[Infowarrior] - RIAA: LulzSec & Anonymous Show Why We Need PROTECT IP

[Richard Forno]

RIAA: LulzSec & Anonymous Show Why We Need PROTECT IP

from the say-what-now? dept

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110630/02172914918/riaa-lulzsec-anonymous-show-why-we-need-protect-ip.shtml

Ah, the RIAA will apparently stoop to pretty much any old ridiculous argument to get PROTECT IP passed, I guess. The RIAA's Mitch Glazier has written a typically ridiculous blog post defending PROTECT IP. Most of it tries (and fails) to counter the very credible claims of folks like Paul Vixie (who knows this stuff) that PROTECT IP (1) won't work and (2) will break the internet and cause tremendous collateral damage. The arguments against Vixie pretty much amount to quoting people, who have known associations with those backing PROTECT IP, saying that "eh, things won't be that bad, and we can minimize unintended consequences." 

But where it gets totally ridiculous, as noted by ZeroPaid, is at the end, where Glazier honestly tries to claim that PROTECT IP is needed... because of LulzSec. I'm not kidding:

"And in a world where hackers set their sights on new targets every day – most recently the official United States Senate website, allegedly the CIA’s public website and Arizona’s law enforcement database – do we think a lawless Internet defended to the extreme is a good thing?"

If I understand the argument Glazier is making here correctly, it's that "some people totally unrelated to any of this do bad stuff on the internet, thus it's fine to break the internet to protect the obsolete business model of the people who pay me." Is that convincing? The fact that there has been some hactivism going on of late has absolutely nothing to do with PROTECT IP. 

And, in the meantime, if Glazier's point is that we need to "protect" musicians, perhaps he should focus on doing something about the guy who works for the RIAA who once (as a Congressional staffer) tried (and temporarily succeeded) to take away the right of musicians to reclaim their copyrights by secretly changing the definition of "work for hire," by making an overnight change in an unrelated bill that no one noticed until the bill was already passed. This is the same guy who went to work for the RIAA a few months later, on a half-a-million dollars a year salary. Oh wait... that guy was also named Mitch Glazier.