Should any Internet freedom ever be sacrificed to fight piracy?

Closing Statements

There needs to be a middle ground

Lawrence Dignan

The Internet should be open and free and all that wonderful stuff. But the reality is that piracy is out there and there has to be some common sense guidelines to prevent it. Why? If there are no incentives to create great content you'll be stuck with crap. Where the debate should really focus on is how some middle ground can be achieved. SOPA was a debacle that was created behind the scenes. Unfortunately, government and common sense are two things that often don't go together.

 

It's not the tool that needs fixing

Zack Whittaker

The Internet should be free and open. Tea tastes better with a dash of milk. Cows like water. It's a given, really. Instead of censorship and domain-name blocking, change needs to come from the very heart of who we are and what we do. Just because you hit your thumb with a hammer doesn’t mean you punish the nail. It’s not the tool that needs fixing. It’s us. Ultimately, our behaviour needs to change, and with that, the music and film industry needs to adapt first. Censorship is for the oppressive regimes. Let’s not bring China’s firewall to the United States, please. 

 

Don't punish those who play by the rules

Jason Hiner

I'm really glad that we did this debate and brought some reasonable dialog to what is a highly-charged and often irrational subject. Ultimately, Larry is right that the Internet is badly in need of some common sense guidelines to help protect copyright holders in order to incent people to create, innovate, and market their products. But, as Larry also pointed out, getting today's governments to produce common sense guidelines is a rare if not impossible thing. As a result, giving up any freedoms to fight piracy usually ends up punishing the people who already play by the rules, while the pirates find new ways around the rules. For that reason, Zack is on the right side of this one.