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The industry is well aware that “censorship” doesn’t go down well with many Americans, so it has been playing up the “free speech protections” in the bill lately. RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol made sure to stress the point again this morning.
“With this first vote, Congress has begun to strike at the lifeline of foreign scam sites, while protecting free speech and boosting the legal online marketplace,” he said. “Those seeking to thwart this bipartisan bill are protecting online thieves and those who gain pleasure and profit from de-valuing American property.”
That last jibe is the sort of comment made by those who can’t understand why, say, people accused of horrific crimes still get defense lawyers. (“Why do you want murderers to go free?”) It’s sad to see Bainwol resort to it. As we noted earlier this week, we have concerns about this approach that are premised in large part on the content industries’ almost comically misguided attempts to lock down or shutter innovative technologies and websites that turn out in fact to be legal and hugely useful—like the VCR, HD radio, MP3 players, HDTV, DAT, and YouTube.
"Pirate-slaying censorship bill gets unanimous support - Ars Technica
