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Comment by rexf | Hacker News Reader

It was very conspicuous yesterday that Apple & Microsoft did not show up on the anti-SOPA NYTimes ad:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/16/google-facebook-twitter-a...

Also conspicuous that Y Combinator wasn't on the ad. It's clear and obvious that PG and Y Combinator are in full support of SOPA.

Har har.

You know what those companies have in common? They don't sell software. If your business is basically running a website, what do you care about piracy?

Not defending SOPA -- I don't have a clue about its intricacies -- but when a bunch of companies that don't sell software are against a bill that purports to try to do something about software piracy, I don't really see what the news is. In fact, these companies are all basically ad networks...

SOPA is mostly about music and movie piracy and any site that allows you to upload audio, video, or files is a target.

But the bill would give software companies the same tools to go after warez sites too. Why wouldn't Adobe want to be able to crack down on sites that distribute cracked copies of Photoshop? Or Microsoft with illegal copies of Windows or Office?

That's not to say this is a good bill. It's not. But if it's in the interests of companies with significant IP to protect to support it, companies with significant IP to protect like Microsoft, Adobe, and Apple can be expected to support it.

Their support is really that simple.

Does that mean Microsoft and Apple have to support any anti-piracy bill, without any regard for its consequences? Because if that's true, then they are no better than RIAA and MPAA and they couldn't care less about the Internet and censorship, as long as they reduce the pirated copies by 10% (if that).

Companies, even those fighting this bill, only care about their own interests. That's why I think people who blindly trust companies to do the right thing are crazy.

That's correct. In these cases however, I think it's not unreasonable to side with them, if only temporary. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, after all. Sometimes it doesn't matter why someone fights, it matters who he/she fights.

That doesn't mean you should abandon all reason and blindly trust them. Actually, you should be wary and watch your back - if their interests change, as you say, a company won't think twice and back-stab you without batting an eye.

To come at that question from the other direction, I sometimes wonder what (if any) anti-piracy bill some tech folks would support. The counter-argument to better IP enforcement often seems to be "change your business model", which is not a policy statement.

Piracy is already illegal. Just like child pornography is already illegal. There is no need to make extra laws about it, and whenever somebody purports to write a law to "prevent" a crime that is already illegal, you can know that that law will contain terrible, overreaching things.

There's a reason that there's no law that holds telephone companies responsible for law-breaking which is organized over their wires / cell towers. It's ludicrous.

Just making something illegal doesn't prevent it from happening--there also need to be laws providing mechanisms for investigation and enforcement.

The phone companies have all sorts of legal duties to law enforcement. If a court orders it, they have to assist with taps, traces, geolocation, call records, etc.

As you say, piracy is already illegal. And we know there's a ton of casual piracy that goes on--see:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/its-official...

So the question is: what mechanisms of enforcement can dampen casual piracy and yet be acceptable to most tech companies?

Those were all internet companies--internet freedom really matters to them. Microsoft and Apple, on the other hand, make money by restricting users' freedom and do not rely on the internet nearly as heavily. Their covertly supporting SOPA does not really come as a surprise.

> Microsoft and Apple, on the other hand, make money by restricting users' freedom

Umm, actually I think they make their money buy selling products. Consumers are rarely (ever?) driven by a "restrict my freedom" motive...

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Sure, only selling things makes revenue directly. However, policies abridging freedom help both companies scale--by attempting to lock users into their platforms and making it difficult or impossible to not buy their software when getting a new computer, both companies get more people to spend more money.

Could you elaborate on how MS and Apple do this specifically?

I find their revenue models very different, Apply making it on hardware + iTunes (Music, apps, movies, etc), MS making it on Software.

How do you group them as the same? And call it 'Lock-in'?

Edit: for clarity

well they obviously restrict our freedom to use their software without paying, which we should all be entitled to do

/sarcasm

I think what his message is meant to be taken in the "Free Software" sense. You know, proprietary anything is evil, all software should be free, hippies rule the new utopia and all that. I won't speak for Microsoft as I'm not sure how they do it but what you mentioned with Apple and iTunes is pretty much it right there. What people who repeat this message forget is that this "lock-in" is not bad or evil to many people. Sure, the hackers want to install their own apps and use alternative app stores and all that in which case I'd say find another (or create another) platform. My mother and the vast majority of consumers want to tap their screens a couple of times and get a cool app. It's not lock-in to them. To them it's easy and convenient. Technology is for everyone, not just those l33t enough to hack.

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