"Time Warner has called. And they want us all back on the couch."

Let's go back to the way things were. Let's go back to when nobody complained, nobody could produce their own entertainment and nobody could appropriate your slogan, logo or message to reveal an intent different from the one your PR firm so painstakingly produced. Let's go back to a time before Rick-Rolling and a world in which Edward Khil was rediscovered in the magic of trololo.

Let's go back to suing kids and shutting down online enterprises, no matter where they're based, because they cause the MPAA harm -- the same MPAA whose leaders are systematically chosen for their high political connections. Let's go back to the Top 20 playlist defining our tastes.

Wasn't it better then?


"In the end, the real threat to PIPA and SOPA is our ability to share things with one another," Shirky says in the video above.

These laws place the burden of proof for demonstrating goodwill toward copyright holders onto us. Us. That's mashup makers. That's your kids, fooling around on their new computers and doing what they think is a creative sendup of their favourite cartoon. That's you embedding "Every cigarette smoked in 'Mad Men'" onto your blog.