Best Response to SOPA yet...

Wow... I hope The Oatmeal doesn't believe the shit it's spewing. What a load of crap.

haha the oatmeal rocks

Excellent way of explaining it to people that are idiots and think SOPA is good.

actually i understand now...i dont know if thats good or bad

Freedom to do stupid shit ...

Wikipedia has nice blackout page.

Huffingtonpost.com has or had a big black square where they normally have the headline.

On theflip side of that argument, this guy's post from another site makes a pretty decent point, concerning the true possible interests of companies who are anti_SOPA.

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Disclaimer - I work for NBCUniversal. While I have a mind and opinions of my own, I realize that it is highly relevant to note my employer given the topic. Take it for what its worth.

Appreciate you synthesizing the facts here. I agree that its very important for people to understand SOPA.

Using your Family Guy scenario as an example, YouTube really has no incentive to do anything more than take down videos that violate copyright on a one-off, per request basis as mandated by DMCA.

This puts the burden on copyright holders/content creators (in this case Fox) to scour YouTube's platform for videos posted without their authorization, while Youtube continues to financially benefit (via advertising) from content who's creation they have not supported in any meaningful/financial way.

While I agree SOPA, as currently written, will not be an effective solution, I am curious at what you think can be done to improve upon DMCA and better protect intellectual property?

Again, while I don't agree with the SOPA, many of companies railing against it have a financial stake in the free distribution of other people’s intellectual property continuing unabated. Therefore, its hard to see them solely as the noble protectors of free speech. They say that SOPA will 'break the internet' but it’s also true that they stand to make billions of dollars from the Internet staying just the way it is.

Let's not be too quick to tout these technology companies as saviors. While I happen to agree with them in principal, we can't forget that they represent a wealthy special interest (with, as you put it, huge pockets). I realize that's not a popular position to take, but that doesn't make it not true.

Very educated and smart response from someone with a brain. All these blackouts and disclaimers and warnings are fine, but you can't argue with the fact that something needs to be done about content theft online.

I disagree with SOPA too, but you can't argue the fact that something needs to be done.

Nobody has argued otherwise. The problem is that when someone like me says that SOPA sucks there are a dozen plus people willing to claim that I'm a pirate, don't produce content, steal content, etc. That makes me call them idiots and the conversation spirals from there.

Who is arguing that?

By lying. OK I get the message.

Use lies and scare tactics to convince people to do nothing about piracy.

Oprah is a public figure so taking a picture of her and publishing it, isn't piracy. Taking the picture from the person who shot it or owns copyright on it is pirating it. Which is something we all do with Google images. Well most of us.

Putting up your own creative work, isn't piracy. Someone stealing the original GIF is.

I would be kinder if you had ever backed any attempt to curb piracy. Or did I miss it?


Does any of your traffic come from Tube sites that pirate content?

I dunno, maybe it's those folks who are so fond of piously mouthing words to the effect that piracy is bad but, of course nothing can be done about it.

Until...

An effective solution comes along whereupon they proceed to cry like wounded animals bemoaning the impending death of the internet and such.

That's who
.

SOPA issue has been well commented on (must've seen about 10 threads in this forum alone) but it mainly stems from the fact that there are not enough people in 'official' positions that understand the internet.

some of the bureaucracy that exists in the EU for example smacks of ignorance and stupidity at times. in the health supps online market sites with HGH / Hoodia were taken down without the enforcers looking past the domains (i.e. not considering content).

back to SOPA though, and it is quite clear that this threatens the freedoms that webmasters thrive on.

with respect to the oatmeal clip...are they arguing it should be OK for surfers to shop oprahs & jesus image & use them for their own creative purposes?

& sopa opponents say nobody argues something needs to be done about piracy, but offers no alternatives. if a law that shuts down "sites dedicated to piracy" is overly broad, what is the non government alternative. The history of self policing in the private sector is not very good. This is why some people want the government to regulate things, in this case protection of creative peoples IP.

fair use.

just because someone offers no alternative, it doesn't mean the points they're making about SOPA aren't valid.

Seems to me that some of the same people that want the government to take care of everything are the same people that constantly complain but are unwilling to do something themselves.

The current laws already allow you to sue those that violate your IP rights, yet most people prefer to bitch on the boards instead of actually suing someone.

Those same people dismiss the possibility that SOPA/PIPA might be abused by people who want to harm their competition. They use the argument that if someone files a bogus SOPA complaint against you, you can simply sue them back. Yet these same people apparently think suing someone involves too much hassle, otherwise they would already be suing those that violate their IP rights under the current system.

Over the years I've seen several people complain about illegal tubes and torrent sites and about the dating sites that "support them by advertising on those tubes and torrent sites". But at the same time, those same people have no problem sending traffic to those same dating sites. Double standard?

Problem is we have a lot of lazy people here. Not just on this board... not just in this industry... Our society is filled with more and more people that bitch and complain but are too lazy to do anything themselves.

Take epassporte for example. A lot of us got hurt. There's a few that actually sued Mallick. There's those who wrote it of as a loss (after analyzing the potential risks/costs etc of suing him). There's those who made sure the Goole serps are now filled with anti-mallick sites. And there's the majority that complained but didn't do anything.

What the hell happened to personal responsibility?!

"self policing in the private sector" doesn't mean you hope other people will suddenly stop violating your rights. It means that you yourself take things into your own hands. It means that you sue those that violate your rights and make money off of it. It means that you make the effort to stop promoting those companies that you complain about. It means that you come up with better ways to convince your potential customers that your product is better, more reliable than that of others. It means that you figure out how to best make use of new technologies. It means that you take responsibility for yourself and your company.

SOPA is specific in target websites dedicated to piracy. i would expect the AG to make a distinction between fair use & sites dedicated to piracy.

thats true. But without alternatives, its arguing in a vaccuum. for example COPA died because the fed court found there were less intrusive alternatives to COPA, such as filtering software. What is the less intrusive alternative to SOPA? its not enough just to oppose a law...how do you protect IP with nothing?

hollywood, with unlimited lawyers & cash, cannot stop foreign sites dedicated to piracy. What do you think they should do, other then find a government remedy? Whats your private sector solution for hollywood?

,

there's a few problems with that.
1. You're putting a lot of faith in government bureaucrats. Even under the current system, sites that didn't violate IP rights, have already been taken down.

2. 'dedicated to piracy' is not defined clearly.

Over here in the EU, news paper publishers have been pushing to reform the copyright system. They want copyright to apply to titles of news articles. They admit they've been losing readers to alternative news sites and blogs. They hate the fact that people will for example use Google News and arrive at a page containing a single article on their site instead of people visiting their site directly.

Let's say those news corporations manage to get those laws changed so that copyright also applies to those very short sequences of words. If that happens, any blogger that blogs about a recent news paper article would be violating the new IP laws. If he blogs about more than one article, does that establish a pattern of IP rights violations and does that mean that his blog is "dedicated to piracy"?

Frankly: that's hollywoods problem. I'm responsible for my own business. I do no harm. I trade with others on a voluntarily basis. I refuse to do business with companies that I consider to be criminals. But I have no responsibility whatsoever to use my time and resources to defend hollywood or bollywood or Justin Bieber (who's anti SOPA btw) etc

I understand it now.... If SOPA is agreed. A few people in GFY would find SOPA issues against them due to changing so many photos in the past

I say SOPA rules, I own our own photos & have no reason to change them. Legal content, I can use it my own way

Exactly... I'm here for business not to edit photos for stupid shit






Qualifications to learn ignorance & how to act stupid, no thanks

SOPA would eliminate forums.

Does making an animated gif somehow cut into Oprah's profits? That was actually a bad example.

Does the Oatmeal contend that SOPA is out to stop 12 year olds from making silly animated gifs? Is that what they're worried about?

No, SOPA would eliminate people editing content, not applying the url to the forum to show the image that was taken & displayed by the content provider or owner

Forums would run exactly the same

thats awesome.

anyone who believes that laws created are only in place to fight exactly what they say are idiots. always a hidden agenda on this shit

If SOPA passed you think the sites they are going to go after are Wikipeda and Facebook?

Only if they are mad. They will attack the file lockers, and pirate bays....

Sites that don't have stolen content on them have nothing to fear.

All TV is vetted in this way, Google can afford to pay copyright if it wants to, or take it down...

The other end to the Internet is that there is no new music, films or news to download or watch because all the musicians, film makers and journalists were put out of business.

I think maybe overboard slightly... If SOPA doesn't pass, certainly things shall change & the industry shall make things even harder & tighter for anything to be passed, legit costs go up & the whole consumer engine is fucked.

SOPA should be passed & those with illegal content, not of their own, or those that have edited content, should be worried

I drew a goat