[pittsburgh]

And the only way to stop future SOPAs is to make the system less corrupt, which means taking money out of politics.

This is why Lawrence Lessig left the fight against intellectual property craziness to focus on the underlying problem of corruption.

It's been years since I heard Lessig was shifting his focus to fight corruption, and recently SOPA got me curious about what he's been up to and if SOPA had brought him back out of "retirement". That led me to this article, "Why Is Lawrence Lessig MIA In The Great SOPA Piracy Debate?" http://m.paidcontent.org/article/419-why-is-lawrence-lessig-...

which led me to Lessig's response: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/13119510676/me-mia-on-the-sopa...

which led me to his iniative to fight political corruption through campaign finance reform: http://www.rootstrikers.org/

I'm actually glad to see that Lessig isn't letting SOPA distract him from his fight against corruption which is the root of the problem. Stopping SOPA would be a huge win, but it would only be a battle win, and as long as we're losing the corruption war there are going to be many more SOPAs to fight in the future.

[dantheman]

But Lessig is fighting the wrong battle, as long as the government is doling out piles of money, picking winners and losers through regulations and bailouts it will make sense to try and influence them, and there is no way to stop "corruption", we should note that this isn't taking bribes etc, without hampering legitimate forms of speech.

Lessig seems to be willing to limit our ability practice political speech through regulations and limitations, and to entrench the current political system by focus on government funded elections in which of course only major parties will be able to speak.

[alexqgb]

I strongly encourage you to develop a (much) better understanding of what Lessig has been arguing. A good place to start is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxCo2bE9Gtk

Also worth noting: the problem you describe (corrupting influences on the economy originating in Washington, as opposed to private interests capturing Washington) is something Lessig addressed in his recent appearance on Jon Stewart's program. There, he pointed out that these apparently divergent forms of corruption are entirely compatible, and that they actually share the same root, which is the obscene reliance of elected officials on a vanishingly small number of campaign donors.

Depending on the day of the week, these donors can find themselves initiating bribes, or being shaken down for bribes by officials wanting to increase their takes. The stink flows both ways. And it ensnares people who, left to their own devices, would have nothing to do with 'the trade' whatsoever.

Accordingly, Lessig is illuminating the entire economy of corruption, correctly observing that you cannot choose to attack one branch instead of another. Instead, you have to ignore all the branches, and go straight for the root. If any good comes from SOPA, it will be in generating a backlash strong enough to go after the root directly. The nerds, for what it's worth, are the people to lead this. Why? Because we are, by nature, systems thinkers. And this is a systemic problem of the very severest degree.

[dantheman]

I have a good understanding of what Lessig has been arguing; when I saw your comment, I figured that I must of missed something so I watched the video and it's exactly what I thought it would be. I'm a fan of his in a lot of ways, but I often disagree with him when it comes to specifics -- we both see the same problems but have different takes on their solutions.

He's not attacking the root, he's attacking the branches. If government did not have the power to dole out favors no one would spend money trying to influence it. That, however , is incompatible with his worldview. He wants a strong federal government intervening a wide variety of issues - so that his will can be imposed upon others (I say his, because it would be odd if he was fighting so that someone could impose their will on him).

I completely agree with him on all the "corruption" claims, and on how they get compensated when they leave - there is no disagreement there. Though he does conflate 2 funding issues: 1. campaign funding 2. personal wealth. His attack is only focused on #1, whereas #2 also exists and is mentioned in his talk about former congressmen ending up @ K street or in large corporations. Nothing in his proposal would address problem #2, for a congressman can pass all sorts of bullshit laws and then go and work at Disney or Monsanto.

As for being systems thinkers, I agree - and in fact I think that's why pushing power from the federal to state makes a lot of sense. It increases stability, allows for experimentation and reduces the effects of corruption. Personally, I abhor politics because it's all about violence and force and not about consensus and compromise. Right now, we are stuck with a winner takes all system with government when everywhere else in our lives we are seeing an abundance of choice, the book Declaration of Independents has some good ideas on this topic, if you're interested http://www.amazon.com/Declaration-Independents-Libertarian-P...

Here's a franklin quote: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."

[harold]

And it ensnares people who, left to their own devices, would have nothing to do with 'the trade' whatsoever.

I think this is why few truly good people go in to politics.

[mhartl]

Even if by some miracle you could make it happen, "taking money out of politics" won't work, either, unless you somehow include, e.g., AARP, both public- and private-sector unions, and every "underrepresented" minority voting bloc, not to mention anyone rich enough to own a media company. That isn't remotely an exhaustive list, and in any case I fear that the savviest special interest groups are far too clever to be stopped by mere campaign finance reform. Unfortunately, the root of the problem is one level deeper than Lessig, et al., are prepared to dig.

[Natsu]

William Patry has some interesting thoughts on the subject of copyright reform, too:

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Law/Intellectu...

For anyone who doesn't know, he's one of the foremost scholars of copyright law.

[georgieporgie]

I hate to get all political on HN, but I saw this week that Bernie Sanders (a socialist, even) introduced an amendment that would explicitly state that constitutional rights apply only to citizens, not corporations, and also prohibit corporations from making political contributions.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9qZZVqSQ

Petition page with the complete amendment: http://sanders.senate.gov/savingdemocracy

It sounds like it's too loosely written as it stands (see the WSJ article for a fearful analysis), but it's an interesting concept.