[stonetools]

No, anything that interferes with that freedom is antithetical to the nature of the internet, and will not work except as patchwork solutions for limited-scope problems.

Censorship=damage=rerouting time. The internet was built that way--not specifically to fight censorship, but to route around dropped carriers, bad code loops, and overloaded servers. "Data didn't get through; try another method" is what made digital business possible; one cannot simultaneously support that approach and try to block it.

Ok, so the Internet is robust. Doesn't mean its above the law.

Might as well mandate that pi be equal to three, or that cars get 75 miles to the gallon of gas. Or, sticking to more social realms, that all children get high test scores in school. The only way to achieve these results is to either rewrite reality, or change the standards by which success is measured.

Well, its a good thing that I am not advocating that governments do any of those things , but bring to the internet the same rule of law that exists in the real world- that contracts should be enforced, that property rights be respected, and and that artists and creative people be compensated.

As long as "the technologists" are writing the code, they'll be the ones shaping the future of the internet. We have politicians who don't know the difference between a document and the program that opens it, trying to mandate how people can use both. We have even more politicians who think that computers have "photos" and "movies" and "songs" and "ebooks" and "emails," rather than really long collections of ones and zeros which are being processed through various filter programs to display them so human perceptions can make sense of them.

I certainly believe that politicians should be informed about the subject matter of the legislation they pass. That said, I reject the idea that only "coders" should have a say in the future of the Internet. The Internet from its very beginning was created for public purposes (initially, secure military communications in time of war) and is now part of the public square, used by everyone. It is NOT the private plaything of the "technologists".

When did we eliminate piracy in the Atlantic?

W can all agree that piracy in the Atlantic is now insignificant. Law enforcement is about the SUPPRESSION of illegal activity, not about its elimination. You can't eliminate illegal activity, but you certainly can suppress it. We have not and will never eliminate the crime of rape, but I think we should continue to enforce the rape laws. I hope you agree.

But real-world comparisons with physical piracy are lacking an essential detail: Real-world pirates are directly interfering with commercial activity, and therefore have reason to stay near the most profitable routes. Internet "pirates" have no interest in participating directly with commercial media activity, and have no reason to spend time in populated areas.

In fact piracy sites fund their creators through ads . Piracy sites rely on their hoard of copyrighted material to draw those eyeballs to their sites, ripping off artists and creators in the process.

Instead, the "pirates" spend time in obscure niches of the internet... until the public finds them and demands they hand over their loot--an interesting inverse from real-world piracy. Internet "pirates" who hoard are never found; it's only the ones who share openly who are at risk. This is why digital piracy will never go away. Shutting down Megaupload and various torrent sites only cuts down on the leeches.

And I'll settle for cutting down on the leeches. That means supporting law enforcement, not spouting platitudes about the awesomeness of the Internet and the special status of the "technologists." Technologists aren't special snowflakes : they are subject to the same laws as the guy who earns a living swinging a hammer or the lady who drives a school bus. That's what the rule of law means: that everyone has the same rights, whether they transact business on the Internet or in real life .