Sony CEO Proposes "Guardrails For the Internet"

testadicazzo writes "Micheal Lynton, the guy who said 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.' has posted an editorial at the Huffington Post titled Guardrails for the Internet, in which he defends his comment, and suggests that just as the interstate system needs guardrails, so too does the information superhighway. The following is pretty indicative of the article: 'Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want. Freedom without restraint is chaos, and if we don't figure out some way to prevent online chaos, the quantity, quality and availability of the kinds of entertainment, literature, art and scholarship we need to have a healthy, vibrant culture will suffer.'"

Comments

Chickens coming home to roost

[MikeRT]

It warms my heart whenever I see a hollywood or big music employee or executive complaining about the socialistic view of property that is increasingly common with their goods. For decades, they've promoted left-wing politics through music and not-so-subtle bias in many movies, not to mention giving huge campaign contributions to left-wing democrats.

Guess what? The chickens are coming home to roost. The kids now believe your shit about The Man(tm) and you don't like it. Tough cookies.

Re:I'm a guy

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't give a shit about "theft." He hates the idea of the Internet because it removes the need to keep his dumb ass as the distribution "gatekeeper" and skim money off of the hard work of others.

And you have proof of this, which unfortunately the margin is too small to contain ...?

Shame for you that his basic premise,

The Internet has brought people with no regard for the intellectual property of others together with a technology that allows them to easily steal that property and sell or give it away to everyone, with little fear of being caught or prosecuted.

is absolutely spot on. This fact is unaffected by your ad hominem.

In the meantime, you're being completely disingenuous yourself. If you really believed that piracy was no worse with sneakernet than it is now, you'd be too stupid to have learned to type.

Re:Imagine that

[cliffski]

"should be free for the taking"
says who?

I could argue that to inherit property is morally and ethically wrong and hurts society as a whole ( I believe this is true). So your inherited house should be free for the taking.

Just asserting that something should be free does not mean it is true. Land is a limited commodity, and most people who inherit it did fuck all to deserve it. Digital entertainment is neither necessary for survival, nor limited in totality, and yet somehow its wrong to retain ownership of that, and right to retain ownership of land???