General Chat / SOPA Topic

I'll keep it short. In a very short time space a certain bill is being set out to get passed in the US congres. It's called the 'Stop Online Piracy Act' or SOPA for short. The very nature of this law is frightening because it undermines the entire foundations of the internet as we know it.
While it meant to stop piracy the real thing it does is provide legal measures for big companies to censor the internet and eliminate freedom of speech.

What it comes down to is that sites as youtube could be taken down entirely and sueed because ONE! user posted a video with copyrighted material. This affects any site which allows user to post anything. Sites could be taken down because they 'could' be used to spread copyrighted content.

Some people might think that because they don't live in the US they aren't affected by it... think again. A lot of the internet is controlled from the US. Anything with a .com . net. org and more are affected by it.

If you followed the entertainment industry lately you know they'll abuse these new powers to the max to eliminate any innovation and threats to them. Also don't think I'm overreacting, this is something very real and it is happening right now.

For more information see the links (and links they have) below as they explain it better than I can and why I should be stopped:

http://www.youtube.c...e1dFAAAAAAAAAAA
http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/

this has been a big deal. it makes my blood boil that those baggy old shiteaters at congress who them themselves have admitted to knowing fuck all about the internet can vote to support this bullshit. utterly stupid.

Congress is an abomination and can't even make decisions about major US issues, let alone a ridiculous bill that would most definitely be 86'd by the Supreme Court as soon as the last yea or nay is counted. Don't look for this to go very far at all.

Just wondering, I have known about this for a while already though, would this affect NE too?

^Well JoeZia bundled two songs with a park once... and I'm sure that Escher Island or whatever may have violated something...

Just wondering, I have known about this for a while already though, would this affect NE too?

Yes, hell yes. The problem is pretty much all sites have 'copyrighted' content. Just take a simple look at this forum page. How many of the avatars you see on this page that are technically copyrighted, the answer is obvious. Now you might think they are not gonna enforce that, because in reality that is not likely they would do that... well atleast not because of the avatar. The problem is if there is something on the site that has critizes a company or does something with else legally what the other companies don't like, they can shut down the whole site on the basis there is a copyrighted image on the site. THAT's the problem.
Technically taking a screenshot of rct and posting it on a forum is already a copyrighted image. Just think about that for a moment. Also while the current owners of NE are not living in the US it is a .com site which means it falls under US legalisation (dunno if the server is also, but according to this is enough).

Now say a new anticipated game gets reviewed by several gamesites. The sites which get their copies early are the one that have been carefully selected, maybe even bribed and generate good reviews so they can sell their product.
Now the game is released and for the sake of argument the game is garbage and several gamesite buy the game, review it as it is and put it on their site with screenshot/videos. On basis of that they can nuke that damn site because they 'infringe' on copyright. You may think this is a bit farfetched, but in reality these kind of dirty tactics are deployed in the corporate world on daily basis, so don't think this can't or won't happen.

This has nothing to do with combatting piracy because that will remain to exist anyway. This is purely censorship based upon getting the internet controlled by big corporations so they can forcefeed you anything you want and weed out any possible competition and threats to their dying business model. This has all to do with greed.
This isn't much different from the Great Firewall of China.

Sammy you always have such strong opinions about stuff you know nothing about, it's kind of ridiculous how little faith you guys have in our government. tyandor, this might sound like a serious threat on paper, but like John said I wouldn't be too worried about this and it most likely won't make it too far/last too long/have the same results that you fear

The system of checks and balances is a little bit more complicated than this, and if Obama does end up letting this pass everyone who supported and voted for him can blame themselves

This isn't much different from the Great Firewall of China.

The fact that you believe this just completely negates everything you said before it. Are you seriously making that comparison?!?

This is ridiculous. I agree about the Great Firewall of China

There's been laws against the pirate bay for quite a while now. Still haven't managed to get it down have they? My point is, literal law and what is practically enforceable are two wildly different things.

Sammy you always have such strong opinions about stuff you know nothing about, it's kind of ridiculous how little faith you guys have in our government. tyandor, this might sound like a serious threat on paper, but like John said I wouldn't be too worried about this and it most likely won't make it too far/last too long/have the same results that you fear

The system of checks and balances is a little bit more complicated than this, and if Obama does end up letting this pass everyone who supported and voted for him can blame themselves

The fact that you believe this just completely negates everything you said before it. Are you seriously making that comparison?!?

You have faith in our Government?

The fact that you believe this just completely negates everything you said before it. Are you seriously making that comparison?!?

Because it's a valid comparison as it does essentially the same thing. The only 'difference' is that china it's the actual government doing it to keep it's people under control and in this systems the corporations are doing that. And even then it isn't much of a difference because the US congress is pretty much under control of corporate America. You know that as well as I do. Their lobbies are very influential and the fact a lot more proponents were invited to share their view with the congress than opponents should give a hint. This is also going a lot longer then recently. It just goes in little steps to keep below radar as much as possible.
Something simalar is going to the EU currently called ACTA. Until it was leaked the contents of that piece of garbage was kept secret from the public so nobody could launch a fucking counter assault on it to torpedo it to the depths were it belongs.

And for it not happening, it already did and the worst part is the act makes it legal to do so:

http://torrentfreak....e-label-111210/

There's been laws against the pirate bay for quite a while now. Still haven't managed to get it down have they? My point is, literal law and what is practically enforceable are two wildly different things.

If you read what I wrote correctly you would have seen that this law has very little to do actual piracy, that's just the diguise to get it through congres, because the entertainment industry knows full well it's not gonna have a huge impact on piracy. Also you have to realize the enforcement isn't really done by the goverment. A site can be taken down without a court order and the ISP will do it because they will be held accountable unless facing prosecution for aiding in piracy. This act makes the site owners responsible for what it's users posted. It's like making a train company responsible for drug trafficing because someone on their train has heroin in his/her backpack.

Sammy you always have such strong opinions about stuff you know nothing about,

Sweet, sweet irony.

literal law and what is practically enforceable are two wildly different things.

I think deano summed it up best here. The video on the link Tyandor posted said that users could face 5 years in jail for copyright violations. I find it highly unlikely with the billions of people connected to the internet that that law could possibly be enforced. And even so, that would put a huge number of people under arrest. HUGE. It's just not rational to think that this can be enforced.

To be completely honest on this, the counterargument to the bill sounds much like a slippery slope type of fallacy: the US government is taking charge to provide the entertainment industry more control over the vast piracy on the internet, therefore nobody on Facebook can make any pop culture references without imprisonment. Maintain some semblance of level-headedness in your opposition.

That's not to say I agree with the act. I very much believe it is a fruitless endeavor, one that will cause little satisfaction for any particular group.

^^What's the irony?

tyandor, what do you mean it already happened? As far as I've seen it's being voted on early this week by Congress, and then it would have to be approved by Obama

What it comes down to is that sites as youtube could be taken down entirely and sueed because ONE! user posted a video with copyrighted material

And for it not happening, it already did and the worst part is the act makes it legal to do so:

http://torrentfreak....e-label-111210/

To say that sites like Youtube will be shut down because one person violates the terms and conditions is ridiculous. And I think I'll live without things like MegaUpload videos being allowed on YouTube. Like are you seriously using that as a 'worst part'? So the worst part of this bill possibly being passed is that some things on youtube might get taken down?


Also, where does greed come into play here? Do the congressman think they're gonna automatically get reelected if they vote for this or something, so they're just voting on it in hopes of personal gain. And this bill clearly isn't disguising anything, because if it's been brought to your attention what this could lead to you better believe it's been brought to the attention of congress

I'm still just gonna ignore the whole Firewall comparison because that's ridiculous

^^What's the irony?

tyandor, what do you mean it already happened? As far as I've seen it's being voted on early this week by Congress, and then it would have to be approved by Obama

To say that sites like Youtube will be shut down because one person violates the terms and conditions is ridiculous. And I think I'll live without things like MegaUpload videos being allowed on YouTube. Like are you seriously uing that as a 'worst part'? So the worst part of this bill possibly being passed is that some things on youtube might get taken down?

I don't know if you have been following the entertainment industry the last few years, but they are pretty much trying every extreme measure they can use to save their dying business model. The industry uses tactics which are quite similar of mafia tactics. For instance a lot of alleged downloaders get letters which tells them to pay up and settle for several thousand dollars or face court and get sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is even before is proven if the person in question is guilty or not. Most people just pay the settlement because they simply cannot pay for the legal support. We're are talking about a few mp3's with an actual value of a few dollars here. The message is simple: pay or we'll ruin the rest of your life. I don't know about you but that does sounds an awful lot like extorsion to me. It's a scare tactic. This is just one of many examples.

If you watched the two videos in my first post one will tell you why they'll let youtube probably slide as much as possible because that would create quite an uproar. The entertainment industry already has a very tense relationship with Youtube. The megaupload video was taken down to censorship it and here comes the kicker: they claim they have the right to remove any video of youtube because they have a 'deal' with them. This is regardless of whether the video infringes their copyright or not which this video didn't. The video in question was a protest from artist, writers etc. against the industry and to voice the opinion that the industry needs to change.

Now while it's unlikely that Youtube for instance will feel it directly it will feel the influence after a while. The bigger companies like Google (which owns youtube) might be able to 86 this act in court as John stated. Google and pretty much anyone with certain knowledge of the internet knows what this act means and are fighting it with everything they can.
But as I said, the bigger companies might oppose it, but what about the new companies who instead of clinging to old not working models but are trying to innovate and create new things like the new youtube, facebook or whatever. They don't have the power to fight that. I sets a brake on innovation and progress as they will be shutdown because they are a threat to the existing big four. This creates a monopoly and kills the idea behind a free market economy.

These companies can sue me ... wouldn't be worth there time or money, I cant understand these companies, surely its better to have thousands of sites showing of their products rather than having a select few. Basically they are going to try and get their cake and eat it by saying you can only say good things about our product and if you say bad things or portray us in a bad way we will sue you. It wont work in their favour.

Tyandor, my point had nothing to do with piracy at all. Tell me why a non US ISP would respect and enforce this law? The pirate bay is obviously an illegal site - now - but its still online.

^ThePirateBay can't be legally banned because it's action are legal within sweden (or norway, or finland). Since THEIR site is airing from THEIR country they are under THEIR law and since piracy isn't forbidden in their country, the piratebay can get away with it. I'm not sure what their law exactly states but they get away with it every time.

Still interested?
Read this:
http://thepiratebay.org/legal

Yes that's exactly my point. Just host new element and every other site in sweden. Problem sorted. And the US hosting industry collapses. Oops congress.

It's not about just were you are hosting your site Deano. The blockade that is instituted is on a DNS basis (which actually makes it relatively easy to circumvent). Every computer/server has a numerical adress you all know as an IP-adress. Because no one can find a site which adress just consist out of a number the DNS system exists to allow the use of typing the site adresses as a name instead of a number (www.nedesigns.com also has a number for an adress).
The main company that creates TLDs (TLD are the things like .com .net .etc) is ICANN which is an American company.
Most TLDs are registred by an American registrar (Verisign does .com for instance). They all fall under american juristiction.
What this atleast means is that you can't access blocked sites in the US anymore unless you know the numerical adress. But it also can mean that sites can be made very to find outside of the US if they use any of the American registered TLDs.