Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Vote Coming Thursday
 

The SOPA is coming up for vote on Thursday. What are your opinions?

Unlike what those who stopped reading after "Stop Online Piracy" might think, SOPA is not a good thing for this industry.

SOPA in a nutshell: If a criminal hid counterfeit goods in a bank safe deposit box, SOPA would allow the legitimate IP owner to shut down the entire bank and all other branches without any notice, search warrant, or due process.

No it's not. This would be very damaging to the Internet in general. Pretty scary stuff.

this is really just the beginning. just wait until the ISPs start providing tiered internet access...remember the mobile broadband loophole?

piracy will be the least of our problems when we have to pay an ISP just to stream to a smartphone.

it would only be damaging to sites with user uploads and pirated content...

I HOPE IT PASSES even if it means the end of the interweb!

Probably die in committee

Yes, that is why Wikipedia, The Electronic Frontier foundation, The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Public Knowledge, NetCoalition, the Center for Democracy and Technology, TechFreedom, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Demand Progress, Google, Facebook, zynga, eBay, Paypal, independent filmmakers, C4SIF, Justin Bieber and many more are all agaisnt SOPA, because they want to upload pirated content :1orglaugh

Somehow I have a feeling this thing might actually pass, but it ultimately will either be completely shut down by the courts or gutted by the courts and it will end up being another waste of time and money by our brilliant leadership who are completely out of touch with the world around them.

I'm more than willing to take a chance on anything that's likely to bring an end to the maddening "whack-a-mole" ordeal file lockers and tubes have inflicted on honest webmasters.

With any luck it'll soon be time for the thieves to adapt of die.





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Wikipedia co-founder threatens blackout over anti-piracy law
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...iracy-law.html

just another way for internet control

no bueno

Is that supposed to hurt us in some way?

In all honesty, I'll miss wikipedia, youtube and, yes, even facebook if it comes to that.

I'll even go so far as to say that a moderate amount of piracy - even if it involves my own shit - is better than any draconian solutions.

But fuck, this goddamn wack-a-mole bullshit is driving all too many honest businessmen into the ground.

The time for discretion, baby steps and moderation has long passed.

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SOPA in spanish is soup, YUMMYYY, for winter

can you imagine...if the law actually works & all the torrents/tubes/p2p have trouble staying online? gold rush???

What an idiot that guy is

It would certainly be a game changer for sure.

Why is it idiotic to protest about something you disagree with?

bill needs MUCH more poo... :2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

He's making the point that if SOPA gets passed, sites like wikipedia could soon be something from the past.

I understand why a lot of people here might at first glance support SOPA. After all, it is called the "Stop Online Piracy Act". But that is merely Washington's way of discrediting the opposition. Why do you thin the Patriot Act was called the 'Patriot' act? Because it was very patriotic? No, because that way everyone who opposed it looked unpatriotic.

SOPA isn't just about shutting down tubes or torrent sites filled with pirated content, it goes much further than that. Under SOPA an IP rights owner can basically order anyone doing business with someone who violates those IP rights to stop doing business (advertising, proving hosting or processing services etc) with the 'violator'.

Under SOPA, the IP rights holder would contact the entity that's doing business with the owner of the sites on which the alleged IP right violation occurred. That entity than has 5 days to contact the site owner. If the site owner has not removed the content within those same 5 days, the entity contacted by the IP rights owner then has to cease doing business (providing services for) the site owner.

No court order or any kind of 3rd party verification or any kind of appeal is needed or possible.

Why are companies like Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Wikipedia,... and groups like the EFF, TechFreedom etc so worried about this? Because entire sites can be taken down that way even if no rights were violated.

SOPA doesn't only cover copyright but also other forms of IP such as reputation rights.

Example: You post on GFY that GFY user XYZA is an idot. XYZA contacts GFY's hosting company, registrar etc and says GFY contains content that violates his IP rights. GFY's hosting company, registrar etc then have 5 days to contact GFY and have that content removed from GFY. If that content is not removed within those 5 days, GFY's hosting company, registrar etc become liable if they do not cease to do business with GFY until the content is removed.

Under SOPA, kids singing popular songs and posting the video on youtube would be no longer possible.
Under SOPA, you could harass your competitor by emailing CCBILL and saying they are billing for someone who uses some of your content (even if it's not true). Of course If it is not true, you could later be held accountable for that, but in the mean time your competitor will be out of billing, hosting, income etc for months or years.
Under SOPA, a politician could harass news site if they expose secrets that he deems damaging to his reputation.
Under SOPA, GFY would be in trouble for all the pictures GFY users regularly post.

Using SOPA to fight piracy is like carpet bombing an entire city because 1 kid is downloading an mp3. It's insane.

Lots of this Piracy could be stopped or slowed to a crawl if companies like the Registrars would step up, make policy and suspend the domains.

Once they receive X number of DMCA's and the site removes the content but continues to allow or upload the stolen stuff then they suspend the domain.

But god forbid they lose 9 dollars a year.

shows what lunkheads there is in this industry that they would destroy a revolutionary technology that has enriched many peoples lives - and has even helped free people from totalitarian societies - so they can make a few extra porn sales.

who said porn was filled with short-sighted, selfish, low iq neanderthals?

Even if SOPA gets through, it won't help us because authorities and law enforcement will never do anything for pornographers.

They need to find some kind of compromise. Sharing of a few photos, information etc yes, fantastic. Sharing TBs of files on a large commercial scale, no. Is it really that hard to define the difference between facebook and a file locker?

And that's why common sense solutions don't and probably never will work.

Hence, the sledgehammer solution now before congress

Point taken.

The question, of course, is whether anything short of carpet bombing can effectively bring piracy back down to manageable levels. Recent history screams out that the answer is a resounding no.

Clearly you can tell in this thread who is a content producer and who is not. As a producer I support this 100% and yes I read past the title. The fact is that if I can prove ownership to my content and I want it removed from anywhere I don't want it I should be able to. This includes advertisers. Advertisers don't own the content I produce. Why should they retain rights to use it if I don't want them to. I should have full control of my material no matter where it appears and this laws allows for that. It's about time the govt stepped in here and took out these criminals. This is out of control. A sledge hammer approach is better than none at all. Tube sites serve one sole purpose. To steal and distribute content. Except for YouTube who actually has a strict policy and will shut down accounts completely if rules are broken. It's almost impossible to post a stolen video on YouTube without having it removed within 24 hrs. If everyone followed this model things wouldn't be so bad. But they don't so it's time to set laws in place. User uploaded content? Lmao this is a cover for I'm stealing your shit but I'm innocent because my friend is doing it. I see no negative implications for this law and I hope it passes. If you see consequences to it then you're either part of the problem or you havent produced even 5 minutes of content to know what it's like to have it stolen. To see your income go down the drain because some asshole is literally stealing from your pocket.

i produce mainstream content and yes it sucks that people steal but i'm not willing to cripple the internet to go back to some fantasy land of porn sales from 1999.

it would be a good thing if user generated content sites like youtube & facebook actually policed copyright. maybe the young generation, which has been bred to believe casually posting & downloading copyrighted stuff is no big deal, will have a change of heart.

YouTube and Facebook do enforce copyright laws, or at least to an acceptable degree.

The file sharing forums and such, not so much.

The problem is the total failure of Internet companies to protect Intellectual property.

Not only that but to make money and grow their businesses on the back of someone else's content.

The INTERNET has grown large and years have gone by but no serous measures have been taken to address this problem.

So either the Internet companies fund the production of all the music, TV programs, newspaper reports, and feature films they make money distributing, by charging all users of the Internet a monthly fee.

Or the producers will take measures to protect what they produce.

The Internet is less and less an Idealistic bunch of nerds wanting to change the world, and more and more a new generation of very big corporations.

The INTERNET has many positive features but I do not want to see the death of the film industry, journalism, music and TV.

they do but they don't. what they do well is respond when copyright holders escalate. but there's still a treasure trove of copyrighted stuff on the networks because there's just way too much to cover it all. to the extent that networks & sites have to care now, that will impact the end-users more then it does now. some people here are complaining about that loss of freedom. sorry i dont see how this law stops twitter revolutions, which have nothing to do with copyright.

in my opinion, the ISPs will love this law. They have 20% of their users consuming 80% of their bandwidth, & case law such as the comcast case took their ability to manage their traffic away from them. I could see the ISPs eager to erase all the torrents & tubes, who are nothing but bandwidth hogs (AKA cost them profits) on their networks. I could be wrong?

Fuck 1999. I'd be happy with 2007 sales.

You've been around here long enough to know how many honest webmasters have had their faces ground into the pavement by content thieves.

Are you familiar with the phrase "doomsday defense"?

Well... stand back, it really has reached that level.


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The problem with carpet bombing is that in addition to hitting the 1 person you were aiming for, you will also be hitting hundreds if not thousands who had nothing to do with that.

It's not about that. On the contrary. Under SOPA all that it takes to (temporarily) take down a website is an accusation.

1. X contacts your registrar, your cc processor, your host, your bank,... and accuses you of hosting copyrighted content on your site.
2. Your registrar etc now has 5 days to contact you.
3. If within those 5 days, the content is not removed, your registrar, processor etc have to stop doing business with you (in other words: cut you off). Otherwise their continued business relationship with you will be seen as "profiting from the alleged copyright infringement".
4. Even if the allegations are false and you can prove that you are only hosting content that you own the rights to, your registrars, processors, hosting company etc still has to cut you off if you don't remove the content. There's no appeal process here, no courts involved at this point.
5. If you disagree, then YOU, the accused, will have to take things to court. Until there's a decision by the courts, your registrar, processor, host and anyone else that was put on notice by the accuser has to refrain from doing business with you if you continue to host the content in question.

I can understand that people are pissed off about declining sales numbers and stolen content, but SOPA is not the solution. Read the 78 page proposal and you'll have no problem coming up with at least 10 or 20 ways this system can be abused.

SOPA totally destroys the concept of the presumption of innocence. It puts the burden on the accused and until that accused gets his day in court, he's effectively on blacklist that prevents him from using the internet.... let alone making a living on the internet.

Not to get overly melodramatic or anything, but the history of warfare (economic and otherwise) is such that when civilized options fail ... things like carpet bombing tend to happen.

Destroy a revolutionary technology? Hardly. Reduce piracy? Hope so. As a content producer, I say if the internet can not survive without people stealing stuff, then kill the fucker. Sounds like lots of folks here love the revolutionary technology that allows you to steal so freely with costs of chasing and prosecuting too high to create much fear.
2257 was going to put us all in jail too. Remember? Am I concerned about unintended consequences of a new broad law? Yes. I am more concerned with intended consequences of effing theives thriving without fear and lowering incentive to create material. Will this law pass? Highly doubtful.

It still amazes me how people (both in this thread and in general) that go on about piracy and how despicable it is, how it violates their rights, how it's an act of injustice, seem to be ok with committing other acts of injustice as long as it might benefit them.

No one ever said that the internet was made for piracy or couldn't survive without people stealing stuff. Most common household objects can be used to commit murder. Should be get rid of them to put an end to murder? Cell phones can be used to cheat in school or to call a drug dealer. should we get rid of them in order to end cheating at school and in order to put an end to drug abuse?

I understand people get angry when they see something threatens their livelihood and I understand they tend to overgeneralize when they're angry, but you shouldn't let your anger cloud your judgment. Fighting injustice begins with not committing or supporting any acts of injustice yourself.

Apples and oranges. When 2257 came along, civil liberties groups, privacy groups, the electronic frontier foundation, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Zynga, Reason, venture capitalists,... didn't come out to warn about its dangers. Why? 2257 is nothing compared to SOPA. 2257 puts a bureaucratic burden on US based adult entertainment companies. SOPA is an overly broad set of rules that can easily be abused.

I hope you are right. Even if it doesn't pass, it's still useful to remind people of why the whole thing was a bad idea.

This reminds me of a recent HuffingtonPost article about Ron Paul.

Years ago, Ron Paul says, a congressional colleague slipped a laminated piece of paper into his hand. It was a passage from Elie Wiesel's 1970 book, "One Generation After,"

In it, a child asks the one "Just Man" why he walks the streets of Sodom railing against wickedness, when he knows it is hopeless. The man replies: "if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me."

why are you surprised? people are generally hypocrites and only care about money. if the government can make them money they are all for it.

I'm NOT talking about my own personal beliefs, but the truth is, eventually the internet will be highly regulated, just like TV or radio. It's not really a personal freedom issue.

Should anyone be able to run a TV station out of their home with no regulation? Nobody seems to think the fact that they can't is any sort of infringement on their free speech.

Once again, I'm not saying it's right, but a highly regulated and controlled internet is the only outcome in the long run.

Google and others are against it now, but trust me, in the end they will be the ones controlling the internet, not allowing it to be free.

Google, Microsoft and other fighters for human liberation are against this bill, what do they want?

The great freedom for Joe Smith to download the latest Harry Potter for nothing.


If they take down innocent websites, they will in turn be sued, the law will fall into disrepute and be repealed.

Used wisely it could redress the balance.

you are ignorant on why people are against the bill.

yes actually. and people do and will. the genie is out. laws like this are just the death spasms of a dead way of being and organizing society.

so why not balance the act by adding equal penalties for false claims then

make a bogus claim of copyright ownership (like will.i.am and universal did ) and you lose the right to own copyrights.

i'm struggling to agree with you, not because i know the facts, but because your facts are all over the place.

like in step 1, you list a number of parties. which of these entites does the law require an accuser to contact...all of them, one of them?

i feel as if your throwing a lot of ideas around, not facts...& that in reality the bill has not passed, it still needs to be reconciled, passed & signed, & even then it takes time before the details in how it works become clear because the white house has to decide how to enforce it.

as for me i think its about time the ISPs get the power to prevent piracy sites from moving over the web. only ISPs have the power to throttle this shit because they can see everything that goes through their pipes. considering the giant amount of commerce being destroyed by piracy, some kind of policing of the web is necessary & proper. i cant really assess that the law is overkill until the facts come out.

"It still amazes me how people (both in this thread and in general) that go on about piracy and how despicable it is, how it violates their rights, how it's an act of injustice, seem to be ok with committing other acts of injustice as long as it might benefit them."

Perhaps, but I personally can't ever remember supporting injustice of any kind.

My point wasn't that 2257 was similar to SOPA in its supporters, lack of warning, etc. Only that all the scary stuff that was going to happen with 2257 didn't. However, I am still against it.

I have had my stuff stolen since 1997, and large companies have long benefited from my content. Yahoo groups, etc. Today it is the dailymotions, and filesonics (supported by paypal) that are leaching off of things I create or pay to create. My anger is not making me overgeneralize. Only relief that as a country we take some sort of action with teeth against foreign thieves. I understand this threatens the livelihood of some too. But those are the people that are stealing, and they fear anything that could stop them in their tracks. Whenever someone steals from me, the hosting site makes me state under penalty of perjury that it is my material. Wonder why they don't make uploaders state under penalty of perjury that they own the material? Wonder why they allow them to continue even after they know they are pirates? The answer is money. They make money on piracy. Any who do will hate this law or a law like it. People like me will say finally!