Ripples on a pond

This proposed legislation in the US (see post of 18th Jan) has ramifications going well beyond file sharing.  If websites are going to be held legally responsible for the content of files stored on them then this could scupper the idea of the cloud (see post of 7/11/08) which is generally seen to be the future of home computing.  Also it would mean that if I were to say something defamatory on this blog, the defamed person could not only take action against me, but also take action against Yahoo which is the website which hosts Blogger.  This may well not be what the proponents of the legislation intend, but we've spoken before about the Law of Unforeseen Consequences.