Slashdot Mirror
Net Companies Consider the "Nuclear Option" To Combat SOPA
Atypical Geek writes "Alec Liu of Fox News reports that Amazon, Facebook and Google are considering a coordinated blackout of the internet to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act being debated in Congress. From the article: 'Such a move is drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.
With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry's top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option." "When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA," Declan McCullagh wrote, "you'll know they're finally serious."'"
You want panic? That'll be panic the likes of which you've never seen.
Have gnu, will travel.
... and do it. Either you have a backbone or you don't. Pick a day, middle of the week, say Jan 12th, and just do it. Announce you're doing it, and watch the others fall in line. True leadership doesn't wait.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
What's interesting is that despite their size and financial power, the technology companies are very poorly organised and do very little lobbying when you compare them to the media companies. Which is why we get such horribly lopsided legislation such as SOPA.
If the tech. companies actually got themselves organised in Washington instead of pulling silly stunts, they might actually find they can get a lot more done.
A simple splash screen is fine.
Except that, once SOPA is enacted, you will be greeted with a 404 when you try to login to your favourite site...forever.
The point being that once SOPA is enacted, everybody becomes hostage.
cheers,
And that attitude is why we are in this mess in the first place. You are all for it, as long as you are not inconvenienced.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yes, exactly! Getting the people involved is NOT the solution! The real solution is that they just have to offer a bigger bribe than the media companies!
I actually like that name. It certainly reflects the wishes of the politicians better.
They should start by targeting the entire U.S. and other "pro-SOPA" countries and leave the other countries alone. Why punish people all over the world just because a small minority of people in the U.S. are corrupt douchebag cockheads?
Targeting only D.C. isn't going to do much...the vast majority of the people, particularly legislators, that are supporting this legislation hardly even use the web.
You must be new here, just last year we wrote the copyright legislation for Spain and New Zealand, and shoved it down their throats (they passed it, grudgingly). We've twisted China's arm about movie piracy in the past, and plenty of other countries as well. We're terrible about installing dictators in countries, but we're really good at writing laws and making them law in other countries. What copyright law passes here in our bellwether country becomes law in 20-70% of the rest of the world.
moox. for a new generation.
Nope. That doesn't mean rattling your sabers didn't have an effect. Nobody launched a single nuke during the Cold War, but both the explicit and implicit threats obviously had a huge effect. They don't really want to go nuclear any more than anyone wanted WWIII.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You are confused. The fact that corporations do write legislation tailored to their needs is an obvious sign that the government is corrupt. Yet, having corporations react to the legislation that corrupt representatives are forcing onto a country is hardly any reason to worry about. You may complain that these companies are actively engaged in the democratic process, but this is the very definition of activism, which is supposed to be one of those inalienable rights which, when expressed, represent what a democratic system is all about.
So, why exactly do you believe that activism is somehow worse than having corrupt politicians act as the lap dog of other corporations and special interest groups?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Because
A) These are American-based companies and will have to follow SOPA even in their overseas operations.
B) Once SOPA passes in the US, the copyright industry will immediately move to have it implemented in Europe in the name of harmonizing. And the European corrupt douchebag cockheads will go for it. The rest of the world will follow, because no country has any shortage of corrupt douchebag cockheads.
>Ah, more fearmongering. No, my personal site will never be affected by SOPA because I generate all its content myself. My own photography, videos, thoughts and data feeds.
Someone, maybe me, maybe someone else accuses you of infringing, whether true or not. Your upstream gets 100 percent protection from liability if they cut you off and none if they don't, because that's how "good faith" is defined in the bill.
And I, as the accuser, do not suffer any consequences for false accusation.
Guess what happens to your site.
Go ahead, guess.
--
BMO
because I generate all its content myself. My own photography, videos, thoughts and data feeds.
Prove it. Prove that it isn't owned by someone else. Then take that evidence proving a negative to a court, fight the district attorney, convince a judge that your personal site was wrongfully blocked. And then your site will be unblocked.
Until they do it again.
(Also, the parent said "favorite sites", not "personal site". With SOPA, the DA, at the behest of content owners, could block any site that they deem is infringing their copyrights or is aiding infringement. Like if Slashdot linked to a site that explained how to bypass SOPA blocks.)
I hope they do and I hope you are right. Nothing could be better for the future of our country than for the impressionable youth to realize that their freedoms and access are protected only at the whim of corporate policy and fickle government oversight. I could actually hope the coming years would reflect the will of the people if the youth of today were sufficiently shocked.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
Better watch out. Your camera manufacturer may change the EULA on the software your camera runs, claiming copyright on all photographs taken with the camera that you are granted license to use (you didn't really think that you OWN the camera, did you? No no silly boy, you merely bought a license to use it! All you base are belong to us!), therefore anything you post online is an infringement on THEIR copyright. Don't worry, I'm sure they'll let you off with a warning -- and a royalty fee for every photo you post on your website. Oh, and you website hosting company may change their EULA to claim copyright on all content they're hosting -- merely to protect YOU, of course -- so don't go thinking you own any of that, either. As if you ever did: The EULA on the software you used to create your site? Same deal: they change the EULA, and viola! Nothing you create with it is really yours, you just have a limited license to it, revokable more or less any time they decide you did, and unless you have a zillion dollars to pay a lawyer to fight it, you're screwed. And so on, and so on. Welcome to the world of SOPA: You own NOTHING.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Yes, and the harmonization process involves negotiating treaty consent in a closed process, then bringing it back and claiming in the face of democratic opposition "we've already promised this" without any democratic consent in the first place.
I wouldn't complain about my life suffering a DOS day for these companies to band together and make a point.