1. legislators don’t truly understand the nature of the sites they are discussing, so they rely on industry lobbyists to tell them a lopsided version of the truth, and
2. most laws are not tailored for the nature of internet, and the nature of the internet is to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission. Computer systems are not currently equipped to figure out the difference between a mashup of music videos as political commentary and some guy who just posts copies of music videos on YouTube.

Therefore, as imperfect as YouTube is at pulling infringing videos, it still has an appeals process and involves the accused and the copyright holders. Plus, the filtering program doesn’t always work properly. Infringing stuff goes up all of the time, and fair use videos are pulled or screened out every day. It’s up to the rights holders to complain.

What the MPAA and RIAA want is to have all sites, from Google down to your blog, screen the all content uploaded, even links, aggregators, and search engine results that are in no way connected to the original site the way YouTube screens its uploads. Normally, if someone posted an infringing comment on your blog (eg. a copy-paste of a news article from the AP), the AP might send you a DMCA request, and once you read your email, you would delete the comment and not be liable. Under SOPA and PIPA, you would be liable even if you had no clue that commented existed.

The lobbyists also consider Google, as an aggregator of search results — which is basically what most torrent sites like The Pirate Bay are, since they don’t host the actual content — to be complicit in piracy and counterfeiting. It’s like suing public transport because a robber took the bus to the bank.

I, for one, download public domain movies, music, and audiobooks released under creative commons licenses using torrents, because it’s the fastest and cheapest way to access the files. Inevitably, with social media, any tool meant to send information can and will be misused.

The laws are supposed to catch criminals, not punish technology because criminals are smart. Conflating counterfeiting and piracy also muddles the issue.

I haven’t read Courtney’s post (I didn’t know about it until I read your post), so anything I said was certainly not in reference to anything she had written.

That aside, in hindsight, perhaps “emotional” wasn’t the best word choice – I accept that.

I think there are a couple of things tied up here. There is the argument whether the analogy is accurate, then the argument about whether it is appropriate. I guess what I was trying to say that the argument about whether the analogy was appropriate was taking the place of whether the analogy was accurate, and thus, a discussion about the substance of the article.

Personally, I steer clear of such analogies for that reason. The whole conversation becomes about the analogy, which rarely moves things forward or does anyone any favours.

Dave

You appeared to be ascribing an “emotional” response to the criticism of Eisler, Konrath, and Stackpole, from what I read:

I find these arguments can attract very emotional responses and we rarely get to the issues – which is a pity.

and also

A lot of people got hot and bothered and seemed to miss the fact that he was referring to Roman times.

both posit that their critics are reacting based on emotion, implying that a) emotional responses are inferior to intellectual responses, and b) that one side is being overly emotional and the other side is being overly rational.

Considering that the most outspoken and widely read response to Eisler et al. has been from Courtney Milan, who also happens to be a romance writer, it struck me as patronizing.

For my part, my goal was not to draw you into the conversation or argument, so I obviously failed on that front, but I didn’t want to be talking about you without allowing you to know I was linking to your post or allowing you to respond, thus the blog post ping. I really wanted to point out that if a large majority of traditionally oppressed groups take issue with the repeated framing of arguments in inflammatory language, there’s probably a good reason to check one’s privilege.