Adequate protections are already in place in laws going back decades.

Indeed. This is the latest in a long line of media companies’ attempts to manipulate the free market by sounding alarm bells over perfectly legitimate technology that happens to be out of their control.
Remember the flap over Betamax? Representatives for the MPAA testified before Congress that the sales of video tape machines must be regulated in order to protect the investment of movie studios in their ‘intellectual property’ (a term i also despise, by the way).

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.- Jack Valenti, Congressional transcripts, Monday April 12 1982

Audio cassette recorders, MP3, CD recorders, and now the Internet at large. The list will continue to go on. The bottom line, in my opinion, is that businesses engaged in creating so-called ‘intellectual property’ have crunched the numbers and decided that it’s less expensive to invest in litigation and lobbying efforts to attempt to stifle technology which exists outside the sphere of their immediate control than it is to invest in the routine re-tooling necessary to stay abreast of the technological times.
The music industry was dragged to MP3 kicking and screaming, and now, for the last several years, MP3 sales are outpacing CD sales. Apple is the world’s leading music retailer. The public relations fiasco created by the vicious tactics employed in order to try to halt the march of progress has caused irreparable damage to the industry. There have been enormous opportunities for expansion into these emerging, Internet-enabled markets, but the industry has been too busy throwing a tantrum to get on the bus.
Now, here we are again: These industries have been focusing their resources on rear-guard maneuvers to try to protect the ‘intellectual property’ which is already in circulation, rather than investing in supporting innovation which would enable the sorts of access to their products which consumers increasingly crave. Panic ensues.
Consumers have spoken, and they’ve said that they’re willing to violate copyright laws in order to have their music the way they want it. Seems to me that the smart play would be to go to the people who have the money you want and figure out how to get them to come off of it as efficiently as possible. Instead, the politics of our present economy dictate that the you attempt to beat your consumers about the head and force them to give up their money the way you want to receive it.
SOPA and PIPA may be off the table following last week’s unprecedented online backlash, but they’re not dead. I believe that we’ll be seeing their siblings soon enough. I also believe that I’m being more realistic than cynical in predicting that those siblings are going to be the same tired media industry arguments, re-packaged to attack the latest trends in content delivery.

What in hell would I do with this kind of cyber horse/bull power?

The third time Bob speaks he asks, “What about us old-timers mentoring one another” needs a question mark.

The fourth time Bob speaks the first word needs an ‘s (maintaining your style).

PLUS, I have some ideas about enlightenment that I should post myself.

[...]Loving the blog and checking other links[...]…

(ED: This is an interesting blog containing useful HOWTO documents.

(Ed: every once in a while I let a bit of automated blog walking persist in the comments.)