the Stop Online Piracy Act, or the I want to take the Internet away Act.

[Bob Schroeck]

Overall, though, it's about control. Control over what you're allowed to see for entertainment. Control over what gets actually put out there, versus all that's being done now in terms of content creation.

It's also about control over the very culture. I've had this quote saved in a file with other similar material for several years. I can't verify that it's genuine and not a propagandist's creation (and it's just extreme enough that I suspect it is the latter), but if it's real it puts different, somewhat sinister, spin on this legislation:

I just want to make it very clear -- the idea that the people own the culture is extinct. We own the culture. Without us there is no culture. We are the gatekeepers who determine what is allowed into the culture, we are the arbiters who determine what is of value in the culture, we are the distributors who determine who may have the culture, and we are the enforcers who determine who is to be deprived of the culture. No one has a right to the culture. They only get temporary access, as we see fit to allow it, at the price we see fit to set.

-- Jonathan Lamy, spokesman for the RIAA

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.