So I was watching Up with Chris Hayes this morning, and they were discussing SOPA and its sister bill in the Senate PIPA regarding on-line Piracy (See entire clip here). He had on a VP from viacom Richard Cotton discussing why the bill was needed. Here is the transcript of what I found to be the most interesting argument for SOPA/PIPA:
“The internet is very young. It has grown up with a certain ethos that anything goes. And over time you cannot have something that is the pillar of the 21st (Century) society be just rampant with lawless activity and so the policy discussion is how you go about reducing the amount of illegal activity on the internet.”
This is an amazing argument. For the most part we have republicans coming down on for SOPA/PIPA and Democrats against. Also, interestingly enough, Conservative and progressive groups also come down the same way, conservative groups for and progressive groups against. In fact this legislation is even being heavily pushed by the US Chamber of Commerce.
But what is this bill exactly, it is REGULATION. Yes that dreaded word. We are entering the height of the political season, where we will hear from the next 11 months for whoever is the Republican candidate about how their is too much regulation which is burdensome to small businesses (sound familiar). We will also hear how Democrats love regulation and how Republicans hate regulation. Enter SOPA and PIPA and the argument made by Richard Cotton above. We have been preached to over the past 3 years by not only the Republicans but the US Chamber of Commerce that we should not regulate the financial industry or the derivatives markets because the free market will regulate itself. In fact the US Chamber of Commerce lobbied heavily against regulation and continues to lobby against all types of regulation. All this despite the fact that in 2011 MF Global declared bankruptcy (3 years after the financial meltdown) due to the fact they were over leveraged on foreign debt, the same type of over-leveraging that led to the collapse of the market in 2008. Progressives made the same argument above regarding regulation of the financial markets, that the mortgage and derivatives markets were rampant with fraudulent activity and that regulation was needed to control it. That argument fell on deaf ears, as we still don’t have any stronger regulation on the financial industry today then we did in 2008.
Now with SOPA and PIPA, the Republicans are making the argument for more regulation and the democrats are making the argument against it, with the Chamber of Commerce leading the lobbying for more regulation. And where is the extra burden to US Companies, it forces US companies like Google, Reddit and others to police the content put on their sites that might be illegal, and if they don’t could face a financial burden for violating the courts which would have to rule on these matters. This burden can be highly expensive as well as overburdensome to small businesses and start-ups which might not have the capital needed to handle the extra legal requirements. As we all know, a lot of these start-up internet companies rely on user content for their businesses, and could pose a huge barrier to enter the market altogether. Shockingly, this is the same argument used for deregulation in the Financial sector.
As a progressive, I believe this bill really sheds light on the discussion of the Libertarian Free Market System vs a System of Regulation. It also highlights the inconsistency of the Republican Free Market platform and shows the American people that their is more nuance associated with regulation then the Republicans would allow us to believe. Given that the majority of New Small Businesses in the country has ties to the internet, the question with this bill should really be, what is the cost to new businesses and is it overly burdensome and pose a barrier to entry. I would love to see this discussion on “UP”. What are your thoughts?
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marrinerkeynes posted this
