ReadWriteEnterprise

Last Wednesday, ReadWriteWeb published a legal analysis of the Stop Online Piracy Act and its Senate Counterpart, the PROTECT-IP bill. Our story prompted a spirited, logical, and largely rational debate between e-novel author Rowena Cherry, who supports the legislation, and TechDirt founder Michael Masnick, who opposes it.

I've been on record as saying that we as a society have forgotten how to debate. These two have not. While they may not always have been as strictly civil with one another as Lincoln and Douglas, they both demonstrated some lessons that both opponents and supporters of the bill may perhaps put to good use: