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<p style="text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px;">Remember that battle over SOPA, in which the world’s largest websites beat back a congressional threat that would have changed the Internet forever? It was pretty obvious within a day after this Pyrrhic victory that the existing laws in place were enough to give the government the power to wreck the digital world. But how would it happen? How would government end digital freedom?</p>
<p style="text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px;">Well, the excuse is obvious. It is “intellectual property.” This phrase serves the same purpose for would-be censors that “terrorism” does for warmongers. It is a way to ramp up government control while kicking sand in the faces of those who would oppose such control. Are you for terrorism? Are you for theft?</p>
<p style="text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px;">It’s rather easy to detect normal theft. One day, I have a planter on my porch. The next day, the planter is on your porch, and it got there without my permission. Or one day, I’m driving my car. The next day, you are driving my car because you took it from me in the night. This is the way normal theft occurs. You can tell when it has happened. And the means of redress are obvious.</p>
<p style="text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px;">Now imagine a different scenario. One day, the paragraph above appears on the website for Laissez Faire Books. The next day, it appears on your Facebook page or blog. But it is not thereby removed from lfb.org. Instead, it is copied. A second instance of the paragraph has been created, taking nothing from me. My paragraph still exists. And let’s say this happens 10 billion times in the course of a few minutes, as can happen in the digital world.</p>
<p style="text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px;">Is this a case of mass looting, or is it a mass compliment to me?</p>
<p style="text-align: left; margin: 0px 0px 0.8em; padding: 0px;"><strong style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/isps-are-hirelings-for-the-police-state/" target="_new" style="font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; color: #006699; font-weight: 700; word-spacing: 0.2em;">Continue Reading on whiskeyandgunpowder.com</a></strong></p>
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