Not sure about all the details of these proposed bills but its seems they may result in turning 'the internet' into a consumption driven medium, a bit like the telly. Although, given the propensity of people to adapt I have hope. It raises the spectre once again that American legislators are simply extensions of their corporate structure. It's all quite nasty.

I heard the best analogy for the SOPA/PIPA crap on the radio this morning. Didn't catch who said it; it may have been Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia. I paraphrase, probably not very accurately:

Imagine if the automobile had just been invented, and ten years later it was discovered that some people were using automobiles in the commission of crime. Some of those vehicles have been modified by their owners. Would you restrict the auto manufacturers and hold them accountable for the actions of the hot-rodders, bootleggers and bank robbers? Would you change the law to inhibit the ability of law-abiding citizens to improve their vehicles as they saw fit? No, you'd try and catch the robbers. It's the same with internet privacy, copyright and intellectual property protection: condemning every user to a diminished user experience in the name of protecting the copyright of privileged big businesses is just plain wrong.

And it fails at that too. Pirates will still pirate.

I thought this was quite a good summary.

That does explain it well. The main problems seem to be that it removes the concept of fair use and that nobody who pirates stuff is going to care if they have to enter an IP address instead of a URL first.

Didn't obama say he was gonna veto SOPA though?

not in so many words, apparently, but he did indicate that he disagreed this was the appropriate way to tackle the perceived problem. Most commentators have agreed this amounts to a promise to veto. His statement said the Obama administration "will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

Interesting that he's effectively chosen the Silicon Valley corner over the Hollywood corner - both traditionally heavy financial supporters of Democratic party election efforts. The Huffington Post looks at the numbers here

Team America! World Police! **** Yeah!

Hopefully neither SOPA or PIPA will be passed into law. I don't condone copyright theft, but I don't want the music and film industry of the USA deciding wether I should be able to access a specific site or not.

If piracy was really hurting Hollywood then we would see a reduction in films, and I haven't seen that happening (reduction in quality yes).

It is just Music and Film industry, as per usual, being greedy. They don't want to adapt to new distribution methods and delivery of content. The whole Hollywood accounting thing winds me up (google hollywood accounting harry potter), basically they say they did not make any money on the sixth (maybe fifth) Harry Potter film. Umm, yeah, right, in which case, if you're on a loser then don't film another one.

One good analogy someone made was that it is like your grandparents trying to ban VRCs because they cannot stop the display from blinking 12:00.