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."'"
...not among politicians, but among all the kiddies who can not communicate anymore but via Facebook. Under-18 Doomsday guaranteed.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Let people access facebook, etc, but only in a tiny little window. Have the rest black with a message "Call your politician right now to remove this".
You want panic? That'll be panic the likes of which you've never seen.
Have gnu, will travel.
"Alec Liu of Fox News reports that Amazon, Facebook and Google are considering a coordinated a coordinated blackout of the internet to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act ... *SNIP*
PIRACY act, it's the Stop Online PIRACY act. Talk about a grammar failure. /GrammarNazi.
Are you the same guy that keeps pointing out that Micro$oft is not actually spelled with a dollar sign?
... 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.
I would think Facebook could implement something geographically that based on what they know about you, tell you who to call to get your Facebook account restored and have it be the senators of the state you live in, and the house of representatives for your zip code.
That could be spectacular. I mean the phone systems would melt down. I find this idea rather funny.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
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.
I wonder if Google's anti censorship stance is what got them under the antitrust microscope in the first place?
Far easier to pass a bad law when you have your opponent by the balls.
When the politicians admit
a) they don't understand the tech
b) are willing to take the positions of the media companies that donate to them
So the US is led by ludites who have sold their favor to the corporations. And this (the US) is the self descibed "leader of the free world".
Where is the power of the people in this process? Where is the representation of the taxed?
Where is the educated and informed action that is supposed to happen in a democracy?
Do we need more proof we are living in a corporatocracy ?
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
What's the difference between Facebook, Google, et. al. taking themselves offline compared to the government doing it for them? From an end user's perspective, there is no difference.
This is the most idiotic thing I've heard anyone say in a while.
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.
I have to second what the AC said below. That is the most idiotic thing I've heard in a long time.
You're really asking us what the difference is between choosing not to say something or having your government making sure you don't say a given thing? If you are a US citizen AND you would say such a thing, I suggest you print out your Constitution and Declaration of Independence and henceforth use it to wipe your ass with.
Wow.
I'm not "oh shit"-ing because there might be a global demonstration against what the US government is attempting to do. I'm "oh shit"-ing because many businesses are willing to interrupt their business to get notice and make a stand. Of course, this is so they can preserve what they have now, but this is also "oh shit" because they are seeing the future beyond tomorrow or the next quarter.
It's getting serious.
>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
Fearmongering?
Let's suppose someone from Time-Warner decides that "your own photography" resembles theirs? "your own videos" resemble theirs (how could *anyone* possibly have the same or similar ideas as anyone else?)
Once *someone-with-more-pull ($$)* than you decides that you're infringing on their widespread copyright/trademarks/patents, you're doomed.
You may feel that you're immune, but you won't be; there simply aren't enough checks and balances to ensure you're immune. The dollars win every time.
cheers,
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.)
It should be called SOAA - Stop Online Activity Act, because that's the real agenda here. Companies that failed to adapt to a changed market and blaming the internet for their failures and want it banned.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
You can't combat piracy. Externalities are a cost of doing business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding him/herself.
There's exactly one way to maximize profit, and that is to deliver a product that people are willing to pay for at a price that they are willing to pay. The pirates were never your customers and never will be, and the sooner the companies accept that and focus on the real problems (massively overpricing everything when first released, delivering products that can't easily be moved between devices because of the restrictive/broken DRM, and the declining quality of entertainment products in general), they'll have better profits. That's not what SOPA/PIPA and similar legislation are about, however. They're about eliminating legitimate lower-cost competition.
What scares the industry most is that these days, any jackass in his home could make a movie of comparable quality to most of the non-SFX Hollywood films. Moderately high-end HD cams cost a couple of grand or three—well within the price range of most people if they are willing to save up for a bit. You can buy halogen lights at Home Depot for fifty bucks, then rebuild the reflectors yourself and build your own barn doors for just about nothing. And there are millions of people out there who can act, not just a few dozen in Hollyweird, so there's no shortage of available talent.
In effect, this means that commercial movies are too expensive by about a factor of a thousand. But instead of finding ways to take advantage of new technologies to cut their production and distribution costs, they are instead focusing on destroying new means of distribution to prevent competition. You see, YouTube is in a great position to deliver paid content from independent producers to consumers. The studios know this, and they know that if the Internet turns into anything approaching a free market, they're basically out of business. For this reason, they do everything within their power to kill such sites—not because they can be used to pirate Hollywood movies, but because they can be used to sell non-Hollywood movies without having to spend millions of dollars in infrastructure. That ability of the general public to do what the major studios do is the greatest threat to their power.
Game studios are similar. There's no reason why people who want to write games should go work for one of those sweatshops, working unholy hours for terrible pay. You can go off on your own and work with a handful of people and write a great game, sell it, and make a fair amount of money. If everyone did this, the sweatshop game studios of the world would collapse, and the Internet makes that not only possible, but downright easy. They know this, and it terrifies them. So they do what they can to create liability for any ISP that might dare to distribute software, thus discouraging the practice.
And so on. It's not about piracy. It's about control. They want to control the entire content production industry, and our Congresspeople are almost all too fucking stupid to realize that these laws only serve to turn the big studios into a state-protected oligopoly and thwart small businesses' attempts to compete. And this is why we don't have jobs in this country.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Simple: Each one of the major players, put up a black splash page with info about SOPA and WHAT to do about it... That's all, No Google searches, no Facebook statuses, No buying on Amazon/eBay. If you go to one of these sites ALL you get is the black splash page... EasyPeasy...
THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
It is very apt that they're referring to it as a nuclear option, because it harms much more than just the intended target. Every visitor to a site with blackout boxes or censorship warnings will consider for a moment what their other options are. This action would be to inform people of something they probably don't realize they care about. It will cost the participants real money as customers switch to alternatives and even those who don't switch will be a little more aware that they need alternatives.
There will be fallout.
You fear corporate action to influence behavior? Many people seem to think that they have a right to the services provided, rather than realizing it can be revoked or changed at whim, and I welcome the education of the masses.
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.
They came after his planet ... and he started working to find a solution.
Then they came after his child.
Nobody comes after his child.
GORE
Summer, 2012.