SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act

[les]

Click Me to find out All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet

How Does SOPA Work, and Why Should I Care?

The idea behind SOPA sounds reasonable. It came about in order to try to snuff out piracy online, as the entertainment industry is obviously not excited about the many people downloading their product without their permission. The issue is, however, that it doesn't really matter whether you're in support of piracy, against it, or just don't care. SOPA makes it possible for companies to block the domain names of web sites that are simple capable of, or seem to encourage copyright infringement.

[aldorax]

As someone who works & teaches in this space, I will be the first to say this is an absolute disaster of a proposed law that was designed pretty much by and for the entertainment industry so it can try and save what's left of its Industrial Age business model in the Internet Age. Nevermind the fact that it DOES 'break' the Internet and many of its provisions are so broad that it's almost guaranteed that many innocent users will be caught-up in its accusatory provisions.

Of course, Congress has no f---king clue about the Internet or how it works, and yet they're trying to regulate it to appease their deep-pocketed contributers....er, owners. Moreover, the 'metrics' that are cited as evidence of rampant piracy have been proven completely false time and again, yet Congress keeps believing them when presented by the entertainment industry cartels during hearings. Is piracy a problem? Sure -- but this is the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to kill a fly buzzing around in a china shop.

I would say more but I've been talking/tweeting about it all day and frankly need a break.

[SissyTashi]

This law is a direct and total attack on Net Neutrality and is the biggest threat to the founding ideal of the Internet; open, free, and honest exchange of ideas.

I can understand wanting to keep piracy down, I do. But the impetus comes not from ARTISTS, who the studio system constant fucks, but from the STUDIO, who wants to protect profits, not ideas.

[Tury]

I find myself in a weird position on this one. I am perpetually poor with a relatively short attention span and am easily bored. (in other words a college student) So piracy is a very tempting option for me. And while I admit to nothing, I can see how many in my position would turn to piracy instead of paying for expensive things. Yet I also understand the amount of work that goes into the entertainment industry.

Much as I want to see this fail, I don't have much of a problem with what they are trying to do. Can't imagine it will take long for the internet to find a way around the blocks if it does go through...

We'll see.

[bobroberts]

is this how michelle bachmann is going to keep us chaste?

[aldorax]

The spirit of the law I'm okay with -- it's the proposed implementation and blatant one-sided nature of public 'discussions' (favouring large industry cartels) that incenses me along with the utter ignorance of Congresscritters in trying to legislate something they know absolutely nothing about except what their lobbyist masters tell them is 'fact.'

Interestingly late yesterday afternoon after the hearings ended, Rep Issa (R-CA) told Politico.Com that he thought the bill was 'extreme' and 'didn't stand a chance' of passing a vote in the House once his colleagues saw how 'extreme' it was ... and the 'unintended consequences' it would cause. (I guess there was a hint of a snowflake or two falling in hell after he said that.)

That said, for what it's worth noting, apart from the very interesting union of competing companies protesting, according to torrentfreak, yesterday --

Every hour more than 23,000 emails are sent to Congress via the American Censorship campaign.

Tumblr users are sending 3.6 calls per second.

“Stop Online Piracy Act” is trending on Twitter.

... plus over 25K signatories at a White House petition to block SOPA, and a similar amount from other petitions from various organisations.

(Disclosure: I'm registered independent, and presently think both US political partiies are equally f--ked up. Just so you know where I stand on the political spectrum when talking about political stuff)

[janmb]

There is absolutely no aspect of this which is even remotely OK.

- Forcing search engines to exclude certain sites is blatant cencorship (which is unacceptable in all forms regardless of purpose)

- Removing registered domain names from the NIC/ICANN directories is equally unacceptable. Someone has paid and has rightful ownership to the names. Not to mention that the majority of sites in the world is not registered in the US and thus should of course in no way answer to US laws.

[les]

[Goddess Josephine]

I don't believe in any type of censorship nor copyright infringement. If this is allowed to happen, SOPA, what next? I think the government will continue to infringe on our privacy.

[les]

And now the USA does not need SOPA


A Sheffield student can be extradited to the US to face copyright infringement allegations, a judge has ruled.



click here

[Banquo]

Crazy stuff Les, that the US can have such control of British citezens worries me, do our government do anything to stop this lunacy? no they roll over like a good little puppy.

[eric]

The white house has officially come out against SOPA, so there is a good chance that it would get a veto or maybe passed with some bullshit about not enforcing. One of the drafters has proposed a rider to the bill that basically says ~"we do not know how this will affect things, so lets go ahead and pass the bill now and study the potential side effects at a later time before enacting"; hahaha no thank you.

But, SOPA is looking more and more like it is a smoke screen, where they will kill it and while we all celebrate they will rush PIPA through both houses. And PIPA pretty much says the same thing as SOPA, so when you call/write/email your congress person please mention both.

[dix]

Geneva UCC Agreement plus Extradition Act 2003 = He's screwd

More like the weak British government act. This kind of crap make me embarrassed to be British.

If you go on You Tube and find a video called "Stop SOPA Now" by Michael Mozart, you can see some very interesting facts about the companies who are pushing for SOPA and how they pretty much aided piracy in the past.

Dix.

[les]

Just a thought,




We already do have our own Pippa.

[dix]

The Protect IP Act is scheduled to go before the Senate on January 24, 2012. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he plans to bring it up on the first day the Senate is back in session.

Harry Reid's political positions in the past:
- In favor of the invasion in Iraq.
- Against peaceful negotiations between Israel and Palestine.
- Against abortions.
- Against same-sex marriage.
- Against legal prostitution in Nevada.
- Against legalization of online poker (but then he changed his mind when the Las Vegas casinos founded his re-election campaign).

And the list goes on...

Why do the Americans keep voting for this moron?

I'm actually impressed how someone like this can even get into politics in this day and age. Guess we've still got a long way to go.

Dix.