Althouse: "The Day the LOLcats Died."

January 19, 2012

"The Day the LOLcats Died."

Congress has made me afraid to embed this, so I'll just link, which is scary too. Damn them!

(Via No Silence Here, via Instapundit.)

19 comments:

paul a'barge said...: Fear not; 1/19/12, 10:27 AM
Patrick said...: They got paid off
should be laid off
re-election denied.

Sounds about right.

I wish though, that someone would explain why this is a good law. I've read only bad things, and things are almost never totally good or totally bad. Is this the exception?; 1/19/12, 10:34 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Is this the exception?"

If you put a high enough value on the property rights of the producers of copyrighted works and a low enough value on everything that's happening on the internet and you don't mind burdening all the websites with obligations they can't possibly meet to scare them into policing copyright violations for you, you could weigh out the costs and benefits and call it good.; 1/19/12, 10:53 AM
John Burgess said...: Althouse: As the proposed law is currently written, it doesn't matter whether you embed or not. The link is sufficient evidence to take down your site. Never mind due process, the link is malum in se.; 1/19/12, 11:01 AM
Patrick said...: That is sure what it sounds like. I really haven't seen anyone defend it, which may be a function of the fact that I have read about it exclusively on the internet. Everyone on the internet is at risk. I find it hard to believe that the content producers will just pack it in, however. Eternal vigilance is required.; 1/19/12, 11:03 AM
Ann Althouse said...: @John Burgess I know.; 1/19/12, 11:06 AM
Ann Althouse said...: And, btw, I think the linked video isn't a copyright infringement, but I'd have to go into litigation to prove that to get my site released.

And if my site is Blogger... it hardly matters what I do, because there are millions of bloggers, including, ironically, some that violate MY copyrighted work.; 1/19/12, 11:07 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Morons in Congress are threatening to ruin the internet, and they didn't even know they what they were doing, and once they learned, they would have still done it, but for the intense opposition.

But, to be fair, they didn't know what they put in the old laws that helped the internet become what it is. Sometimes their stupidity cuts in favor of what is good.; 1/19/12, 11:09 AM
Scott M said...: including, ironically, some that violate MY copyrighted work.

Really, get over it. It was only one gallery showing, I only used a few of your posted pics, and I only made a measly hundred grand. And I accidentally donated most of that to some vague Italian mariner defense fund.; 1/19/12, 11:09 AM
edutcher said...: Anything even remotely connected to Christopher Dodd should be killed as dead as possible, its parts spread over as wide an area as is available, and salt sown into the soil of the whole region to ensure none of it will ever regenerate.

Even more so since its chief sponsor is Persimmon Lips Leahy.; 1/19/12, 11:14 AM
rcocean said...: Another good point.

Its always nice when Democrats and Republicans can get together and agree on something - even if its screwing over millions of internet users in favor a few powerful copyright holders.

"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress."; 1/19/12, 11:30 AM
Brian O'Connell said...: One aspect of all this that I haven't seen talked about much is that many of the people on the left who are opposed to SOPA/PIPA tend to be for greater regulation of business in general. In a way, they're saying, regulate *those* businesses, but govt keep your hands off of businesses I like. Maybe some small portion of them will question govt regulation as the answer to all life's problems.; 1/19/12, 12:06 PM
Carnifex said...: Rcocean, was that a quote from Will Rogers? If it was, does citing it without attribution make the entire website liable? Did me mentioning "Will Rogers" without attributing the origin to his parents make the website liable?

See how stupid Congress looks when you take their laws to the logical extreme?--Me/today; 1/19/12, 12:07 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Also buried in the proposed legislation is a section (105)that, under the guise of regulating faux pirated prescription drugs sold over the internet, could/would? also classify vitamins, herbal & "dietary supplements" as "drugs" which need a PRESCRIPTION from an MD in order to obtain them--another sop to Big Pharma & the AMA..; 1/19/12, 12:36 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: If you put a high enough value on the property rights of the producers of copyrighted works and a low enough value on everything that's happening on the internet and you don't mind burdening all the websites with obligations they can't possibly meet to scare them into policing copyright violations for you, you could weigh out the costs and benefits and call it good.

And, that is exactly what happened here. But, this isn't an isolated instance, just maybe a pretty egregious one, given how little the proponents of the legislation stand to gain over the long haul, as contrasted with how much the American public stands to lose. This is a classic example of the evils inherent in rent seeking and crony capitalism, which in turn are a result in the increasing size and power of our federal government.

I linked to this in a later thread, but will repeat it here - from HBR: The Real SOPA Battle: Innovators vs. Goliath:

To be fair to the big companies supporting SOPA and PIPA, they're acting rationally. From their perspective, investing in lobbying instead of business model innovation is a sensible investment. Jack Abramoff has recently detailed how a 22,000% ROI isn't unusual for firms hiring lobbyists.; 1/19/12, 1:27 PM
rcocean said...: "Rcocean, was that a quote from Will Rogers?"

Good point. Actually, Mark Twain, who's out of copyright - FOR NOW.; 1/19/12, 1:43 PM
Wince said...: "This Machine Kills Fascists."; 1/19/12, 2:04 PM
Synova said...: "If you put a high enough value on the property rights of the producers of copyrighted works and a low enough value on everything that's happening on the internet and you don't mind burdening all the websites with obligations they can't possibly meet to scare them into policing copyright violations for you, you could weigh out the costs and benefits and call it good."

The problem is that the biggest violators of copyright aren't the producers of it, but the publishers themselves. Book publishers, Music publishers, Movie publishers.

Big money, lots of lawyers, and contracts that are twisted to claim that rights that ought to have reverted never have, and that areas of distribution not specified didn't need to be.

The artists won't be protected. The leeches that live off them want to be protected and they have the money to push it and to claim that they're protecting the creators of IP when they're only protecting themselves.; 1/19/12, 8:27 PM
halojones-fan said...: Nothing in SOPA allows them to "take down your site" because you posted a link. They can require you to remove that link if it's to a non-US site. That's it. If yo refuse, THEN they can get nasty, but that happens with any law you refuse to obey.; 1/20/12, 12:22 AM