Why SOPA doesn’t deserve any sympathy

Who’s really the victim?

While streaming the Congressional hearing n SOPA yesterday it seemed to me like the same insane, infantile, and ridiculous argument kept being made. Congressperson after Congressperson would claim “If I Google for ‘Free How The Grinch Stole Christmas’ I can’t tell what’s an illegal site and what’s legal.” By playing the victim, they are essentially claiming they’d like to watch free content, but are unable to determine a legal means to procure the content because of the illegal sources.

Really?

That’s like claiming “I’d like to take some Morphine, but when I rove the streets of the inner city, I simple cannot tell who’s a certified pharmacist and who’s a drug dealer.” They’re ALL drug dealers, just as all search results for “free” content online are pirates. Why in the world would you search for “free” content and expect to get legal means to watch said content? Of course you can’t, and that’s not what this bill will provide. There’s no good reason why anyone could expect to freely view a studio film online legally.

As one Congresswoman brought up, if you simply search for “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” piracy doesn’t clutter results. Only by searching for illegal versions do you get illegal results.

That’s not the real reason they’re pushing the bill through, yet it’s their talking point. The real problem is that the people who pirate already know the sources to get the illegal content. The pirates don’t need Google results to find the latest bit torrent or Megavideo site.