Who's the Bad Guy--the FBI or MegaUpload?
I don't get it. Maybe the readers of the this article can enlighten me. I realize readers look to columnists for answers, but sometimes all we have are questions. And my big question is: Who's the bad guy: The FBI or MegaUpload?
OK, we all know New Zealand police raided MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom, born Kim Schmitz, and arrested him on piracy, money laundering, and racketeering charges. And now the U.S. government will extradite DotCom and six others.
We--the people--created the FBI to protect and serve. Piracy is bad, right? Wrong. Piracy is good, and Mr. DotCom is now some sort of Cyber Wild West folk hero and we--the people--believe everything we want should be had for free.
Kim Schmitz made millions, while copyright owners lost more than $500 million, so the "bad" cops say. That's a 1/2 a billion and maybe you can count that high but for me, that's a hell of a loss.
Do you--the people--really condemn all your favorite music artists, moviemakers and authors because they don't want to give away what they create for free? Do you REALLY expect to get all your mp3s, DVDs, jpegs, videos, pornography, software and games for free? I don't mean because you can't afford to pay for it, but because you have some kind of twisted philosophical belief that whatever you find on the Internet was all put there for you to take as you please? Is this the X Generation growing up with the Internet and computers and they simply don't know any better?
Fighters against SOPA spoke out. We--the people--blasted our 1st Amendment freedoms to the world and the government--we created--was not going to take these rights from us. So, tell me then, if SOPA isn't the solution, just exactly what answer do you have to stop piracy?
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