have practically fixed meanings. Not only do words have meaning but attached to these types of words are rights and duties in law.

But Speaking of public domain, look at what the Supreme Court did to it on Wednesday.

This is one of reason why I don't think patents, copyrights, and trademarks, and all intellectual "property" should be conceptualized as property at all. It leads to awful court rulings like this one:

http://current.com/community/93626509_supreme-court-rules-works-can-be-pulled-ou...

If you invent something i am free to steal the idea ... and you would have no recourse .

Libertarianism is a very unimaginative religion . If the judges could have imagined as many of us did the warping power of the super pacs , perhaps they would not have decided corporations are people in citizens united .

You may be right ...

Good luck stopping the unstoppable. With statism, SOPA is a promise... unfortunately.

Have you any experience with lawsuits ?