[cheald]

Most sane people support sane IP legislation. It's perfectly reasonable for IP holders to want to have legal recourse against the bad guys. There are lots of people making a lot of money selling a lot of illegal merchandise online.

What people protest about SOPA is that it gives tools to companies (with a history of abusing the recourses granted to them by law) that are akin to a wrecking ball intended to be used as a flyswatter. Sure, you'll get the fly, but you're going to take out three walls, a couple of load-bearing columns, and an unfortunate cat in the process.

[slowpoke]

>Most sane people support sane IP legislation.

Sane IP legislation is no IP legislation. I don't know why we are still clinging to the ridiculous concept of being able to own abstract concepts. The true insanity is IP in the first place.

[ericingram]

I agree with you, IP is a bad idea to begin with.

Government grants you a monopoly on an idea, and uses violence to stop other people from infringing on your monopoly. But, usage of these non-scarce resources takes nothing from the originator aside from this monopoly power.

[Lazare]

I support, in principle, the concept of IP, and the right of IP holders to enforce their rights, and I hope everyone else on Hacker News does too.

The big questions aren't "should IP even exist as a concept", but instead "how limited IP should be", "what rights IP ownership should give", and "what avenues are available to enforce those rights".

Don't forget, "IP protection" is a really broad concept, and it's more than just patent trolls and DMCA takedowns issued by corporations on content they don't even control: It also includes, for example, the ability to release code under your open source license of choice and then see it enforced through the courts.

[4ad]

Many people, myself included, are against the very principle of IP for good reasons: http://www.stephankinsella.com/ip/

[burgerbrain]

"The big questions aren't "should IP even exist as a concept""

Who decided that?

[cheald]

In this context, I mean IP to encompass non-tangible goods like software and music, as well as things like brands (half of SOPA is levied at people who produce counterfeits of popular brand items). Is there a better term I should use?

[Natsu]

RMS, among others, objects to the very term because it encompasses so many different things and that leads to ambiguity, preferring instead to refer to rights individually, e.g. trademarks, copyrights, etc.

For those who simply want to protest, though, people have been using terms like 'intellectual monopoly' or 'imaginary property' or the like. But that gets you right back to lumping them all together again.

[slowpoke]

You are indeed correct, and I usually agree with RMS on this[1]. It's a bit hard to answer posts talking about IP without using the term yourself, though.

Also, while it's clear that there are different motivations behind Copyright, Patents and Trademarks and it's often important to make a clear distinction between them, I object against them due to the same reason (owning abstract concepts is absurd to the point of insanity), so I do tend to lump them together in a context such as this.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

[throwaway88]

RMS is also batshit crazy.

[sycr]

Please do not create throwaway accounts to make one-off, potentially controversial comments. It dilutes the quality of the discussion.

[davidw]

Why? Because it has been a pretty good, if imperfect, solution to the provisioning of public goods problem, for some categories of public goods:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good#Possible_solutions

[cdr]

We have pretty sane IP law already in the DMCA - IP rightsholders already have several avenues of recourse, including the US govt's warantless domain seizures. Anything new is going to beyond the DMCA, and probably far beyond. I am not in support of that and have a hard time cheering on any company that is in support.

[cheald]

I generally agree. However, I'm not going to categorically state that matters can't be improved, so I don't think that it's correct to always associate "IP legislation" with "RIAA/MPAA power grab".

I firmly believe that the issues of content and software piracy are distribution issues, rather than legislation issues. I also believe that it would be silly to say "Welp, things are good enough, no more changes needed ever". To say "We will never support IP legislation" is an untenable position, and I'd be wary of any company that would make such a broad statement. Namecheap made the right one by saying "We support internet freedom".

[bad_user]

I do not agree with your argument because you're ignoring one very damaging trait of SOPA ... penalty without trial and guilty until proven innocent.

This has nothing to do with a wrecking ball intended to be used as a flyswatter. This has to do with fundamental human rights. This is more akin to the existence of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. This is George Bush telling people that they need the "proper tools to fight terrorism" and it's OK because these are not US citizens and so they shouldn't have any rights.

[Djehngo]

I think in the analogy either the load-bearing columns or the cat represented our human rights.

[swalsh]

May I inquire why cheald was downvoted? His post seemed reasonably well written, and, at least in my opinion, contributed to the conversation. I was to be under the impression down-voting in regards to disagreement was discouraged.

[randallsquared]

Perhaps his implication that those who disagree with IP are insane offended some folk.

[cheald]

Re-reading that this morning, I see how I communicated that. Sorry.

I meant to say that while you have to be insane to support legislation like SOPA, most normal people who don't live in castles made of double-platinum records aren't opposed to much more moderate and appropriately-scoped legislation. Some very sane people are opposed to it, and that's okay.

[o2sd]

> Most sane people support sane IP legislation.

Too ambiguous and vague. IP legislation that was written at the time of the constitution is perfectly suitable for the modern age without the need to extend forever.

> It's perfectly reasonable for IP holders to want to have legal recourse against the bad guys.

What is reasonable is a LIMITED monopoly on the copying of an artistic medium as long as it 'promotes the arts and sciences'. The goal of copyright and patent law is to maximise the benefits of art and technology TO SOCIETY, not to some corporation. The method of doing this is to grant a LIMITED TIME monopoly over a creation as an incentive to create, not to make corporations more profitable. Once that LIMITED TIME has passed, the creation enters the public domain and society as a whole accrues the benefits. Having infinitely extendable copyrights/patents, copyrights owned by corporations renders the purpose of copyright/patents NULL AND VOID, because society never accrues the benefit associated with the cost (i.e. the monopoly).

> There are lots of people making a lot of money selling a lot of illegal merchandise online.

No, there isn't. There are some, always have been, always will be, because when a market for goods or services is inefficient, it changes the risk/reward ratio for 'cheaters'. Look at the market for drugs for example. The risks are huge, but the rewards are ridiculously higher in proportion. As long as the risk/reward ratio is skewed (i.e. the market is inefficient), there will always be 'cheaters' or 'criminals' in that market. Turning your country into a police state might be one way to stop that, but it may also kill the market you are trying to protect.