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Are SOPA Sponsors Violating SOPA Rules? Not So Fast, Says Ars Technica
TheNextCorner writes "Remember how the Stop Online Piracy Act would make streaming of copyrighted material a felony? Many of these lawmakers actually stream copyrighted videos on their websites." However, that's not the whole story. according to a followup at Ars Technica to the tweeted claims about streaming and SOPA. From which:
"The Electronic Frontier Foundation tweeted the post, and it was re-tweeted more than 100 times. So are the sponsors of SOPA hypocrites? We're not fans of SOPA, so we'd love to have this story check out. But we're also a news site, so we contacted James Grimmelmann, a copyright scholar at New York Law School, (and judging from his tweets, not a SOPA supporter) to get his expert opinion."
The core issue is how SOPA changes the liability structure to permit endless copyright troll lawsuits. It doesn't matter if your users are or aren't infringing if copyright holders can sue you endlessly regardless.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Go on america; keep on going, keep listening to the 1 % to try to get the rest of the world to do your bidding..
This is one of many steps that have been taken to make the USA look silly & this will only be one more step towards the downfall of the usa..
I used to be a big fan of the country; but i'm getting more & more convinced that the usa is nuts... & getting more & more so :)
in 10 years the usa will be disconnected from the internet.. at least; the free internet the rest of the world will enjoy.
No, it is a valid argument in this case. If they're arguing for more protection of their IP, then they have to explain why it is that they should get protection and other people shouldn't get protection. That sort of logical inconsistency is definitely fair game considering that the industry is trading on its "integrity" and harm being done to it to try to push SOPA through.
I have been so opposed to SOPA due to the shift in who has to scan and check.
The content companies got what they wanted with the DMCA.
They then found out it was to much of a problem for them to check.
Bad enough they did not know what others inside the same content holder were doing. (VIACOM v GOOGLE)
Now they want to shift the responsibility over to the internet operators, eliminate safe harbor.
In addition this gives the government even broader powers to shut down "infringing" internet sites, remove or change DNS.
Some of these are legal in the country that the sites operate in.
The US/Content companies are yet again trying impose there will on the rest of the world.
Now several prominent members of congress have come out against it.
This includes the former speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi.
Hopefully enough of them will realize this is bullshit and come to there senses.
I doubt it, but there is always hope.
Does anyone have a list of the tards that have come out in favor of the bill so far?
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
quotes are beyond your comprehension apparently.
And while this is happening, media will be blowing up a big "fight" between Mitt and Obama, as if either of them would stop the rape on your (and the rest of the world's) basic human rights.
Expect Congress to exempt themselves from SOPA, just as they did with insider trading laws. In fact if they realize they could be charged for streaming those videos they may just exempt themselves from having to pay to use copy-written material for political uses at all. Certainly enough of them have been caught using material without the author's permission to make them think about it and this would solve that little issue.
Users should be responsible for their own actions, not the enabling institution or service. Installing a gatekeeper on sites like Youtube totally ruins the exchange that happens on there every single day, connecting countless people together without restraint. And what about all of the videos that are already uploaded? Do they have to sift through every single video to make sure it's 'kosher'?
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments. - Nietzche
According to the Fifth Amendment, no person (which includes corporations) can be deprived of "life, liberty, or property" without being convicted ina court of law.
Oh, wait, I forgot that the Constitution, which used to be the supreme law of the land and could only be superceded by a 2/3 majority vote by the states, is just a goddamn piece of paper.
As you were.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The lawyer says it's not a problem because the representatives are "unlikely to be willful infringers". They're public officials and everyone knows them. Therefore, no one is really going to take an infringement case against them seriously.
But what about the rest of us? What about some random kid posting the same sorts of videos to YouTube? Will there be anyone to say he's unlikely to be a willful infringer as well? Or will he just get sued straight away? Maybe he could hire an attorney, go to court, and spend months or years trying to prove he had a good-faith belief his actions weren't infringing. Or maybe he'll be scared into settling by some troll looking to extort money.
Bullshit. The observation that the speaker is being hypocritical is completely germane to the argument as the speaker in this case is trading on his position in order to advance his line of reasoning. Not all Ad Hominem Tu Quoque attacks constitute a logical fallacy and this would be one of those times. It is very much relevant to the process of debunking his argument to point out that there's an apparent logical inconsistency being presented. The speaker has the burden of proof in this case and would have to demonstrate that the apparent inconsistency isn't inconsistent.
Now, had the hypocrisy not involved such an important facet of the argument I would tend to agree, but as is it deeply undermines the view that they should be allowed to enforce as they see fit as they can't even agree upon a definition
Site is broken with firefox (blank window) but works in IE9.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
There are a lot of musicians at OWS camps, and it's a large gathering so somebody will be having a birthday every day. They should pull them up on stage (or in front of the mic) and lead the entire camp in a "public performance" of Happy Birthday to You.
The fact that the the ones proposing the law are idiots is worth pointing out, but it does not mean the law itself is bad.
Good laws passed by idiots? That happens how often? Giving them the benefit of the doubt and calling them idiots is naive. We seldom get bad laws passed by idiots, mostly it it is bad laws passed by self-serving greedy lying bastards.
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
The authors of SOPA are not hypocrites. Hypocrisy connotes understanding of the issue and the representatives who allowed this piece of legislation to be crafted for them lack even the terminology to enter into meaningful conversation about issues such as DNS Security, Website Poisoning, and other salient factors affected by the law. To use Wolfgang Pauli's aphorism as a metaphor, this piece of legislation is so bad it's not only not right, it's "not even wrong".
Why is anyone asking a copyright professor about a criminal statute? His analysis is fundamentally flawed: By way of analogy, in order to be guilty of a criminal trespass you need only willfully (i.e. intentionally, volitionally) take a step that lands you on anothers property after being told not to or on property marked "no trespass." Thus, If you intentionally step on what you believe to be your land, but mistakenly cross onto anothers land after being told not to, you are guilty. The willfulness element goes to whether you willfully took the step not to whether you willfully intended without permission to trespass on another's land. Thus, since SOPA is a proposed criminal statute, the canons of construction that are brought to bear upon criminal statutes are what will likely be controlling in interpreting SOPA. It is highly likely that you will have comitted the crime by willfully streaming video that happens to be infringing rather than the prosecutor having to prove you willfully intended to stream infgringing content.
Claiming that they are infringing unknowingly is a nice idea, except for the fact that these guys ARE SPONSORING THE VERY LAW WHICH THEY ARE BREAKING. To claim that they are breaking the law unknowingly is claiming that they don't understand the law they are passing. This is a far more frightening prospect.
Also, what sort of law includes ignorance as an excuse for breaking it?
or else!
The use of undefined words in legalspeak is a neat trick so they can tweak the law every time to suit their needs.
David Byrne won a wonderful settlement against a prominent politician recently for using a Talking Heads song for his campaign.
Sure, Byrne has more money than God, but I think we can get people to take notice.
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