They're not protecting us. They're protecting people whose copyrighted material is being shared on the web -- journalists, publishers, music producers, etc.
It's a case of interests who don't want to adjust to the reality of the internet and legislators who have no clue what they're doing.
“They’re not protecting us. They’re protecting people whose copyrighted material is being shared on the web — journalists, publishers, music producers, etc. “
So should FreeRepublic be shut down?
“It’s a case of interests who don’t want to adjust to the reality of the internet”
You have it backwards.
Its a case of people creating a myth, that the Internet is “something else” and the laws of ownership of things somehow can’t be applied to it. They can, and to do so, without any new “intrusion” on our “rights”, they must be modified to account for the theft that new technology makes possible.
It is the Internet that must adapt to the reality of very basic laws of western society regarding property - the ownership of the product of your work.
The idea that technology makes theft easier cannot be an endorsement, or an argument, by any sense of natural rights, that it MUST therefor be condoned.
The idea (the myth) that the Internet and Internet businesses MUST be BEYOND THE LAW, has no basis in any form of Conservatism that I know.