

WSJ comes out for SOPA - goatcurious
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-57361059-261/wsj-comes-out-for-sopa-more-lawmakers-pull-support/

======
powrtoch
First thought: "Well _of course_ WSJ would be pro-SOPA".

Second thought: "But just because you would expect it of them doesn't make
them wrong. What points do they make?"

Final thought: "Oh look, a paywall. Oh well..."

It seems their mission to overzealously block content on the internet was
impeded by their decision to overzealously block content on the internet.

~~~
TomOfTTB
Disclaimer: I heard the Editorial via my Audible subscription this morning and
sometimes those editions are abridged. Though normally not in the Editorial
section.

I thought the article was pretty fair to be honest. It called out the DNS
issues as being egregious and they highlighted the constitutional basis of
copyright which most people forget. They also highlighted the difference
between individual piracy and piracy for business as an important point (the
exact sentence is "This isn't college kids swapping MP3s as in the 1990s.
Rather rogue websites set up shop overseas and sell US consumers bootleg
[media]"

My main criticism is they made SOPA seem a little more benign than it is. They
say...

"The notion that the SOPA dragnet would catch a stray Twitter Link or Facebook
post is false"

Well, I don't see how that is false. My main issue with SOPA (now that the DNS
part has be taken out) is it could be used to allow media companies to shut
down legitimate indie products because they resemble commercial offerings.
Because the bar is set so low as far as initial proof is concerned.

Anyway, the bottom line is the article is worth reading and it isn't just
"Murdoch Henchmen Towing the Line". I wish they'd let it out of the paywall so
you could see that.

~~~
count
Isn't selling bootleg stuff ALREADY illegal though? I mean, ICE can shut you
down for importing ripoff stuff if they find it already - why do we need
SOPA/PIPA to make things even more difficult for regular people?

~~~
marquis
As far as I understand it, if you have a website with a non U.S. domain name
and not using a U.S. or U.S.-treaty-based payment system, there is no way to
block access to rip-off items (material or digital) to be purchased in the
U.S. For material goods, customs have the ability to confiscate these at the
borders. There are international treaties in progress, where the U.S. partners
with other countries, but the internet is a big, wide-open place and it's easy
to move elsewhere or get safe harbour.

(For the record, I believe that only innovation will solve these problems, not
suppression).

------
sophacles
This: "One of America's most respected newspapers has come out on the side of
copyright owners..." really annoys me. I am a copyright owner. I make money
from that fact. I am against SOPA.

Setting up a false dilemma of "copyright owners" vs "others" is incorrect and
evil spin. Everyone be sure to note that many of the sites and people against
SOPA (e.g. Google, Tim O'Reilly, etc) are all major copyright holders and
beneficiaries when you talk with people about this.

~~~
mwd_
I agree. In any debate it's important to frame the issue carefully and to
avoid letting the opposition choose the terms that will be discussed. If most
people view this as "rogue sites/thieves vs. legitimate copyright holders" or
something similar then the debate is already partly lost.

~~~
brlewis
Exactly. They've already won in the press where SOPA and PIPA are referred to
as "piracy bills". We need an alternate term. Unfortunately "skip-due-process
bills" has too many syllables.

~~~
sounds
I think "no-free-speech bills" is short and to the point.

~~~
Vivtek
Censorship bills?

------
byrneseyeview
This is meta, but as of right now every single comment on this article is
about why the WSJ would claim to believe SOPA is a good idea, not what their
actual argument is. A decent fraction of these comments cite Rupert Murdoch
and/or phone hacking.

That's not very productive. Anyone on the pro-SOPA side can say exactly the
same thing about e.g. Google. One of Google's major divisions, Youtube, was
built in part on piracy. And Google itself does help people find pirated
content; that's not something immoral, and they do make it difficult, but
Google benefits from some copyright infringement in the sense that it means
they're a better default search engine, since some fraction of queries are for
copyright-violating content.

And the WSJ article does make a similar point:

 _Wikipedia has never blacked itself out before on any other political issue,
nor have websites like Mozilla or the social news aggregator Reddit... They've
taken no comparable action against, say, Chinese repression._

This is not the first thing so awful that websites choose to take such action
--it's the first awful thing that _threatens them_ so much.

The WSJ also points out that the most egregious part of SOPA--DNS-level
censorship--was removed in the latest draft. They don't make an exceptional
argument, but they do make a superficially reasonable case; someone unfamiliar
with the way the Internet works would likely find it pretty convincing.

SOPA/PIPA is an awful, awful idea. But if the WSJ claims that it's a good
idea, and you claim that the WSJ only says so because corrupt, then you lose
by default. The WSJ can have a good argument that defends their economic
interests, or that is hypocritical in light of what they've been caught doing
in the past. SOPA opponents are in a very similar situation.

~~~
Vivtek
The WSJ's point, that Wikipedia has never blacked itself out on any other
political issue, is factually incorrect - odd that a _newspaper_ can't take
the time to do its research, but Wikipedia blacked out in Italy after passage
of a similar law there making it responsible for user content. Oddly enough,
Italy backed down as well.

Wikipedia takes action when the Internet is threatened - that's just common
sense. Which may be why the WSJ editorial page can't grasp it.

------
zerostar07
_The e-vangelists seem to believe that anybody is entitled to access to any
content at any time at no cost—open source. Their real ideological objection
is to the concept of copyright itself, and they oppose any legal regime that
values original creative work. The offline analogue is Occupy Wall Street._

That alone is enough to render the article useless, a very bad piece for a
generally high-quality blog (can we just call newspapers blogs from now on?
it's technically the same thing)

On the other hand, the internet doesn't yet offer a good way for creators to
get rewarded for their work. Donations are too arbitrary, itunes despite its
popularity is tied to music corporatism and so is spotify. What other startups
are working in novel ways to monetize intellectual property?

~~~
lukifer
> What other startups are working in novel ways to monetize intellectual
> property?

Selling DRM-free downloads is working extremely well for many; Bandcamp comes
to mind. Plenty of indie content creators do just fine handling piracy by
ignoring it.

------
rayiner
I used to read the WSJ regularly, but stopped when their editors came out so
obsequiously in favor of the bailout in 2008, after years of rejecting
government intervention. Even this editorial is a farce. How often does the
WSJ use the phrase "rights" in a positive way outside this context?

~~~
ww520
Privatize profit; socialize risk. That's just another way in maximize profit
and minimize risk. Pretty consistent with capitalism.

~~~
OstiaAntica
True capitalists believe that government is a referee; government should not
the bagman for losses or a source of investment funding.

------
api
Of course it does. It's a Murdoch paper, and Murdoch is a fascist. All
Murdoch's outlets operate as a kind of Pravda for American neo-fascism.

(I am not using the term fascism hyperbolically. Murdoch is, I think, properly
classifiable as an authoritarian collectivist -- a fascist.)

~~~
michaelochurch
Fun fact: _fascism_ wasn't the first name Mussolini wanted for the Italian
political movement of the 1920s-40s. _Corporatism_ was the original name.

~~~
shingen
No it wasn't, that's a lefty myth recently invented. The word "corporatism"
didn't exist back then.

Mussolini referred to corporativismo, which he defined as a large number of
people working together, not specific to the modern corporation.

You shouldn't relay bad information if you're actually ignorant of Fascist
history under Mussolini.

~~~
nekojima
"Corporatism" as a concept has existed since the 19th century (identified by
that term) and so did exist in the 1920s for Mussolini. Corporatism has
similar aims as corporativismo, which is the Italian for corporatism.

------
ww520
Pretty much cannot trust the position of the traditional medias, like WSJ, on
SOPA. They have a clear conflict of interest since their owners underwrite the
legislature.

Just treat them as propaganda.

~~~
mrmaddog
On the flip side, the WSJ could say the exact same thing about Google,
Facebook, Ars Technica, etc. Just because they offer a different viewpoint
doesn't mean you should completely write them off. Instead, it is useful to
read these types of pieces to see what the opposition really wants.

If there is to be any sort of compromise, we can't just shut our eyes and plug
our ears when the traditional media says what it needs in a law.

~~~
reso
There is a difference. Google and Facebook are not media organizations and are
clearly stating that SOPA will hurt them. People go to media companies for
news, and when they see op-eds like the one in the WSJ, are less likely to
consider that the writer herself is a critically invested party in the issue.

------
forgotAgain
What's not at all surprising about this is that the WSJ is positioning SOPA as
an anti-piracy bill and not as a bill that gives tacit acceptance to the
assertion that government controls of information channels is acceptable in a
free society.

Also the WSJ being _One of America's most respected newspapers_ hasn't been
true since Murdoch purchased it and started inserting opinion into front page
news stories.

~~~
Vivtek
Well - they still report the news quite well. It's just their editorial page
that's off the rails.

------
cleverjake
I find it rather humorous that it is unsigned. It makes it feel even more as
though it were penned by Murdoch.

~~~
mapgrep
Editorials are, as a rule, unsigned. That's what makes them editorials as
opposed to op-eds or columns. They represent, ostensibly, the opinion of the
newspaper itself rather than any individual staffer. The NY Times does the
same thing.

(The WSJ could avoid a lot of confusion if it labeled its editorials
"Editorial." Instead it labels them "Review & Outlook," a term only regular
readers of the opinion section will be familiar with.)

~~~
cleverjake
I honestly never knew the difference. Thank you very much for that insight.

------
meow
I prefer Murdoch's twitter rants to these articles (by fox, wsj and his other
holdings). At least when he tweets, I know where the opinions come from.

------
sabret00the
It's a Murdoch paper, what else did you expect?

Off Topic: Whenever I read WSJ I always think of Weekly Shounen Jump and then
I'm like that makes no sense, this has to be about the Wall Street Journal.
It's never about Manga.

------
RexRollman
So they chose to back money over liberty. Not a real surprise, if you ask me.

------
BillSaysThis
TFA from CNet begins "One of America's most respected newspapers" in big text,
forgetting to mention that, well CNet is part of CBS Interactive and CBSi is
part of... you probably get my drift.

------
TomGullen
Ok I think I understand now, so I can't link to copyrighted material in any
way or my site will be pulled, but I can hack into peoples mobile phones
right?

------
mbowcock
For some reason this sentence jumped out at me:

"Some lawmakers have noted that PIPA and SOPA would not affect anyone of the
Web sites participating in the blackout."

I assume the argument being made here is that they're domestic sites and would
not be affected by the legislation. And since they're not pirating anything
what do they have to worry about. I could see someone reading it and thinking
this is much to do about nothing. But this bill really puts pressure on
domestic sites to comply and as we all know will just push the pirate sites to
find ways around the law. So really, the sites most affected by these laws
will be domestic and law-abiding.

------
ctdonath
Post a comment. Include a link to respectable content. Tweak target page to
SOPA-contrary content. Goodbye, WSJ.

Might that wake 'em up?

------
Game_Ender
I had a look at the comments on the article and pretty much every poster, wall
street journal subscribers included, are opposed to SOPA.

------
natmaster
WSJ has always been trash 'reporting'. No surprises here.

------
bcrawl
Yup, an editorial with out any author attribution. Go Murdoch!

------
tocomment
Could we block HN submissions that point to WSJ articles? Maybe Reddit could
do the same?

~~~
freejack
I think proposals of this nature are not productive.

Much of what fuels anti-SOPA/PIPA sentiment is rooted in the principles of
individual freedoms and the preservation of a commons that makes the exchange
of information, ideas and enables commercial, individual and scientific
innovation (amongst a whole long list of other awesome things that the
Internet fosters). Taking retaliatory measures against those that exercise
those freedoms, as distasteful as their position may be, is exactly the type
of behaviour that SOPA proposes. We can each choose not to support those
organizations that seek to control the Internet at the behest of Big Media and
Hollywood, but to institutionalize controls constraining those that support it
is, in my opinion, a victory for SOPA.

~~~
meepmorp
That's bullshit.

Rejecting submissions from SOPA supporters on a private website just isn't the
same as manipulating the machinery of government the way bill supporters have
done.

~~~
freejack
That's inflammatory.

But to your point, I wasn't commenting on the manipulation of government (a
point that I also don't agree with - I think the government is complicit, not
manipulated) but on the manipulation of technology to stifle freedom of
expression. I don't see a huge difference between building filters that target
torrent sites and building filters that target SOPA supporters. Nor do I think
it makes a difference whether this is initiated in response to legislative
demands, or some sense of "what is right".

YMMV.

