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SOPA and PIPA So Far
Since their inception SOPA and PIPA have raised concerns about blacklisting from online freedom advocates, and tech industry giants. Law professors worry that they could stifle growth and innovation. Other's have warned that the legislation would hurt scientific debate and open discourse on the internet. SOPA and PIPA are not without support however. In fact a wide variety of companies have backed the proposed laws, bringing together an eclectic group. After months of debate, the removal of one of the more controversial provisions, and The White House expressing its own concerns over the law in its current form, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that he was shelving SOPA. PIPA however remains, and it is likely that a re-worked version of the House bill will be brought up soon.
Finally, slashdot chimes in on SOPA...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
as of yesterday SOPA was resurrected in the House
I am collecting screenshots of blacked-out sites today so we can have them all in one place. If you know of any other sites, please email them to me.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117902136861919925087/albums/5698963233208682849
Why isn't Slashdot blacking out? It is one of those sites that could be greatly effected by this bill. Besides I need to be more productive today. And most of the sites I visit are blacked out too.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It's going to resume in February. http://judiciary.house.gov/news/01172012.html
I mean seriously. There is a real reason why congress is less popular than things like Paris Hilton and Nixon. These guys are so far into the pockets of big business that they don't even have a minor inkling of what is best for the majority of America.
I got here through a series of tubes
[This comment was flagged for linking to copyright-sensitive content]
"Every 200 years there needs to be a revolution" - Thomas Jefferson
Came to mind when reading this...
If SOPA/PIPA dies in Congress, it is not because the people rose up to oppose the terrible legislation. It will die because enough corporations spoke up opposing it to outnumber the supporters.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Hollywood studios behind these bills are some of Obama's biggest contributors. His "expression of concern" is just a pathetic attempt to play both sides of the fence. He would as soon deliver a State of the Union speech in the nude than to veto one of these bills (or anything similar).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You're joking right? There's been a SOPA story on Slashdot atleast twice a week for the last few months..
Yeah, and I believe all from the readers. Slashdot has editors, paid staffers who ultimately decide what's posted (regardless of what the firehose says is the topmost story); there's no good reason they can't write an actual editorial or stage a protest when situations call for it.
Slashdot didn't participate in the blackout, and after multiple comments and submissions, including mine, criticizing them for being spineless punks...we get a massive pile of links spelling out a bald summary of the story so far. No opinion, no support for a cause in which they have a vested constitutional interest, nothing.
Either users submit the content and run the site, or the editor's actually have a purpose and they should show some balls. This awkward middle-ground where they never have an opinion and almost never come up with content - yet still hold final control over what stories go up and reword or cut down the summaries as they see fit - sometimes looks pretty pathetic. This is one of those times.
There is a real reason why congress is less popular than things like Paris Hilton and Nixon.
Could've fooled me. I mean, with a 95% reelection rate, I would say they're a pretty popular bunch
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
That's because every other congressman sucks, but mine. It's those other assholes that are bringing it down. /sarcasm
This is the 2nd Amendment issue of our age, and like the NRA we need to be eternally vigilant against never-ending attempts to restrict our rights.
Personally, I support the EFF as the equivalent of my NRA.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Wiki gives me a black SOPA page(people are saying noscript fixes this) and Reddit serves 2bil+ pages per month. ./ is only 40mil/month
I actually expected that, and warned of it in my own submission this morning. I think some people don't fully understand what 'tabled' means.
Eric Cantor is Speaker of the House, and he's the one who 'tabled' SOPA yesterday, according to the stories we've been reading. The Speaker controls the House by controlling the schedule. He decides what gets floor time, and if he refuses to schedule something for a vote it can't become law.
No bill is actually dead, however, until the legislative year is over. If a bill "died in committee", the committee could consider a new draft or change their minds outright; if it died because the Speaker wouldn't schedule it, he could come into work the very next day and say: "Hey, that thing I said we wouldn't vote on until my mother-in-law gave me a blowjob in the back seat of my Mercedes? Well, granny puckered up last night and it was reeaal nice, so everyone pick up your clickers and put in the old yay-or-nay on this bill!"
So when he supposedly shelved SOPA yesterday Cantor wasn't making some sort of vow or invoking a rule that destroyed the bill: congresspeople could still talk about it, continue to work on it, and continue rounding up votes for or against it. Apparently they did. He was still free to change his mind, and apparently he did. So at the moment it's been re-scheduled yet again for markup.
If you don't like a bit of legislation, do not rest until the session is over. That's the only time you can be sure that particular bill won't go through.
And when I say that particular bill I mean it specifically: it happens frequently that the same proposed law, sometimes word-for-word, comes up year after year after year, in bill after bill, until it finally gets through. It happened when North Carolina effectively banned municipal broadband this year; that was the third try for that one. There could be a second, third, fourth and fifth try for SOPA until Hollywood gets what they want. Pay attention and be vigilant. Their lawyers don't sleep, and neither can you if you want a free internet.
I see Facebook and Google made a MASSIVE effort to change to their homepages and educate people - especially in non US locations. Talk about a half baked attempt at a protest. Props to Reddit, Wikipedia, Wired et al. who actually went through with it - worldwide!
I'm getting the blackout page for any link to Wikipedia, except for links to the articles on SOPA and PIPA.
nil
Umm, no.
I was surprised to see this, so I did a quick test. Googled "Walt Whitman", first option offered was wikipedia.
Clicked on the link, saw Walt Whitman entry for a second or three, then it was replaced with wikipeida's blackout page, which bitches about SOPA and offers you a lookup for your congresscritter, in case you feel the urge to contact him/her/it.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Heh - "Shelved" - that's an awesome word.
"Look! It's on a shelf! Look again! We took it OFF the shelf!"
What were we thinking, that they threw it in a pit of flames and burned all the copies?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Write your senator and ask them to shut down the entertainment industry. I can't think of a reason not to? Half the stuff I wouldn't watch/listen to if it was free anyway.
And Fark, Reddit, and Wired are for digital neophytes who aren't well informed about the topic? Because they all participated to some degree, and if it's only a 'nuisance' for a place with informed readers to participate in a protest then the readers of those websites are either much stupider than ours or their editors much dumber than ours...
The point of the damn protests is to point out how inconvenient and destructive it would be for your favorite sites to disappear without notice thanks to the instant, warrantless takedowns that SOPA would enable. Leaving a major tech news site on-line, where all of their users can bitch and speculate about the protests rather than experience being cut off, actually kinda blunts the effectiveness.
Just because we get it in theory doesn't mean there's no value in solidarity or that it wouldn't be good for us to experience it firsthand for a frickin day as further impetus to prevent a future where we could experience it for a lifetime.
And ultimately, slashdot isn't that important.
I think this topic is so much more than just SOPA and PIPA, it's much more broad, it goes to the very question what is government for?
One cannot be pro-copyright and pro-patent and simultaneously be anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA without a serious case of hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.
You can't handle the truth.
Internet control by the MSM and Hollywood is going to happen. Maybe not this year. There will be a '9/11' like event or some other method but it will happen. Give it up geeks.
Of course, if you lived in the 14th district of Texas, that would actually be true.
Sent to Robert P. Casey, JR, Senator (D) from Pennsylvania:
"Big media may pay your bills, but your constituents elect you, sir. SOPA/PIPA does EVERYTHING for them and NOTHING for us. You should be ashamed of yourself for co-sponsoring PIPA. Please withdraw your support, immediately, and publicly."
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
Ah yes, I see it in konqueror or in FF if I allow wikimedia.org to run JS. I guess the folks that I set up noscript for will have to be manually informed.
No one else to vote in. They come in based on default.
The problem is our system determines the winner based on the most votes. If you got 1 vote and everyone else got 0, you win! Still doesn't mean the majority wants you in.
My specific concern is regarding data centers that utilize shared hosting. Most "Cloud Computing" organizations share IP addresses and DNS server addresses. If they were to block a DNS then not only would the site in question go down, so would all the other sites sharing that host DNS. This is terrible news for anyone who utilizes a colocation data center, as it puts the reliability of your site at risk - even if you aren't doing anything wrong.
Call your senators and representatives and tell them that SOPA is very, very bad. It MUST be stopped.
I called my senator. You should too.
Nah, My congressman blows as well. I've only ever voted for one person that got elected in my state and he only lasted on term. Stupid Red States.
I got here through a series of tubes
" *Law professors* worry that they could stifle growth and innovation" - how about everyone who knows anything about, well.... anything? (which obviously excludes the folks on capitol hill)
Even if SOPA/PIPA is defeated in congress in its current iteration, the media industry and its lobbying arm likely aren't going to worry in the least. Why? Because they have an ace in the hole: H.R 1981 - The Protect Children from Internet Pornographers (PCIP) Act of 2011. While still in committee since being introduced last summer, and containing questionable provisions about IP logging, It carries with it the same crew of supporters that are pushing the media industries' SOPA agenda. Chances are quite high that they will simply copy/paste SOPA's text onto it, thus giving it the "protecting children" shield from public scrutiny. Any opposition to it will easily be re-framed to wanting to "protect child pornogrophers". This will likely be the next battle and won't be easily won with blackouts and internet stunts. In fact, I'm not sure the public could handle the level of nuance that would be needed to explain why such a bill is dangerous.
So you made $1000 and 50000 people went to some effort to play for free. You say "just 1 dollar", but in many, if not most, parts of the world, a dollar is still a lot of money. If SOPA were in effect and effective, I guess you would have made $1200 (and I'm not clear how SOPA would have helped you).
Imagine you priced your game at 10 cents, and there was an easy and frictionless way to pay. I suspect at least half the freeloaders would rather pay than pirate, and you would have made $2500.
The underlying problem is that most copyrighted products are overvalued. When every man and his dog can write a game, make a video or a music recording, then supply exceeds demand and prices should drop.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Um, I mean, when was the time you COULD trust congress to do what's right? That hasn't been the case for as long as I remember, and probably before I was born as well. Congress simply DOES NOT WORK since corporations can lobby, and mass media can brainwash.
And this isn't just a problem with US congress. All democratic countries are going to hell fast, and have been since corporations & lobbying & mass media. Greed wins.
--Coder
I guess I'll post it in here too. A SOPA comic for your enjoyment.
Nice way to skirt around the issue.
Slashdot readers overwhelmingly don't want to discuss this issue; they just want to protest and protect their own interests. And oh, posters here are ingenious at constructing defensive commentaries and expostulating semantic arguments in their favor.
How is that any different from the big baddies in the movie and music industry?
Piracy is a real problem
[citation needed]
I find it interesting that people want to kill PIPA and SOPA, and not change it to allow protection against piracy while still allowing people freedom to use the web
We have already given copyright, patent, and trademark owners tremendous power to fight those who violate copyrights/etc. I think the better answer is to ask whether or not the current system is actually benefiting the American public. It may be time to develop a completely new system for improving the public's access to creative works.
I have a game on the Android market. It has sold around 1000 copies... (it cost just 1 dollar so it's not a matter of cost). Some russian guy cracked my game and by looking on download counters I can tell the game was already illegaly downloaded more than 50000 times.
No offense, but you need to find a better business model. Take a look at a security engineering text (I recommend Andersen's) for more information on why DRM will always fail you in the end. There is no such thing as a secure device in an insecure environment, and software DRM is even more vulnerable.
You will find no sympathy from me. If DRM+absurdly long copyrights+the DMCA+DHS hijacking DNS records+all the other things we are doing are not enough to keep your revenue stream flowing, then you need to find a different way to make money.
Palm trees and 8
I highly doubt that 50,000 people would have even heard of your game, much less downloaded it if it weren't available for free. In fact, some people may have wandered over and paid for a "real" version after trying it, assuming they liked it. I could just as easily assert that piracy HELPED you as not; you have no way of knowing, and breaking the internet is overkill for the problem. And you answered your own problem. Instead of reporting links, why don't you work on a new game? It's a much better ROI than hoping you somehow force people to buy your game by reporting links... I'm guessing that has gotten you very little gains.
"sometimes he felt that his whole life was a dream, and he wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."
In a somewhat serious answer to the OP rather than the snarky one that I gave. My two senators are Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk. While Durbin may be in bed with all of the special interests that plague Washington, he has actually done some good for someone that I know. His office help with some immigration issues that my friend was having with his fiancee. She was stopped at customs in O'Hare and was sent back to Poland immediately. My friend petitioned Durbin to help and he actually came through. His fiance was allowed into the country with his help.
Now while I am not in particular fond of congress in general, especially in regards to things like SOPA and PIPA, they do actually help the people they represent. In the case I illustrated above is a case where I don't mind them. Heck, stuff like that should be their primary goal.
Back to the intent of my original post, I was just commenting on why incumbency is so high. People always think that their representation is fine, but it's everyone else that sucks. But I am with you. In general I try to vote out incumbents. Otherwise they get too comfortable, and if they are there too long, they stop representing the people that elected them in because of this incumbency effect.
Hey, I am willing to discuss the issue -- the real issue, which is whether or not the benefit to the American public is being maximized by our current system. If we need to adopt the Chinese approach to the Internet just to keep the current system afloat then I think the answer is, "No, not even close."
We already have absurdly long copyright terms, the censorship of software that can be used to subvert DRM (and court-ordered censorship of magazines that dare to publish links to copies of that software), and a department of "homeland security" that hijacks DNS entries in the name of protecting copyrights and trademarks. All of that is not enough? If all that is not enough, then the system needs to be fundamentally redesigned. Copyrights/trademarks/patents/trade secrets are of much lower priority than the protection of American rights and freedoms.
Palm trees and 8
I hear lots of celebs use it
Korma: Good
SECOND post on Slashdot saying it is. Are there any fact checkers around? Anywhere? Can we get a CORRECTION this time?!
You should accept the following as true:
1. Piracy is bad.
2. Attempts to stop piracy will be mostly useless.
3. These attempts will cause more harm than the piracy that is prevented.
Look, I am sorry for someone whose work has been ripped off, but the hard reality is that the old paradigms no longer obtain.
See http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/01/18/0452238/cloud-computing-democratizes-digital-animation for a good example.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Piracy is a real problem
[citation needed]
Slashdot. No, I'm not trying to be funny. Read the articles and the extraordinary amount of self-justification and bragging from people who proudly proclaim their rationales.
No offense, but you need to find a better business model. Take a look at a security engineering text (I recommend Andersen's) for more information on why DRM will always fail you in the end. There is no such thing as a secure device in an insecure environment, and software DRM is even more vulnerable.
You will find no sympathy from me. If DRM+absurdly long copyrights+the DMCA+DHS hijacking DNS records+all the other things we are doing are not enough to keep your revenue stream flowing, then you need to find a different way to make money.
Better business model may eventually equate to a different way of making money may eventually equate to people just giving up and not producing. Pirates/downloaders will sneer and say one of two things: I'm exaggerating, or those who we lose won't matter. And yet look at how many utilities or applications come from tiny little companies or producers that grow into something huge, or never become a breakout hit but still hold a crucial place with their small but dedicated audience.
Sigh...but I'm preaching to the choir, so to speak. People here will never get it, not until they kill the goose that lays the proverbial golden egg and something important to them goes away. And then they'll still find a way to blame it on anyone but themselves.
Well.. I report links to file share sites with DMCA notices so they take the links down. I'm just blocking the pirates from making money with my game. This is how it works... the guy cracks a game and put on a file share site. He then earns from money files that are downloaded many times. Basically the guy spends 30 minutes to crack my game and earn money from my year long work. Also... I have charts showing selling reports by date. I can see a decrease after the game was made available online. And finally... I'm pretty sure I can go around this issue like a lot of people do. But this does not mean people should be able to share my work freely. I mean... if you could go not noticed would it be okay to steal food from a supermarket?
I never said it it would (the 50k would have been sales). My concern is that I made a game and although it does not mean it is giving me the revenue of 50000 apps sold it is giving some russian pirate guy the revenue of 50000 downloads. My work 1 year hard work is feeding a guy that probably spent an hour to crack the game. My point is piracy is real and although SOPA and PIPA are bad we need something else to fight it.
I can go with those three points - they make sense. I'd go with a 3a or a 4, as well - no matter what happens, something of value will be lost. And that relates directly back to point #1.
Look, I am sorry for someone whose work has been ripped off
At least you have some sense of moral outrage. The vast majority of posters seem not realize that there's anyone behind the work being pirated; it's much more convenient to ascribe everything to the faceless corporations.
Look you seem like a nice person but what I'm trying to say is that outside of very very draconian laws (and they would have to be worse than PIPA to actually "stop" the problem), you will ALWAYS have piracy. It's like having a business model that depends on sunshine and being really angry about it raining. There's nothing much to be done about it. Even if you break the internet, people can share on thumb drives! There will always be this drag on the system. I'm NOT pro-piracy, but I am pro-being-realistic. Go spend your time innovating and giving people a reason to buy.
"sometimes he felt that his whole life was a dream, and he wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."
Better business model may eventually equate to a different way of making money may eventually equate to people just giving up and not producing.
I doubt that anyone will give up. At one time there were no copyrights on music, yet people still sang songs and created music instruments. At one time there were no copyrights on written works, but people still wrote books, to the point where huge libraries could be filled. Immensely complex and useful software is released under the terms of the GPL and other free software licenses, which encourage people to make copies with or without payment.
It is not a question of whether or not people will do creative work, it is a question of whether or not we have a system that ensures the public has access to creative works (which means more than simply ensuring that creative work is done -- what use is a painting that remains locked in a cellar somewhere?).
And yet look at how many utilities or applications come from tiny little companies
Look at how many software utilities are being given away at no cost, and look at how this company has made its way to the S&P 500 list by monetizing GPL'd software:
http://www.redhat.com/
People here will never get it,
No, we "get it" just fine -- people like you want to make money by forbidding other people from using their computers / tape recorders / etc. in certain ways. At one time, that was nothing more than a regulation on industry, because nobody could make good copies of creative works without industrial equipment. Now everyone has the necessary equipment in their homes, but there is no way that an average American is going to take the time to ask whether or not they are violating a copyright or engaging in fair use, and it is absurd to think that a typical American will have the resources needed to dispute such things in court.
The point of SOPA is to attack, head-on, one of the greatest steps forward in communication in the history of the human race. Computers and the Internet are as important as writing and the printing press were. The Internet threatens the current distribution model and regulations, much in the same way that the printing press and the ability to write did, and just as happened then, people whose incomes depended on the previous distribution model found themselves facing the loss of their jobs.
At one time, laws, entertainment, and history were not written down, but passed down orally. Communities would have people whose job was to remember things and pass that knowledge on to future generations. One day, a new technology emerged: writing. Suddenly, instead of relying on people to remember laws and stories, societies were wage to record things. The old profession died, and new professions emerged: scribes and scholars. Had you been around back then, you would have been pushing for a law that restricted writing in order to protect your job as a storyteller, and you would have insisted that all the people who said that writing should not be restricted did not "get it."
Centuries after scribes established themselves as one of the most important classes in society, a new technology emerged that threatened their profession: printing presses. The same pattern emerged: scribes lost their jobs, and new professions developed. Had you lived back then, you would have demanded a law that restricted printing presses so that you could keep your job as a scribe.
So here we are, in the 21st century, and we see the same pattern once again. Centuries after the press became fundamental to society and we built laws and businesses around it, a new technology has emerged: computer networks. Now people do not need to wait for industrial printers to produce copies of books, they can just have a copy sent to them over a computer network. You do, in fact, live in this age, and you are pushing for la
Palm trees and 8
Ha! mine is Hank Johnson of "is Guam gonna capsize and sink?" fame.
BTW, this is the same district that's had Ben Jones (Cooter), Newt Gingrich, and my favorite, Cynthia McKinney
Got ya all beat.
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
Why should we feel sympathy for people whose business models failed to keep up to date with the modern world? Do you feel sympathy for stage coach drivers who lost their jobs thanks to railroads and automobiles? Do you feel sympathy for vacuum tube manufacturers?
People need to update their business models to cope with new technologies, plain and simple. It is absurd to expect a typical person to know or care about copyright law, and it is insane to introduce a censorship apparatus in America just to protect an old business model. If your business depends on people not using their own computers to do certain things then your business is basically doomed.
I guess I am expected to feel bad for the guy who spent late nights debugging his software only to see people download it without paying. Unfortunately for him, he made a risky business decision (basing his business on people not downloading software when software piracy has been a reality since the beginning of the PC age) which was practically guaranteed to backfire. Sometimes businesses just do not work -- why should we feel more sympathy for some classes of business than for others?
Palm trees and 8
"SOPA and PIPA so far" was posted around 6 hours after midnight PST, which is nine hours after the first websites went black, assuming it all started at EST.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
The outrage over these bills would not be nearly so great had the previous copyright extensions had not utterly eliminated works entering the public domain, and had the DMCA not been systematically abused against fair use. What we lack in the U.S. today is balance in how we treat intellectual property, especially copyrightable works. Restore the public domain and strengthen the rules governing fair use, and you can have fair IP protection. But I strongly believe that the need for PIPA and SOPA would disappear if we restored the public domain and fair use.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
The problem with this argument is that the examples you give are of technologies that were superceded by improved and new technologies. That's not the case here; the problem is business models that are failing because it's too easy to break the law.
I do feel sympathy for people whose role becomes an anachronism, but that's human empathy, and at a broader level I don't maintain that we should halt all progress. A more accurate analogy would be to ask if I feel sympathy for stage coach drivers who lost their jobs (or their life) because of highway robbery.
I get the same. I'm in Britain (i.e. non USA IP address) and the page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act works fine, others get the blackout page.
people like you want to make money by forbidding other people from using their computers / tape recorders / etc. in certain ways
I don't. I want an environment where people are free to choose how they want to engage in business. Some people choose the Red Hat model. Other people choose to sell their software. My point is that that latter group is seeing their freedom being eroded; their freedom to make a business decision and succeed or fail based on supply and demand economics. Pirates break the supply and demand chain by saying "this is worth something to me (or else why bother downloading it), but I don't want to pay for it, and hey I can get away with that."
That's cheating. If you think someone's chosen a poor business model by selling their software, then e-mail them, or find an alternative. But by pirating, you rob them of their freedom to succeed (or fail) honestly. It might be an anachronistic business model, but you're not giving them the chance to find out honestly. Don't dress it up as new technology. The technology is merely an enabler. The "new economy" as you call it is one where people no longer feel ethically obliged to obey the law and enter a contract.
At one time there were no copyrights on music, yet people still sang songs and created music instruments. At one time there were no copyrights on written works, but people still wrote books, to the point where huge libraries could be filled.
What was their incentive? Sometimes religious, often they were independently wealthy, but frequently they were supported by wealthy patrons. How does that work in your new economy, do you think?
OK the subject is odd but have you ever retold a joke? Have you ever hummed a tune heard on the radio? If so you have committed a crime and SOPA could ball gag you and make you disappear.
Theft is a real issue but the draft law has no balance or consequences for abuse.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Too bad you didn't provide links directly to those websites, because then if SOPA/PIPA were enacted and the domains were declared by the DoJ to be dedicated to infringing copyrights, Slashdot itself could be censored until your post was removed.
You will probably find that the majority of people using NoScript are already familiar with SOPA and PIPA.
"These are not the droids you are looking for."
It seems Slashdot is cashing in, with no other place to go for people, slashdot will be last resort. profit ??? hey meanwhile youtube is totally available, oh look snuggling kittens.
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
Shirtless Lamar Smith: "Look at this shelf. Now look at me. Now back at the shelf. Now back at me." and so forth.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
What's really upsetting about SOPA is not the content of the legislation (there has been even nastier stuff proposed in the past, and expect worse in the future). It's the naked and unapologetic way in which the RIAA and MPAA have declared that they own the US House of Representatives. It's not new that our politicians are corrupt, spineless and clueless (indeed, the US is actually far less corrupt than most nations), but the corruption that we do have can cause so much damage. Even China can't slam the world as hard as the US, in this arena (that may eventually change).
Frankly, it's embarrassing as hell.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
-H. L. Mencken
"SOPA is about sites like......"
In the UK, counter-terrorism legislation introduced after the London tube bombings has been used by local councils to spy on householders recycling behaviour or usage of school catchment areas ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7922427/Councils-warned-over-unlawful-spying-using-anti-terror-legislation.html ).
Just cos it is introduced for one purpose does not mean it wont be used for another.
"That's Slashdot's moderated democracy."
Then adjust your viewing threshold. Its your choice to view them all if you want, no-one's stopping you.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Piracy is a real problem. I find it interesting that people want to kill PIPA and SOPA, and not change it to allow protection against piracy while still allowing people freedom to use the web.
And what if you decided to host user-generated content in your game? This is a proven strategy for driving growth and creating unique spaces people really like to be in. Legislation like SOPA/PIPA makes it possible for any one malcontent to "poison" your space with infringing content and get it shutdown by the federal government. Heck the same thing applies to any comment section, user forum, or wiki that you host to let players talk about your game. Legislative approaches are a threat to YOU, not to Mr. Russian guy or the fifty thousand leaches. Instead of asking the taxpayer to do the impossible [and dangerous, etc., etc.], I'd adjust your business model to incorporate some form of online interaction that lets you limit content to licensed users (either something in-game with other players or something more prosaic such as subscription-based updates).
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Fucking cowards. They could have killed these babies in their corrupt MAFIAA bassinets with the flick of a switch, as helll hath no fury like grandmothers cut off from their grandchildrens' pages.
Well... my comment that you quoted already says I don't agree with SOPA. I just think that it should be changed by people that actually understand how the internet works instead of just ignoring the whole problem.
Blacked out websites are clearly a derivative work of 4:33.
It might be natural evolution a lion eating you... but that doesn't mean we should let it happen. Lets say people want to go to a park. And lets say people are getting robbed on the park. What is your advice? Don't go to the park? Watch pictures online of it from the safety of your home. I agree it's the easiest way to deal with the problem. It's easy to say that walking on the streets doesn't cope with our modern world anymore. The fact that people can break DRM easily doesn't mean that every piece of software should be given away for free and that there should be no punishment for people illegally profiting from other people work. (I for one like the old business model of paying for an application... you will find out that free applications nowadays are very, very annoying). basically... there should be ways to punish these "smart S's" who earn money from sharing other people works for free. (again... not saying SOPA is the solution).
I don't. I want an environment where people are free to choose how they want to engage in business. Some people choose the Red Hat model. Other people choose to sell their software.
People can run their businesses however they want...except that if you base your business on selling copies of works that you own a copyright on, the government will help support your revenue stream in ways that it does not help other businesses. Even if there were no copyrights at all, you would still have the right to try to sell software, you just would not have a real expectation of profit (unless you add additional value to having a valid license, which is basically what Red Hat does).
For the most part, until the mid-70s copyrights were nothing more than a regulation on industry; that is why copyrights are designed to be used in court (where a judge can decide if "fair use" applies etc.), unlike regulations on parking cars, walking dogs, etc. From the 70s onward, it became common for people to own equipment that could be used to make near-perfect copies of copyrighted works -- tape recorders, PCs, and so forth. Unfortunately for copyright owners, when individual citizens are violating copyrights en masse, the court system cannot be expected to do anything about it -- any more than the court system could handle hearing every single case involving a parking violation.
The copyright industries have never relied on individual citizens' moral obligation to follow copyrights, because copyrights are matters for lawyers to handle and most people do not have a legal team working for them. Instead, those industries relied on their technical superiority -- they were the only people who had copying equipment, and they used copyrights to ensure that only the companies that invested in creating entertainment/etc. could make copies of it. Individual citizens did not make copies of books or music because they simply lacked the ability to do so, which was the basis of the entire business model. Now everyone has a computer; that old business no longer has a basis in reality, and instead of moving on, we are continuing to debate the best way to create an artificial basis for an out-of-date business.
Pirates break the supply and demand chain by saying "this is worth something to me (or else why bother downloading it), but I don't want to pay for it, and hey I can get away with that."
Nobody takes the time to think that, nor should they be expected to. Everyone has a computer in their home that can download music at high speed and low cost (basically no cost), and that is what they are going to do. Telling people not to download music or software is as effective as telling people not to have premarital sex. Either we need to kill the PC era off and turn the Internet into a cable TV system, or we need to accept that the world is different now.
by pirating, you rob them of their freedom to succeed (or fail) honestly.
Nobody robs anyone of anything. It is as easy to copy software as it is to breath; selling software is kind of like selling air. What basis does someone have for complaining that their "proprietary air" business was killed by people daring to breath on their own?
It might be an anachronistic business model, but you're not giving them the chance to find out honestly.
Sure we are: they tried to sell software, and nobody bothered to buy it, because they could just download copies at no cost. That is the lesson about the new world: you need to do more than just demand that people not make copies with their computers.
If I told you that I was going to sell water to people who have water faucets in their homes, would you think I was crazy? Sure you would -- why would anyone pay for bottled water when they can just turn a knob on their faucet and get water? Yet people do pay for bottled water, and it is not because they will be sued for us
Palm trees and 8
It is unfortunate how outright irrational people get when the topic of child protection comes up. It is like the intelligent thinking part of their brain just completely shuts down, and they lose the ability to think anything through.
Protecting children is good, we all agree. Blocking adult access to cartoon or digitally-created images of children does nothing to protect them. In fact, it harms them worse on two counts: 1) They are forced to grow up in a liberty-stricken police state, 2) It deprives deviants of other outlets, meaning the *only* stimulation they can get is from actual children.
The evidence at hand is that pedophilia stems from brain malformation, meaning it doesn't heal up over time. Stoic self-denial doesn't make the desires go away. Therefore, making the images go away doesn't make the pedophiles go away. It just leaves YOUR kids as their *only* outlet. You think that makes your kids safer?
Want to protect the children? Allow adults easy access to cartoon images (no real children harmed in producing them) and also dolls like the ones you can get in Japan. Give them a harmless outlet, and continue to punish anyone who harms actual children.
Now watch as people call ME a pedophile for failing to demand permanent taxpayer-funded incarceration for anyone who has an inappropriate desire whether they channel it harmlessly or not.
People are so stupid.
It might be natural evolution a lion eating you... but that doesn't mean we should let it happen
What do you suggest, killing all the predators in the world? Where I live now we are overrun with deer because people thought it was a good idea to drive the wolves and mountain lions out of this region. Deer hunting is now viewed as a form of population management.
lets say people are getting robbed on the park. What is your advice? Don't go to the park?
We send the police to the park to protect people. Do you want to have police officers in your home, making sure you do not commit copyright infringement? I suppose borrowing the North Korean approach to Internet access is the next logical step from borrowing the Chinese.
It's easy to say that walking on the streets doesn't cope with our modern world anymore.
Except that nothing has changed in the past 40 centuries. City streets have always been dangerous, and we have always had police officers / soldiers / law enforcers patrolling our streets. This is done to increase the freedom of people living in cities, unlike SOPA/DMCA/etc. which are designed to curtail your freedom.
The fact that people can break DRM easily doesn't mean that every piece of software should be given away for free and that there should be no punishment for people illegally profiting from other people work.
Yes, how terrible it is to profit from other people's work...
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto
I for one like the old business model of paying for an application... you will find out that free applications nowadays are very, very annoying
You are talking to someone who writes all his publications using LaTeX, with Emacs as a text editor, on a GNU/Linux OS. What was your point again?
basically... there should be ways to punish these "smart S's" who earn money from sharing other people works for free
Interesting business model...
Palm trees and 8
The DMCA (albeit imperfectly) limited the liability of web sites, search engines and the like in the event a copyright owner delivered a take down notice. SOPA/PIPA appears to remove that limitation. You've got a link to something we don't like? You could be equally culpable as a 'facilitator'. Never mind just taking the content or link down and walking away with a clear conscience. To make matters worse, your web site is going to be the deep pockets that content owners go after. That punk with the links to pirated content lives in his mom's basement.
Its likely that many of these cases will never go to trial. Content owners will modify their take down notices to include some amount of blackmail^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H remuneration to keep this out of court. You will comply. And pay. And think twice about ever developing sites that include user content or web search results again. That fixes the piracy problem. And the negative product review problem. And the leaked memos. And that nasty Arab spring nuisance. And lots of other stuff.
Have gnu, will travel.
I think some more attention needs to be aimed at the big businesses supporting these laws and how they will benefit the law makers supporting it. There is a screaming loud uproar of the People against it, yet our lawmakers are scratching their asses and sniffing their fingers in contemplation over it. Forget about the bottom line of campaign funds and fucking think of your constituents' interest. In fact, many of these old farts are in the generation stereotype of not understanding the Internet except for what someone tells them and the dollar can help make a lot of sense to people like that.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
It's done via a JavaScript. If you have scripting disabled, you won't see the blackout. You also won't see it anywhere but en.wikipedia, including the mobilie site.
This is actually quite interesting... if you have a piece of legislation you want to pass, and a large group decides to create a day of protest against it... just postpone any work on the legislation a few weeks. By that time the furor will have died down, and likely nobody will care. If they do care, and a second uprising happens, just delay a few more weeks. Rinse and repeat. Eventually, two things will happen: 1) people will start getting annoyed at having this in their face all the time when there's actually nothing happening, and 2) people will start to feel like they're powerless to do anything about the legislation.
End result? when the time is right, finish the markup and vote it in. Time it so that some other political event is going on at the same time to divert attention.
The legislators can then offer up the excuse that they modified the parts that people were complaining about, and everyone will forget about it until after it has become law and there's not much people CAN do about it.
The problem I have with SOPA and PIPA is that the core of the law is flawed... the laws are put in place to create a workable mechanism for established US corporations to block global access to foreign internet sites with minimal overhead for the corporations (including judiciary overhead).
The current legislation is so flawed that it doesn't even succeed in doing this, while at the same opening up all sorts of unintended consequences. But I find the intent of the bills just as bad as the current state of the bills.
A better bill would be one that follows the money and ignores the medium of transport altogether. Such a bill would NOT be SOPA/PIPA.
I agree. This bill isn't just about Piracy of music and movies which is another dodge people are using to avoid discussing the issue. It's also about sites selling falsely branded products, or fraud as many here would say. But they always seem to ignore that portion of the argument so they can imply they should have a right to duplicate Movies without having to pay anything to those who produced the content.
I think SOPA and PIPA are terrible solutions, but if a better solution isn't offered up they are what we are going to get.
War doesn't show who is right - just who is left.
What would help is allowing us to use negative votes as well as positive ones.
The problem is that PIPA and SOPA have far too many negative side effects.
Neither bill will actually do all that much to stop online piracy but if passed the resulting law will be used by the government, law enforcement, big corporations and vested interests to get sites shut down because they dont like what the sites have to say.
I will NEVER support ANY bill that makes ANY web site (including sites like Rapidshare or YouTube) liable for the actions of their users in regards to content uploaded to the site but for which the site has not received any kind of take-down notice.
We need to go the other way and pass legislation GUARANTEEING freedom on the internet and BANNING ISPs from carrying out deep packet inspection on their customers or implementing DNS re-directions and blocks or denying customers the abillity to use the software and network protocols of their choice.
It doesn't matter what SOPA is intended for, its about what big corporations, law enforcement and vested interests will be able to use it for. They will use it for anything they dont like and short of a Supreme Court challenge on first amendment grounds, you will have no recourse to fight.
My heart bleeds for you, but you are exactly the sort of person that people much WORSE than pirates would exploit to push sopa through.
Look at the big picture.
Look also at UMG's blatant attempt to stifle competition with a frivolous takedown against mega upload, and use it as a shadow of what would be to come if the MAFIAA got its way.
Oh, I should probably mention that someone looking to take your share of the market may well plant evidence on your site and then use SOPA to get rid of you.
The only remedy against pirates is for them to burn in hell later.
There is nothing to be done by mere mortals.
Read this:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/sopa-piracy-costs/
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
No offense, but you need to find a better business model. Take a look at a security engineering text (I recommend Andersen's) for more information on why DRM will always fail you in the end If DRM+absurdly long copyrights+the DMCA+DHS hijacking DNS records+all the other things we are doing are not enough to keep your revenue stream flowing, then you need to find a different way to make money.
The Second Life virtual world might be instructive here. The client software is open source, and there are a dozen variant versions available, including ones designed to rip the models and textures so as to copy them. The content isn't DRM'd either. And yet creators like myself still make money selling our items. How you ask? By providing customer service. Things like: once you buy an item, you get invited to an "update group" to get upgrades and announcements of new items, or custom mods, or replacements if you accidentally deleted the item. The business model of "create the content once, and don't support your customers afterwards" is certainly easier, but it's not how you build a sustainable business.
You have a big problem with your analogy: scribes and printing presses didn't create content, they just copied it. As their function gets superseded by better technology, it only makes sense that they go obsolete, as they have no real benefit to society (beyond any claims of the quality of the old format). At no point along that line were the ones CREATING the content losing their business model, they just change what kind of copies they sell. Today, we have digital distribution models with MP3 stores and E-books, making traditional publishers obsolete. But with digital copies being easy to perfectly reproduce, this is the first time a change in reproduction methods truly gives the average person the ability to distribute on a similar level as a corporation.
While I don't expect the abolishment of copyright would create much loss in terms of creators deciding not to make something because they don't stand to profit, I do expect significant loss due to creators not being able to devote as much time to their work (or devoting that time anyway at personal expense, sacrificing quality). Admittedly this is speculation, but I would think those making games for Humble Indy Bundles are motivated to sacrifice a little more to polish up their games knowing the past success of the program, knowing that there is likely a good payday ahead (i.e. they can afford to take a well-deserved break). That extra quality would not be there if people just freely copied. The model still depends on (enough) people acting the same as though copyright were in full force. Keep in mind name-your-price and freely piratable sales are the exception, not the norm, so we do not know yet how successful the model is in the long run.
Okay, so we can't know if repealing copyright works (it might) without trying it, but there's no going back once that happens. Yes, more content can be produced building off of otherwise copyrighted works, but that impact is severely reduced if copyright is brought back to a reasonable duration (if we're talking about a world where we can abolish copyright, it is one where we can make copyright more sane). We have good reason to believe things will be pretty good with sane copyright, compared to the unknown land of abolished copyright. Either way you argue, it is all assumptions and no hard facts as to which is better. If we could set copyright however we wanted, I would feel abolishment would risk losing too much for too little potential gain. I understand many will disagree with that, and I can't do much about it, but I figure putting my logic out there at least helps further rational discussion on the topic.
Yes, the ability to enforce copyright is quickly becoming difficult to do, but copyright going obsolete is more because society increasingly ignores copyright. The way to address that isn't to clamp down on copyright, but to lighten up and raise discussion. However tautological, this therefore isn't a moot discussion.
My webcomic
The problem is Media companies are in a large way driving people to these services. As a legit consumer of stream media I am constantly frustrated by how limited or non-existent my options are when I want to watch a particular show. I'm more than willing to pay for things I watch but many times there's simply NO WAY to do it at all. I haven't used illegal streaming but I can totally understand why someone would. Movies without 20 minutes of mandatory previews, all TV shows up right after they air and for any time after, who wouldn't want that?
They sit there and try and squeeze every last dime out of a show instead of opening up and seeing if trying a new technique will possibly even get them more profit. They are also trying to make sure everything still costs way more than it needs to, "sure that 10 year old bluray needs to cost $25, it's bluray and that's harder to make". They are so busy trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle they aren't even trying to make wishes. I know some people are just cheap bastards and looking for free content but others are just looking for a convenient service and the free is just a bonus.
Being from Ireland I don't know who I could write to with the following point, but it is would I'd love to make to a US Senator:
Since when has passing an Act prevented anyone from doing something Illegal? You banned drink once and that failed, you have banned drugs, smuggling, murder etc and still people who want to do these things will continue to do them. All that has happened is that those who succeed at it become fabulously wealthy. While you will catch some/many/most, you will never catch all.
Now it looks likely that some time soon individual states will legalise Marijuana, at which point it will become legal to take drugs but illegal to get access to works of art (music, books & movies) for free. This reminds me of a situation in the UK when it was (at may still be) illegal to sell cigarettes to people under the age of 18, but people could partake of intercourse by the age of 16, thus leading to the joke that you could have sex, but not smoke a cigarette afterwards.
If marijuana is legalised, then you won't be arrested for possession, sale or use of it, but you could be arrested for listening to music.
What you really need to do is pass an Act that forces content developers away from locking down the content they produce to a closed format, or from holding onto the rights to the content beyond a reasonable length of time. I just found out the other day that the famous speech by Martin Luther King "I have a Dream" which was given IN PUBLIC is copyrighted! Who in their right mind thinks that something like this should be in copyright now, or ever?
My wife recently got a new mobile phone (Sony Experia Ray) and is unable to use the music she purchased on iTunes on it, as the only way you can play music purchased on iTunes is by using an Apple device. If I were to go online and download replacement copies of the music that play on her new device, I woudl be breaking the law, but what other option, other than buying it again, do I have?
Please stand up for the people you represent, not the companies that pay you and reject utterly and publicly a policy that will do so much harm to your constituents.
Regards
A concerned Irishman.
There are ways of dealing with piracy that hurt pirates without hurting normal people. You just need specifically targeted laws with plenty of oversight in place to prevent abuse. We don't get that, though, because the MPAA/RIAA/etc aren't really interested in combating piracy. The Internet removed their complete control over the pipeline between creator and consumer and they want that control back. Destroying the Internet to get it is acceptable losses in their book. (Perhaps even a perk.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
copyright going obsolete is more because society increasingly ignores copyright
Before the era of computer networks individual citizens rarely gave a moment's thought to copyrights, anymore than they gave a moment's thought to regulations on cement mixtures, railroad electrical systems, plastic manufacturing, etc. Nobody thinks about industrial regulations beyond those that affect whatever industry they are employed in, so people who were not working for publishers, record companies, broadcasters, etc. simply never thought about copyrights, because copyrights had nothing to do with them.
These days, copying does not require specialized industrial equipment; a typical PC is sufficient to copy books, music, and movies. It is not that PC owners increasingly ignore copyright; people have always ignored copyrights, but before computer networks that made no difference (well, to be fair, the problems really started with tape recorders). The recording, publishing, and movie industries were economically viable because copying equipment was scarce, and in the 21st century it is not scarce and so the industries no longer have any real economic reason to exist.
Palm trees and 8