Disclaimer: I heard the Editorial via my Audible subscription this morning and sometimes those editions are abridged. Though normally not in the Editorial section.

I thought the article was pretty fair to be honest. It called out the DNS issues as being egregious and they highlighted the constitutional basis of copyright which most people forget. They also highlighted the difference between individual piracy and piracy for business as an important point (the exact sentence is "This isn't college kids swapping MP3s as in the 1990s. Rather rogue websites set up shop overseas and sell US consumers bootleg [media]"

My main criticism is they made SOPA seem a little more benign than it is. They say...

"The notion that the SOPA dragnet would catch a stray Twitter Link or Facebook post is false"

Well, I don't see how that is false. My main issue with SOPA (now that the DNS part has be taken out) is it could be used to allow media companies to shut down legitimate indie products because they resemble commercial offerings. Because the bar is set so low as far as initial proof is concerned.

Anyway, the bottom line is the article is worth reading and it isn't just "Murdoch Henchmen Towing the Line". I wish they'd let it out of the paywall so you could see that.

We are so far beyond the constitutional basis of copyright. That clause only gives Congress the right to grant copyrights for a "limited time" to encourage creativity. Congress realized at some point that they could just keep extending the copyrights when they are about to expire to create effectively unlimited copyrights. Lawrence Lessig has a lot of great things to say about this in regards to our 'creative commons'

I agree with you in many ways but it's important to remember copyright is in the constitution in the first place. If you surveyed most people I doubt they'd even know that.

Isn't selling bootleg stuff ALREADY illegal though? I mean, ICE can shut you down for importing ripoff stuff if they find it already - why do we need SOPA/PIPA to make things even more difficult for regular people?

As far as I understand it, if you have a website with a non U.S. domain name and not using a U.S. or U.S.-treaty-based payment system, there is no way to block access to rip-off items (material or digital) to be purchased in the U.S. For material goods, customs have the ability to confiscate these at the borders. There are international treaties in progress, where the U.S. partners with other countries, but the internet is a big, wide-open place and it's easy to move elsewhere or get safe harbour.

(For the record, I believe that only innovation will solve these problems, not suppression).

ICE has no jurisdiction outside the US. As I understand it, they can seize US domains (.com) but not other countries' domains, nor can they force an ISP to block access to a domain. So what legal recourse is there?

I was unable to find a source which explained what is the current state of SOPA. Do you have one? The Wikipedia page (yes, it's still up) didn't explicitly say what was still in it, and the NY Times articles I read were equally unclear. This is the best I have, from the Wikipedia page that should be easy to get to today:

After the first day of the hearing, more than 20 amendments had been rejected, including one by Issa which would have stripped provisions targeting search engines and Internet providers. PC World reported that the 22–12 vote on the amendment could foreshadow strong support for the bill by the committee.

The Committee adjourned on the second day agreeing to continue debate early in 2012.[11][151] Smith announced a plan to remove the provision that requires Internet service providers to block access to certain foreign websites.

Oh, and the full article is available if you access it through Google. I assume that's an above-board way of reading it.

I don't think there will be one until the bills are re-evaluated in February. To the best of my knowledge the only significant chance is the removal of the DNS restriction (Which the sponsor himself said was a change). Even if you do find a SOPA breakdown remember it would have to be reconciled with PIPA after being passed (if both were to be passed). So that would add wrinkles as well.

So basically no, i'm of absolutely no use to you on this.

(The phrase is toeing the line, as in to put one's toe upon the line)

You can avoid the wsj pay wall by typing or copying and pasting the article title into google.

I must publicly tip my hat to you for maintaining enough rationality to get to your second thought. My brain didn't get past a quite sarcastic "well there's a fucking surprise."

Here's another thought: It's a piece in the opinion section. They publish a variety of people in the opinion section. Sometimes they publish Paul Krugman. Sometimes they publish Karl Rove or George W Bush (as ex-president). They do not present a unified ideological front.

That said, Rupert Murdoch has grandstanded in the past in rather transparently self-serving ways ("OMG google news is indexing my sites! but i don't want to make them stop, I want to make them keep doing it and pay me for the privilege somehow.")

Actually it is an editorial, which is the opinion of the paper itself.

The language mirrors Murdoch and the piece is not well written, there's a stench of editorial interference here.

My bad, then.

Anyway. Usually Mr. Murdoch is perfectly willing to put his name to shamelessly self-serving saber-rattling and rent-seeking pieces (e.g. "omg BBC. british media is government controlled. please get rid of my competition.")

The article itself, FWIW, is basically a straw-man argument saying that anyone against SOPA is a bunch of dirty Commies who think it's a God-given right to pirate everything for free. If you'd like to read it (ew), Google the URL and click the resulting link. Or hack your Referer: or pretend you're Googlebot. I regret that I was only the second or third person on the comments page to say it was a load of BS and not the first.

Postscript (2): as user mapgrep pointed out below, the WSJ has a bad habit of labeling editorials 'Review and Outlook'. Meh.

Postscript. While the WSJ may be pro-SOPA, it appears its readers aren't falling for it. Polls show anti-SOPA sentiment leading with an 80-point margin: http://online.wsj.com/community/groups/media-marketing-267/t...

(This is linked from the front page of wsj.com also, so it's not just an obscure corner of the site.)

There are two kinds of stories that normally appear in a newspaper's opinion section: bylined opinion pieces and editorials. The former are written by various people and should ideally represent a diverse range of viewpoints. But the latter are written by the paper's editorial board, and represent the paper's official stance. This appears to be the latter.

I bet if you actually counted the ratio of progressive vs corporatist editorials, the latter would be the overwhelming majority.

Let's not kid ourselves, the WSJ does have a pro-corporations agenda, it's owned by Rupert Murdoch; in Europe most people consider it a far-right paper. The Financial Times in comparison looks almost like a socialist rag.