Thursday, February 9, 2012

SOPA & PIPA

Haven’t blog for a while as I’ve been quite busy in all fronts, it doesn’t stop me from paying attention to recent news stories.

Situation in Syria is serious, but I see that as another chip about to fall in the global game plan running by the ‘big brothers’. It is a bit remote from me.

Jeremy Lin’s recent rise as the starting point guard of NY Knicks is a nice story. I wish him well and will stay tune for his performance when the Knicks are playing some elite teams like the Lakers, Bulls, etc. Also, it would be interesting to see how the team performs once Camerlo and Amare are back in the line up.

What really concern me these days are actually about the stupid freaking bills proposed by those blood-suckers of RIAA and those fifthly rich media giants. I.e. the Stop the Online Piracy Act bill (SOPA) and its sister bill in the Senate: the Protect IP Act (PIPA). For those who lives under the rock may not know that these bills are aimed to kill the freedom of information traffic by chopping down the whole IP if the site owner let some files with content of some so-called ‘intellectual properties’ owned by those bloodsuckers passing through its sites. For someone who knows a bit of internet traffic, most files are travelling in random paths of shortest distance. For example, a file from A to Z may goes through N and P this time, but through H, W, X, next time. Based on what are written in those bills, it can take down the whole internet! Thus, sites protests, like Wikipeida, Google, etc. Thank God that there are some sane people up there, the latest news is that those bills are ‘postponed’, but they are not dead. So, the zombie will rise again for sure in future.

Looking back so far, there are victims, aka the most prominent one, Mr. Dotcom of Megaupload. I’m not gonna defend him or whatsoever. But, he is jinx for sure. Not only his site, but other like Filesonic has already raising white flag. I just hope this domino effect will be halted. Cuz, man, I love those sites! I’m not a BT user because of the risk that comes with it. But those file sharing sites are very useful to me and I’ve never encountered any virus-infected files through my interaction with them. That has shown to me that most users of those sites are safe-honest users (yes, I could be lucky).

Sharing information of all sorts has been the root of internet since its birth for public use. Some people, no, I mean those bloodsuckers, wanna impose their old money-making model to the web, and try to make quick bucks without doing much are doomed to fail. I don’t mind people are making money on the web. They can go via ads and create useful software. I would and did pay for stuff that I use, like via iTunes. My Win 7 and MS Office 2011 are legit copy that I paid out of my pocket. However, why the fxxk do I’ve to pay money to the blood-sucking, do-nothing middle men like the labels and RIAA? Paying the artists are fine, besides iTunes, actually many of them realized that free sharing of the songs are way of promotion. Fan bases are built up that way, and they will go to their concerts if they like their music enough. I think that is the way to go. See even Madonna signed contract with Live Nation and dissed WB, you should know that the traditional way to making money will not work in these days and age.

Whether you like it or not, once the cat is out of the bag, SOPA, PIPA or whatever in future are not gonna stop what most internet users have been enjoying all these years. Online Wall Street Journal is only one of few examples of far between to be able to make money on the net by forcing the old business model. Most folks will opt out of NYTimes and get their news elsewhere. Once the dam is broken, you can’t stop the water. So, I’m sure even with the demise of Megaupload and Filesonic, there will be others to find their way to satisfy internet users’ need one way or the other. I’m very hopeful on this.