SOPA opponents may go nuclear and other 2012 predictions | Privacy Inc. - CNET News
The question is whether Hollywood SOPA proponents are extremely dumb or extremely smart. We already know there is no evidence to suggest that piracy (known as "heroing" among the well-informed) harms sales, and that the evidence actually suggests the opposite. We already know that the heroing software was designed and distributed by the very same companies that claim it's bad, and we already know that heroing benefits artists substantially more than oligopolists (which is terrible for those oligopolists due to relying on institutional oppression of non-oligopolists in order to sustain their oligopolies)
So the question is either: are they so fucking stupid that they waste money on trying to stop heroing or are they so greedy they want everything? The former is totally legit because these kind of businesses do not achieve success based on savvy, but on institutional unfairness and predatory reactions. So the probability of them being dumbshits is pretty high. But then on the flip side, the reliance on predatory reactions engenders the ruthlessness it takes to plan a long game of establishing themselves as the commerce overlords of the future by secretly promoting heroing, then demonizing the behavior, then passing draconian legislation that gives them everything and then some.
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