[randomwalker]

Today I got to talk to Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, one of the very few legislators who is fighting this. Here are my notes: http://33bits.org/2011/05/19/fighting-protect-ip-congresswom... There were some surprises for me. Here is the summary:

Appeals to free speech and chilling effects are at best temporary measures in the fight against Protect IP and domain seizures. Even if we win this time it will keep coming back in modified form; the only way defeat it for good is to convince Washington that artists are in fact thriving, that piracy is not the real problem, and that takedown efforts are not in the interest of society. We in the tech world know this, but we are doing a poor job of making ourselves heard in Washington, and this needs to change.

[DanielBMarkham]

If the message to legislators is: won't you please do something to protect all those poor and starving artists? Then we are well and truly hosed.

More likely: big money bought the bill and the "starving artist" facade is a convenient and facile deceit. Like all good bought laws, it works loosely on a philosophical scale, has emotional appeal, and is difficult to argue without getting into the weeds of changing business models, the way the internet works, etc.

I'm a big fan of politics (micro and macro) and philosophy, mainly because I love studying how people make group decisions. Over the past couple of years I've become more and more convinced that humanity has entered a time where things are changing so fast that the average guy isn't fully aware of how he's getting screwed over. The only saving grace is that older people can see the changes more clearly. With transhumanism on the way, Google and others creating the Borg in the cloud, and governments snooping into every little thing we do, it's almost like the previous 2500 years we have been studying very hard at how freedom and virtue inter-relate, and now comes the test.

Sure hope we do well.

[smokeyj]

They would consider not infringing on free speech if artists are thriving? Good to know where my rights fit on their scale.

[bluedanieru]

Even that's not enough. He's assuming most people in Congress and the Obama administration give a damn about the effects of piracy on artistic expression, or indeed what is in the best interests of society. They don't. It's sad to see someone so naive in that position.

[skrebbel]

don't confuse naivety with pr: she's talking on record there.

barring a few nutjobs, i've the idea most politicians are significantly less naive than they let show.

[CamperBob]

It would be even better if we could convince the MPAA and RIAA of this.

They're the same people, after all -- look at the composition of the Obama DOJ if you don't believe me.