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« Not by cost alone | Main | Football and politics »

Jan 23, 2012

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Roch101

What a smarmhole; and to think, I once thought he'd be a good running mate for Obama. Glad the prez is smarter than me.

Stephen

Avatar might have gross billions if it hadn't been for those pesky pirates...

cheripickr

Am I to understand that in the geek value system, plagiarism is the ultimate felony, but piracy is just peachy, because the former is stealing intellectual property (gasp) while the latter is merely stealing money, generally from those who in the geek's arbitrary opinion have too much of it anyway, so shouldn't mind spreading it around?

Ed Cone

No, CP, you are not to understand that.

The problem with SOPA and PIPA is that they would not solve the very real problem of IP theft, but they would give too much power to government and its favored industries, at significant cost to other companies and to individuals.

Also, I think you may be confusing "geek" with "journalist" on the plagiarism thing (although there is room for overlap between those two groups, in both pejorative and non-hostile vernaculars, and both plagiarism and IP theft are theft).

Also, to the extent that "geek" means "person skilled in information technology," and the representatives of such in this debate include Google and Facebook, I don't see a lot of money-shunning or wealth-disdaining going on.

Kim

When it comes to buying influence, a billion dollars just ain't what it used to be, I guess.

RBM

See Clay Shirky's TED talk for analysis about what's wrong with SOPA/PIPA in historical context back to days of analog TV - there might be some readership here that can recall those times.

Buying influence is legal as Fec's latest 'Hedges post' points out - enjoy the consequences ;-)

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