______________
"...a product or service blindly thrown to the pack of wolves on the internet"
______________
In California it is legal to drive the wrong way down a one-way street if you have a lantern attached to the front of your automobile, and in Glendale Arizona, cars may not be driven in reverse.
Our law books are filled with statutes that at one time or another were quite relevant and served appropriate service. We look back at these, and (as I did as I researched this blog) and can enjoy a good chuckle, and they now look ridiculous as we compare them to how the world looks in modern times. Lawmakers have no crystal ball when enacting new laws; they can only base these on what is here and now. As mechanics, technology, culture evolves, often times these laws become obsolete. As cars replaced horse drawn carriages, laws that required hitching posts in front of business, needed to be replaced with car traffic laws.
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is faced with similar challenges. As I read debates on the for and agaist of SOPA, I chose not to comment on either side, but I did come to the conclusion that we are trying to enforce hitching post laws, in a world of automobiles. Piracy, Trademark, Intellectual Property, Counterfeit laws have all been designed, and written when there was no vehicle for the world population, at a click, to share information. The internet has (obviously) evolved into a world marketplace that to some, is impossible to police.
I will not cry uncle, and say that because it is difficult to eliminate the evils of market abuse we don't need to make an effort to curb illegal activities. But I do suggest that it is now time to revisit all of the laws relating to Piracy with the new world market the internet as a core to the new laws. The debate on enforcing laws that are now unenforceable, and possibly irrelevant will never cease, as long as we continue to drive a square peg (the existing laws) into a round hole (the internet).
Clean slate, new technical innovations, new methods of revenue generation for those that have rights to property need to be the primary drivers. Business and property ownership, is a self correcting market, even in the case that lawmakers chose to continue attempting to police antiquated laws, the market, after suffering a loss, will find ways (technically or otherwise) to counter this loss. This relative “short term” pain of piracy, IP theft, Copy write infringement etc will be countered, just by the pure nature of the free market system. But a helping hand of legislators, scripting laws that are current and enforceable might speed the natural market correction just a bit.
I have received a number of comments on my articles, expressing that it is hard to see my point. For what it is worth, I prefer that my readers determine their own point, and extrapolate on the oversimplification of thoughts I provide. However, in respect to these requests, my point in this is simply summarized to the fact that in order to address the issues under the SOPA efforts, is to embrace the new world of the internet, and rethink what new laws should exist, and what can the market do to protect their assets on their own. Acknowledging that a product or service blindly thrown to the pack of wolves on the internet WILL be taken without remuneration is an unfortunate fact. Maybe the market (without lawmakers) will be forced to develop a way to protect themselves.
Our law books are filled with statutes that at one time or another were quite relevant and served appropriate service. We look back at these, and (as I did as I researched this blog) and can enjoy a good chuckle, and they now look ridiculous as we compare them to how the world looks in modern times. Lawmakers have no crystal ball when enacting new laws; they can only base these on what is here and now. As mechanics, technology, culture evolves, often times these laws become obsolete. As cars replaced horse drawn carriages, laws that required hitching posts in front of business, needed to be replaced with car traffic laws.
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is faced with similar challenges. As I read debates on the for and agaist of SOPA, I chose not to comment on either side, but I did come to the conclusion that we are trying to enforce hitching post laws, in a world of automobiles. Piracy, Trademark, Intellectual Property, Counterfeit laws have all been designed, and written when there was no vehicle for the world population, at a click, to share information. The internet has (obviously) evolved into a world marketplace that to some, is impossible to police.
I will not cry uncle, and say that because it is difficult to eliminate the evils of market abuse we don't need to make an effort to curb illegal activities. But I do suggest that it is now time to revisit all of the laws relating to Piracy with the new world market the internet as a core to the new laws. The debate on enforcing laws that are now unenforceable, and possibly irrelevant will never cease, as long as we continue to drive a square peg (the existing laws) into a round hole (the internet).
Clean slate, new technical innovations, new methods of revenue generation for those that have rights to property need to be the primary drivers. Business and property ownership, is a self correcting market, even in the case that lawmakers chose to continue attempting to police antiquated laws, the market, after suffering a loss, will find ways (technically or otherwise) to counter this loss. This relative “short term” pain of piracy, IP theft, Copy write infringement etc will be countered, just by the pure nature of the free market system. But a helping hand of legislators, scripting laws that are current and enforceable might speed the natural market correction just a bit.
I have received a number of comments on my articles, expressing that it is hard to see my point. For what it is worth, I prefer that my readers determine their own point, and extrapolate on the oversimplification of thoughts I provide. However, in respect to these requests, my point in this is simply summarized to the fact that in order to address the issues under the SOPA efforts, is to embrace the new world of the internet, and rethink what new laws should exist, and what can the market do to protect their assets on their own. Acknowledging that a product or service blindly thrown to the pack of wolves on the internet WILL be taken without remuneration is an unfortunate fact. Maybe the market (without lawmakers) will be forced to develop a way to protect themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment