The internet is an interesting place. US lawmakers, judges, law enforcement, and attorneys are usually luddites; technophobes who can barely check their email. Media companies and record labels, since Napster, have focused on prosecuting geeks and artists, rather than learning something.

Time has proven that people will pay for media and music, as long as there’s a better option than free. I’ll stream Netflix videos, only downloading something if Netflix or Hulu doesn’t have it. I just paid Louis CK $5 for his awesome video. I prefer using rdio.com over Pandora, because rdio.com has no ads, and it’s cool. Making the internet less stable in order to accomodate luddites and dinosaurs who, for years, have refused to learn how to serve their music digitally to their customers, is not a good idea. That’s not competition, it’s not sustainable. Media companies and government entities need to play a tech catch-up game. That’s all that #sopa (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PROTECTIP are all about. They’re not likely to pass in any sort of condition that breaks the Internet. It’s just that the government really knows so very little about the Internet. Thankfully the Obama administration is starting from scratch and aggressively eliminating the civil liberty issues with sopa. They’re just learning.

What’s been really interesting is watching the always-ligitious Monster Cable Company. (I’ve never owned one of those cables – their lawsuits are crazy, and their cables are outrageously expensive and mediocre.) Monster Cable has piped up during SOPA talks – the company wants to get craigslist and eBay shut down, because people sell used Monster Cables on eBay and Craigs. Also? each time a monster cable is sold, a baby kitten dies. Here is why.

-Amanda

Monster Cable Claims EBay, Craigslist, Costco & Sears Are ‘Rogue Sites’

from the total-failure dept

When we talk about how dangerous PROTECT IP is as a censorship bill, we’re often told that we shouldn’t worry so much, because it’s only targeted at “rogue sites” and thus wouldn’t impact any legitimate sites. We’re told there’s nothing about rogue sites that is worth defending. And yet, as we’ve seen with the list of “pirate” sites that GroupM put together with help from the music and movie industries, their definition of a “pirate” site is expansive in the extreme. It included the Internet Archive, Vimeo, Soundcloud and a ton of blogs and news sites, including the famed Vibe magazine.

And don’t think it gets any different when you hop over to the trademark/counterfeit side of the debate. In Tim’s post about Monster Cable lobbying in favor of PROTECT IP, as an aside at the end, he notes that on Monster Cable’s own list of “rogue sites,” eBay and Craigslist top the list. And it doesn’t stop there. Retailing giant Costco is on the list. As is Sears. Also some Backpages sites are listed as well (Backpages is a Craigslist-like classifieds system). There’s also FatWallet, which is one of the most popular “deal” listings sites out there. There’s also PriceGrabber and ComputerShopper — popular legitimate sites for comparison shopping and computer purchases. These are not “rogue sites.” These are legitimate companies that Monster Cable appears to have a vendetta against, because they allow for or promote the resale of perfectly legitimate secondhand goods.

-from techdirt