Thursday, February 02, 2012
SMBC: People are Citizens on the Internet Too
Indeed.
4 Comments:
By 
W.LindsayWheeler, at
Sat Feb 04, 09:18:00 AM:
Piracy is not to be condoned. I find it real strange how leftists protray this as something evil, when the government has the authority to stop piracy of intellectual and proprietory materials.
Why shouldn't websites be shut down who offer pirated material and seek to escape royalties?
What is going on is a smokescreen. This has nothing to do with being a citizen. What "citizen" pirates stuff?
If I can't buy the software---I don't use it. Why is this so hard for much of the other population? Just because one is "rich" or "poor", the rich saying, I'm above the law, I don't have to follow the law and the poor saying, I can't afford it so I am able to pirate it.
Just more lawlessness.
By 
Cass, at
Sat Feb 04, 10:04:00 AM:
"The shop next door said your products are similar to theirs".
Try, "The shop next door said you are storing stolen property - that belongs to them."
Or perhaps even better,
"Your storage facility is being used - not just once or twice, but frequently - to store stolen property."
And then ask yourself what the police would do in the real world?
It's a clever cartoon, but dishonestly (or, to be as generous as possible) sloppily framing the issue only undermines the case.
If the point of the cartoon is to ask, "What would happen in the real world?" and "Why should the Internet be different"?, then it's pretty important to make sure the real world scenario accurately reflects the problem of internet piracy.
Good thought experiment, though.
By Aegon01, at
Sat Feb 04, 12:52:00 PM:
Technically, it's replicated property. The original is still there. But yes, it was probably taken without permission.
Anyway, what about the other two things?
By , at
Mon Feb 06, 12:55:00 PM:
This was a good post Aegon.
The issue in the cartoon is shutting down QUESTIONABLE sites, not piracy per se.
That gives the controller a very wide latitude in deciding whom to close down.
The bottom line is that the creeping totalitarianism in this country has become a juggernaut. It is not just the internet, it is systemic throughout society.
Based on our history,I see ways to slow it's advance but I see no way to stop it over the long term.
Our electorate has been too eager to trade freedom for rules and regulations and now the rule making has taken on a life of its own.
I despair.
