[jmonegro]

I agree. This cat and mouse game between lawmakers and the people is quite exhausting. If it isn't SOPA, it's PIPA, CISPA, ACTA... and they'll just keep coming until one of them makes it into law.

I think we should be focusing our power into pushing for legislation that prevents these kinds of bills to be passed, rather than fighting them off time and time again.

[anigbrowl]

It's rather obviously one between the rightsholders and other people, with lawmakers as the playing pieces. It's just that the it's a lot easier for rightsholders to write large checks and buy the representation they want. Like all marketing, election campaigns are very capital-intensive.

[Retric]

The only way to limit what congress can do is with a constitutional amendment. Anything else, and they can just overwrite it.

[AnthonyMouse]

Yes and no. It's true that you can't just have Congress pass a law that says "future Congresses can't do xyz," because future Congresses can just repeal it.

But you can do something even better. Pass legislation that takes a step in the other direction. Repeal the DMCA anti-circumvention clause and demand an international treaty that requires other countries to do likewise. Reduce copyright terms. Eliminate statutory (as opposed to actual) damages for noncommercial infringement.

This would do three things. First, all of those things are good policy, and passing them would help us. Second, it would put the copyright extremists on the defensive and makes them spend their political capital to try to prevent a series of sensible bills from being passed. And third, when we succeed in passing them, it shifts the status quo, so that the next outrageous bill they propose looks like an even larger departure from the baseline, making it easier to defeat.

[redthrowaway]

All of this is predicated on having a government that makes wise policy choices as opposed to acting in the self-perceived interests of its sponsors. The USG is not such a government.

[AnthonyMouse]

They say you get the government that you deserve. If you don't think you deserve what you have, maybe you should get something else.

[redthrowaway]

I'm Canadian; I'm more or less happy with our government. It's about the best you could hope for of a product designed by a committee of 15M.

[steve-howard]

Congress is already limited in what it can do, not that they care.

[rhizome]

This headline strikes me as a cynical (if not undemocratic) attempt to push acronym fatigue.