SOPA/PIPA Legislation

SOPA and it's Senate counterpart PIPA are clearly the wrong way to go. 

The proposed legislation shifts the burden of copyright enforcement to internet service providers (ISPs) in essence forcing them to don the uniforms of copyright law enforcement policemen.  This, they are not equipped, funded or chartered to do and it should not be their job. 

Second, it is generally the subscriber who posts content to an ISP host and not the ISP host who has violated any copyright laws.  Thus, the proposed legislation makes one person accountable for the behavior of others (and in this case, many others).    Except in the case of parents who are accountable for the behavior of their dependent children, it is morally wrong to hold one person accountable for the behavior of another. 

Third, the proposed legislation is discriminatory in that focuses only on ISPs and not on radio, television, newspaper, magazine, book publishers, libraries, and retail merchants that, in principle, differ from ISPs only in process, technology and ownership in making copyrighted material available to the public.  If ISPs are going to be held accountable for copyright enforcement of all content posted to their sites, then, by the same token, all publishers, broadcasters, merchants and purveyors of all forms of copyright material should be held accountable for copyright enforcement of all content from all suppliers (advertisers included). 

Fourth, the proposed legislation isn't as much about copyright protection as it is about copyright law enforcement.  The existing laws protecting copyrighted material are more than adequate (perhaps too much so).  What is lacking is the ability to enforce those laws which, ever since Xerox corporation produced the photo copier, has been a major problem for copyright owners.  Since then, technology has provided everyone with the ability to reproduce copyrighted material in all forms thus exacerbating the problem of enforcing copyright laws.  Given the inability to enforce any law invites arbitrary and often capricious enforcement of the law which is detrimental to society as a whole. (And, in fact, copyright violators are seldom prosecuted except when very large sums of money are involved. (Another form of discrimination.))

While well intentioned, the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation will create far more problems than solutions.  This issue begs the question of how much protection should society give to creators of “intellectual” material.  Before we plunge headlong into legislating more enforcement, we need to rethink the entire problem.