[governance] SOPA or no SOPA

[Daniel Kalchev]

On 15.12.11 01:18, Paul Lehto wrote:
>
>     It seems the issue lies here. Implying legal right to ownership of
>     physical goods (especially is immovable) might be said to be
>     inevitably tied with the property laws of some country. But what
>     about the legal rights to ownership of intellectual property?
>
>
> Intellectual property, being mobile pushes the envelope of 
> international law, in the name of preventing copycats in foreign 
> countries.   Some copying, as i see it, is legitimate (life-saving 
> drugs) while some other copying is not.

Legitimate?

How legitimate it would be, if it causes loss of business for a major US 
corporation with strong lobby at the Government?

If you say it is legitimate, would the US permit import of these life 
saving drugs from some other country. Why not?


>
> But, Ivar, given the way you word the following, it is impossible to 
> disagree:  "[[...laws that] impact individuals *wholly outside* of the 
> US government's *legitimate* sphere of political power." (emphasis 
> added)   The question is, what is the "legitimate" sphere?  Probably I 
> would agree with most or all examples anyone here might give.
>

As I see it, SOPA is primarily impacting the US citizens. As it has 
happened before, the US Government will have to back off. The damage to 
the US reputation will be already done.

Remember the times, when Apple Computer introduced the first personal 
computers with the PowerPC G4 chip? That was the first mass produced 
microprocessor to pass the "gigaflop per second barrier", that put it in 
the "supercomputer" category, therefore subject to US export control and 
"dual use" regulations.
Who lost? Apple Computer, a respected US Corporation, because for few 
months, until the "law was adjusted" it was prohibited to sell these 
desktop computers outside the US.

Remember the "strong" cryptography madness? Where browsers produced in 
the US could not be exported if they had more than 40 bit ciphers.
Who lost? Millions of Internet users, who for lack of knowledge were 
exposed to weak cryptography. Also, US corporations, for lost business, 
because stronger cryptography was available everywhere at that time.

The same applies for cryptography/security enabled software in various 
operating systems, routers etc. These were prohibited  for shipment to 
anywhere outside the US. Even if it was pretty obvious that: algorithms 
were published and available and implemented everywhere, software was 
readily available from various other vendors that resided outside of the 
US, such as in Europe, that implemented the same or better security 
technology.
Only when sufficient number of US companies realized they are facing 
massive loss of market worldwide, did the US Government abandon this 
regulation.

You can only regulate something, if you understand it.


By the way, it is like allowing a person who does not know how to pilot, 
to sit at the cockpit of an airplane full of people. This is what we 
observe recently with all these regulations.

Daniel
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