
Please censor the Web America, the rest of us can’t wait - antr
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2012/01/18/please-censor-the-web-america-the-rest-of-us-cant-wait/
======
zalew
Besides the fact that this article looks like a troll's comment on a forum,
his assumptions are simply wrong. Those who want to target their local or
foreign markets except US, do it anyway. The problem of SOPA is not that
you're website is excluded from US upfront and you count that in your business
plan, it's the fact that you never know if your multi-million users base
haven't disappeared when you were on your way home.

> Over here in Europe, we’ll be happily file sharing till the cows come home,
> allowing all you Yanks hungry for pirated to content to download or stream
> all the latest movies via other means you’ll be forced to dream up to get
> around your dumb lawmakers.

Yeah, and we have pink unicorns puking rainbows. For a guy who lives in the UK
and writes about piracy, he's totally clueless about the latest news on piracy
in the UK or Europe in general. Little hints:

UK:

 _A judge has ruled that Richard O'Dwyer, the 23-year-old creator of sharing
site TVShack, can be extradited to the United States. There he would be tried
for copyright infringement and could face a five to ten year jail term in
America._

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087135/Richard-
ODwy...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087135/Richard-ODwyer-US-
extradition-pact-misused-says-Sir-Menzies-Campbell.html?ito=feeds-newsxml)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-
yorkshire-1654433...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-
yorkshire-16544335)

[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/16/tvshack-
guy-c...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/16/tvshack-guy-can-be-
extradited)

Finland:

 _Customers of the Elisa and Saunalahti internet service providers can no
longer use those internet connections to visit The Pirate Bay website.
Helsinki District Court ordered the ISPs to block the Pirate Bay last October,
but the block went into effect on Monday._

[http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2012/01/pirate_bay_block_comes_in...](http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2012/01/pirate_bay_block_comes_into_force_in_finland_3160454.html)

[http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-targets-finland-over-anti-
pi...](http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-targets-finland-over-anti-piracy-
efforts-152334252.html)

Spain:

 _Spain's Sinde law echoes SOPA, takes pirate sites offline after commission
review_

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/4/2681818/spain-approves-
sind...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/4/2681818/spain-approves-sinde-law-
anti-piracy)

~~~
m0nty
_The Google SOPA protest as channeled via an [sic] satirical alternative
reality_

~~~
zalew
So Techcrunch is a humor website now? He should have said upfront that it is
funny, I would know I have to laugh.

Seriously, I don't assume they all lost their minds there and I know it's
supposed to be somehow a satire, but it's dull as a fart joke. Another example
how Techcrunch's quality went down the drain.

------
rjbrock
That was one of the stupidest and most poorly written articles I have ever
read. They even managed to misspell America

------
terhechte
Dear god how painful. I am from Europe, and I have to say that article made me
blush. Badly written, bad arguments, no clue. Says a lot about Techcrunch
europe that somebody who writes like that is allowed to publish articles.

------
xentronium
_Admittedly these SOPA/PIPA powers are on the wish list of oppressive regimes
throughout the world – and please don’t tell Russia or Belarus about them.
They’ve been hankering for an excuse to shut down their Internet Tubes for
years and a great nation like Uncle Sam doing it would be just the green light
they’ve been looking for. Sigh. (Here in Europe we prefer to slightly forget
about those guys. And please don’t ask us if Russian are Europeans – we’ve
done our best to avoid that subject for 60 years and we ain’t about to start
now.)_

What the hell?

------
Zirro
I must say, as a European this was pretty annoying to read. While a few of the
points were valid, for example, that not depending on organisations in the US
(ICANN) as much as we do today is a good thing, this will still affect us as
the requirements for a website to be considered for a takedown are still
pretty wide/vague.

An all-European site running on a .org-domain? Bam! The US could take it down
for everyone, whether they are European or Asian.

------
chuchurocka
I took it as satire...

~~~
kokey
It was, but I'm sure the protest mob will still hate it. However, there is
grain of truth in it. When the US passed the UIGEA it created huge opportunity
in Europe. US export restrictions on cryptography has also been good for
Europe.

~~~
chuchurocka
"US export restrictions on cryptography has also been good for Europe" How so?
( just curious)

------
manish_gill
If that was satire, it was poorly done.

------
rsanchez1
I'm guessing Mike Butcher isn't French, and isn't familiar with French laws.
Europe isn't entirely innocent with respect to the web either. The mocking is
entirely unwarranted.

This line in particular shows how naive, or immature, Butcher is: "We can
start developing an internet outside of North America. Yay!"

And Butcher is dreaming if he thinks everyone will move to Europe if SOPA/PIPA
does what he says (or hopes?) it will do. Businesses won't move where internet
access is a human right. They'll move to where it's cheapest to do business,
and Europe is not even close to being cheapest.

------
funkah
Short-sighted.

