Don Henley once had the haircut at right, and he was also a member of the Eagles. This apparently qualifies him to weigh in on the PROTECT IP Act, thankfully stalled in the Senate, and call Google and the EFF a bunch of criminals.
No, really. He thinks Google and the Electronic Freedom Foundation are, like, the Mafia or something. Apparently he’s got major gambling debts, because people downloading his music makes him sad and they should all be shot. Of course, downloading Don Henley songs, legally or illegally, should be a capital crime, but that’s another issue entirely.
We only bring up Henley’s utter cluelessness (as the PROTECT IP Act has some real problems vis a vis the First Amendement and Internet security) because that way we can offer, in full, the response of the EFF’s Brad Templeton:
Take it Easy, Don. There’s a New Kid in Town, and it’s called the Internet. Get Over It. I Can’t Tell you Why, but in The Long Run, there isn’t going to be a Heartache Tonight. One of these Nights I hope you’ll you understand that for search engines to Take it To the Limit, they can’t be forced to police every search result.
Internet companies only grow when living Life in the Fast Lane, able to operate, innovate and design products without needing to check for permission from the music industry. If every time you wrote a song you had to worry about what every user who plays it and every store that sells it might do with it, you would lose your Peaceful, Easy Feeling quickly. Big companies might run filters, but if the small ones had needed to they would be Already Gone.
If you’d like to have something without song titles, here’s the EFF’s look at the legislation as it stands. And remember, kids, friends don’t let friends download Don Henley songs.
