Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea

Clay Shirky gives a great talk in the TED offices about the biggest danger of PIPA/SOPA.

What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto -- a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea

• [Aaron Swain]

  Ha! This was going to be my next stop after the Democracy Now video….

• [paul beard]

  The big media companies would rather we didn’t “create, discuss, link and share” yet  they still make it so difficult to “passively consume.” I’m in complete agreement with the issues with copyright, but the idea that these corporations are turning away revenue from customers who want to buy their wares and then accusing them of theft (when no physical goods are taken), piracy (when no intent to resell or trade can be proven, never mind the maritime aspect), etc. The “crime” is “unauthorized duplication” but there is no clear mechanism by which that authorization can be obtained, in many cases. Franz Kafka, please come to the desk for a message from Mr Orwell. 

• [Val Lindsay]

  I saw this on TED’s website. Thanks for sharing it as I’m honestly not sure there’s a more eloquent explanation why the big media companies are just plain greedy, power-hungry bastards…

• [Marcelo Teson]

  I love this talk because it so clearly outlines what the media companies really want. When it’s framed as “we want people to stop stealing our stuff” people generally agree with that and it becomes a game of “who pirates the least?” But when it’s framed like this, that it’s about whether as a culture we will share, discuss, create, and consume with choice, or whether we’re all going to hunker down on the couch and watch whatever it is they want to shovel in front of us, then people begin to understand. SOPA isn’t overly broad. It’s just broad enough to do what it was designed to do. To muzzle us and turn us back into couch potatoes.

• [Rob Gehrke]

  Excellent talk, thanks. Much has been made of the censorship aspects of this bicephalic Glavlit – style monstrosity, which are there – but I think Shirky correctly puts the emphasis on the stifling effects they would have on the generation of content and creativity.
  The industries DO prefer the rest of us to be passive consumers of their creations instead of active individuals creating our own content, and I think this gets to the heart of the matter. This kind of democratization of any activity has always been frightful to those in power, whether it be voting, labor activity, involvement in politics, etc.
  To pretend like the MPAA, the record industry and others agitate so purely in the interests of protecting and furthering creation is laughable – it seems that the last person they are concerned about is the one actually doing the work of creating so they can control how the product is marketed and siphon off most of the profits.
  Albini had a good rundown of this rampant hypocrisy years ago :
  http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
  To paraphrase David Parry on Twitter : “Explain to me why we break the
  net to protect the interests of those who profit from bad pop music they
  didn’t even write.”

  Julian Sanchez on the economic aspects here :
  http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/internet-regulation-the-economics-of-piracy/

  Next up (but I know we’re not ready for this yet) : apples aren’t copyrighted, and it certainly takes little work to make one (nature usually does this kind of thing better) ; why are we paying for them?

• [Donaleen Kohn]

  That was great!

• [Won Word]

  Clay Shirky is not correct in one aspect. There is an easy way (call your ‘critters), a hard way (get ready for the next round), _and an effective way_:

  We need to have a ‘bill of rights’ for the internet/media. We need to have laws that __enshrine our rights__ to create/share/remix. We need to have laws that prevent the government from ordering DNS changes or search engine changes without due process.

  If we can do that, then we have a chance.

  –> Trying for a constitutional amendment is, sadly, not going to work; it takes too much money and coordination that BigCo can sabotage by attacking the weakest link(s). What we need are State and/or Local laws, too numerous for BigCo to fight.

• [Paul Bowen]

  Brilliant talk, brilliant talker. 14 mins without notes and without saying um or erm, even once? Astonishing.

• [adam]

  there needs to be a change of language from possessive yours, mine, his or hers to solely ours. property needs redefining from the world of attachment and insecurity to open coresponsiblity in alinement with nature. Ideas, like the land, are nobodies.