Google? Pirate?

So Barack Obama thinks SOPA is not worth the paper it is printed on, and Rupert Murdoch, @therealshitmydadsays, thinks Google is a pirate.

That's interesting thinking. Obviously Murdoch wants his newspapers to be online but behind paywalls and not accessible through search engines. If you are paying, you obviously know the name and the domain name. Show up and read. You found me when you paid for the subscription.

I don't know where to begin. I mean, a search engine is a good thing, right? Or am I missing something here? Do we want to go back to the good old days of the Yahoo directory?

Murdoch seems to think the internet was designed to save him the costs on paper. ("Why can't you just read the paper on your computer?") Everything else should remain the same.

SOPA Is So Going Down

Image via WikipediaAnd now the White House is against it. And looks like the bill is nowhere close to hitting the floor of the House. The authors and proponents of the bill have been caught flat-footed. They obviously did not see this coming. Ever since the advent of the internet I have not seen the tech honchos getting this political. Everyone and their competition is up in arms.

I mean, can you imagine Google and Facebook and Twitter all going offline, even if only for an hour, to protest this well-intentioned piece of legislation? That would end up the biggest media event globally.

The often told story is that the old media people who have the politicians in their back pockets got those mercenary politicians to bring forth this awful, awful bill. That is only part of the story. The real story is that the Internet stands to challenge the nation-state itself. Those politicians on Capitol Hill spend much time thinking they are the center of the universe. The Internet is barking at them saying the universe has no center. Everywhere you stand is the center of the universe. And so there is this major culture clash.

The Censorship Bill Is About The Nation State
Assange: An Information Bin Laden? I Think Not

The Internet will win. The nation state will fundamentally transform itself, or it will lose.

White House: Obama Administration Responds to We the People Petitions on SOPA and Online Piracy
Ars Technica: Obama administration joins the ranks of SOPA skeptics
TechDirt: SOPA Delayed; Cantor Promises It Won't Be Brought To The Floor Until ‘Issues Are Addressed’
GigaOm: Tim O'Reilly: Why I'm fighting SOPA
Ars Technica: Under voter pressure, members of Congress backpedal (hard) on SOPA
CNet: Wikipedia considering joining SOPA blackout protest