As a bystander to your and tptacek's debate, I'd like to point out that it seems you didn't really address tptacek's main point: this bill was badly written and dealt with minor issues which matter less, and wasn't worth spending political capital on.
It's very nice that you dragged this into HN's millionth debate on whether copyright is property or not (seriously, don't people ever get tired of the same rehashed arguments?). But this has nothing to do with tpacek's point. At least, that's how it looks to me.
> (seriously, don't people ever get tired of the same rehashed arguments?)
Is an argument only valid when it's fresh? Is e no longer equal to mc^2 because so many people keep rehashing the same tired formula over and over again?
Honest Question: Do you think I said anything about the validity of the argument?
All I asked was whether people are tired of having the same argument over and over. The reason I asked that is because tptacek was specifically not doing so, and someone was dragging the conversation in that direction. You have to understand, people like tptacek, myself and others that have been on HN (or anywhere on the internet) for a while, have seen these exact threads, with these exact arguments, probably hundreds of times. At some point, you realize that no one is bringing anything new to the table. Then someone like tptacek comes along and does bring something new (and relevant) to the table, and he can't even do that without the same old debated coming up.
It's very nice that you dragged this into HN's millionth debate on whether copyright is property or not (seriously, don't people ever get tired of the same rehashed arguments?). But this has nothing to do with tpacek's point. At least, that's how it looks to me.