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In reply to the discussion: Feds Shut Down File-Sharing Website Megaupload [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)We can all go around and around over the ethics and legality of the situation, but regardless, what remains is the simple fact that once information is released, you can't pretend to retain control over it. It doesn't work that way, it's sort of like claiming that the CO2 molecules you exhale are your personal property. Once a book is on the shelves, once a song is on the airwaves, once an image is put on a website, it is, for better or for worse, added to the body of public information and knowledge.
The only possible way to actually "stop piracy" is to unilaterally prohibit the tools and methods used to copy information; which is what SOPA and PIPA are a step towards. I don't like making "slippery slope" arguments, but it's not like other nations in other times haven't very effectively (andvery brutally) shut down methods of information transfer. In the case of North Kore or the USSR it's a method of protecting the state; in the US, it looks like it'll be a method of protecting the corporations.