In reply to Chuck.

Chuck,

Thank you for your comment. You are right, I misread your Megaupload comment, the hazard of speed reading on a manic day. The funny thing is that from a moral point of view what you say is right. The case gets remarkably fudged by the fact that we are discussing the entertainment industry which has an unfortunate history of over-spending on the wrong things (from soulless $150 million movies to overblown corporate exec accounts) and the music industry which has made it next to impossible for musicians to become independent even if this makes more sense than signing on a label.

I have actually written a long post with original research regarding profits and piracy for the entertainment industry here: http://helpmyseo.com/seo-blog/608-sopa-the-reasons-behind-it-and-how-to-fight-it.html - I did not present it earlier because, this is your blog. There is also a piece here: http://helpmyseo.com/seo-blog/643-why-sopa,-pipa-and-acta-are-wrong.html and, as an aside but an interesting one, you may find Cory Doctorow's argument on copyright in the Guardian also informative: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2011/may/30/internet-piracy-cory-doctorow.

My statement on: “we’re on the cusp of new challenges brought about by the rise of social media” has to be contextualized. It is a disruptive technology (if we can call it that) in the sense that is challenging hitherto siloed verticals (from governments governing people to companies selling goods and services). It creates transparency where none existed before, it has been responsible for one social media marketing disaster after another for major companies which range from PayPal to Blackberry (and subsequent changes in attitude brought in) and the Arab Spring in the Middle East which brought unexpected regime change in countries which were totally resistant to it.

It is also affecting consumer attitudes and leading to much of the talk we witness here and, incidentally, even this talk is very much a part of it and important in its own right (and I came to your blog from Google Plus). I can give you link after link with evidence on the pressures social media is producing, not least the fact that at the 2012 World Economic Forum in Davos, it was the central subject of discussion at the table, bringing up the question whether Capitalism, as it stands, is "...fit for purpose" in the 21st century, but I suspect you'll have no difficulty ferreting out some and I do not want to overstay my welcome here.

My comment on 'moralizing' when presented like this is a little off-key. It was not my intention and I apologize. You have been gracious dealing with all the comments here and some of them are pretty combative. They are all an important part of the social media conversation and if we take everyone's points of view here and your responses I think it is fair to say that your blog post added a lot of value to what might otherwise have been a fairly one-dimensional post from M. G. Siegler and for that, having spent some time going through them today, I am grateful.