That’s the big topic now on the net. The american government and their stupid laws trying to stop people from violating flawed copyright regulations. Copyright and the whole patent system as it is now is fundamentally flawed, because their purpose is different from what it should be.

It might not have been that apparent before, but now that the internet increased the world’s information flow many many times, it’s obvious that regulations are not written to protect intellectual property (eg someone else claiming that they created something that you created) but to protect the profits of the people owning that property.

Anyway, by now most people are probably aware of what SOPA is and why it should be thwarted no matter what, but let’s just consider the sad (and painfully probable) possibility that the maniacs warming their asses on Capitol Hill actually pass it.

To be honest i can’t even imagine what would happen. Huge social sites would have to comply but that would put an impossibly huge burden on them.

There’s also the other option: to run. The copyright owners could meddle with the DNS as well, which would make transition to a more open net fast as people will start looking for alternates, for example OpenNIC. An even more significant part of the information flow will get encrypted.

The internet would evolve for sure, but the price would be hell to pay.