Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Can You Do About SOPA and PIPA?
Wednesday is here, and with it sites around the internet are going under temporary blackout to protest two pieces of legislation currently making their way through the U.S. Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act (PIPA). Wikipedia, reddit, the Free Software Foundation, Google, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, imgur, Mozilla, and many others have all made major changes to their sites or shut down altogether in protest. These sites, as well as technology experts (PDF) around the world and everyone here at Slashdot, think SOPA and PIPA pose unacceptable risks to freedom of speech and the uncensored nature of the internet. The purpose of the protests is to educate people — to let them know this legislation will damage websites you use and enjoy every day, despite being unrelated to the stated purpose of both bills. So, we ask you: what can you do to stop SOPA and PIPA? You may have heard the House has shelved SOPA, and that President Obama has pledged not to pass it as-is, but the MPAA and SOPA-sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) are trying to brush off the protests as a stunt, and Smith has announced markup for the bill will resume in February. Meanwhile, PIPA is still present in the Senate, and it remains a threat. Read on for more about why these bills are bad news, and how to contact your representative to let them know it.
Note: This will be the last story we post today until 6pm EST in protest of SOPA. Why is it bad?
The Stop Online Piracy Act is H.R.3261, and the Protect-IP Act is S.968.
The intent of both pieces of legislation is to combat online piracy, giving the Attorney General and the Department of Justice power to block domain name services and demand that links be stripped from sites not involved in piracy. The problem is that the legislation, as written, is vague and overly-broad. For one thing, it classifies internet sites as "foreign" or "domestic" based entirely on their domain name. A site hosted abroad like Wikileaks.org could be classified as "domestic" because the .org TLD is registered through a U.S. authority. By defining it as "domestic," Wikileaks would then fall under the jurisdiction of U.S. laws. Other provisions are worded even more poorly: in Section 103, SOPA lays out the definition for a "foreign infringing site" as one where "the owner or operator of such Internet site is committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations punishable under [provisions relating to counterfeiting and copyright infringement]." The problematic word is facilitating, as it opens the door to condemning sites that simply link to other sites.
The most obvious implication of this is that search engines would suddenly be responsible for monitoring and policing everything they index. Google indexed its trillionth concurrent URL in 2008. Can you imagine how many people it would take to double check all of them for infringing content? But the job wouldn't end at simply looking at them — Google would have to continually monitor them. Google would also have to somehow keep track of the billions of new sites that spring up daily, many of which would be trying to avoid close scrutiny. Of course, it's an impossible task, so there would need to be automated solutions. Automation being imperfect, it would leave us with false positives. Or perhaps sites would need to be "approved" to be listed. Either way, we'd then be dealing with censorship on a massive scale, and the infringing sites themselves would continue to pop up.
But the problems don't end there; in fact, SOPA defines "Internet search engine" as a service that "searches, crawls, categorizes, or indexes information or Web sites available elsewhere on the Internet" and links to them. That's pretty much what we do here at Slashdot. It's also something the fine folks at Wikipedia and reddit do on a regular basis. The strength of all three sites is that they're heavily dependent on user-generated content. Every day at Slashdot, readers deposit hundreds and hundreds of links into our submissions bin. Thousands of comments are made daily. We have a system to surface the good content, but the chaff still exists. If we suddenly had a mandate to retroactively filter out all the links to potentially copyright-infringing sites in our database, we wouldn't have many options. We're talking about reviewing hundreds of thousands of submissions, and every comment on 117,000+ stories. And we're far from the biggest site around — imagine social networks needing to police their content, and all the privacy issues that would raise.
Small sites and new sites would be hurt, too. A website isn't a single, discrete entity that exists on its own. A new company starting up a site would have to worry about its webhost, registrar, content provider, ISP, etc. The legislation would also raise significant financial obstacles. New companies need investments, and that would be much less likely (PDF) if the company could be held liable for content uploaded by users. On top of that, if the site was unable to live up to the vague standards set by the government and the entertainment industry, they could be on the receiving end of a lawsuit, which would be expensive to fight even if they won (and such laws would never, ever be abused). It's hard to conceptualize the internet without noting its unrivaled growth, and SOPA/PIPA would surely stifle it.
This legislation hits near and dear to the hearts of many Slashdotters; if SOPA/PIPA pass, IT staff for companies small and large are going to have their hands full making sure they aren't opening themselves to legal action or government intervention. Mailing lists, used commonly and extensively among open source software projects, would be endangered. Code repositories would need be scoured for infringing content; the bill allows for the strangling of revenue sources if its anti-infringement rules aren't being met. VPN and proxy services become only questionably legal. The very nature of the open source community — as the EFF puts it, "decentralized, voluntary, international" — is not compatible with the burdens placed on internet sites by SOPA and PIPA.
What can we do?
So, what can we do about it? There are two big things: contact your representative, and spread the word. Slashdot readers, on the whole, are more technically-minded than the average internet user, so you're all in a position to share your wisdom with the less internet-savvy people in your life, and get them to contact their representative, too. Here's some useful information for doing so:
Propublica has a list of all SOPA/PIPA supporters and opponents.
Here is the Senate contact list and the House contact list.
You can also use the EFF's form-letter, the Stop American Censorship form-letter, or sign Google's petition.
If you don't live in the U.S., you can petition the State Department. (And yes, you have a dog in this fight.)
SOPAStrike has a list of companies participating in the protest, and this crowd-sourced Google Doc tracks companies that support the legislation. Tell those companies what you think.
Further reading: Wikipedia has left their SOPA and PIPA pages up. The EFF has a series of articles explaining in more depth what is wrong with the bills. Here are some protest letters written to Congress from human rights groups, law professors, and internet companies.
Go forth and educate.
Note: This will be the last story we post today until 6pm EST in protest of SOPA. Why is it bad?
The Stop Online Piracy Act is H.R.3261, and the Protect-IP Act is S.968.
The intent of both pieces of legislation is to combat online piracy, giving the Attorney General and the Department of Justice power to block domain name services and demand that links be stripped from sites not involved in piracy. The problem is that the legislation, as written, is vague and overly-broad. For one thing, it classifies internet sites as "foreign" or "domestic" based entirely on their domain name. A site hosted abroad like Wikileaks.org could be classified as "domestic" because the .org TLD is registered through a U.S. authority. By defining it as "domestic," Wikileaks would then fall under the jurisdiction of U.S. laws. Other provisions are worded even more poorly: in Section 103, SOPA lays out the definition for a "foreign infringing site" as one where "the owner or operator of such Internet site is committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations punishable under [provisions relating to counterfeiting and copyright infringement]." The problematic word is facilitating, as it opens the door to condemning sites that simply link to other sites.
The most obvious implication of this is that search engines would suddenly be responsible for monitoring and policing everything they index. Google indexed its trillionth concurrent URL in 2008. Can you imagine how many people it would take to double check all of them for infringing content? But the job wouldn't end at simply looking at them — Google would have to continually monitor them. Google would also have to somehow keep track of the billions of new sites that spring up daily, many of which would be trying to avoid close scrutiny. Of course, it's an impossible task, so there would need to be automated solutions. Automation being imperfect, it would leave us with false positives. Or perhaps sites would need to be "approved" to be listed. Either way, we'd then be dealing with censorship on a massive scale, and the infringing sites themselves would continue to pop up.
But the problems don't end there; in fact, SOPA defines "Internet search engine" as a service that "searches, crawls, categorizes, or indexes information or Web sites available elsewhere on the Internet" and links to them. That's pretty much what we do here at Slashdot. It's also something the fine folks at Wikipedia and reddit do on a regular basis. The strength of all three sites is that they're heavily dependent on user-generated content. Every day at Slashdot, readers deposit hundreds and hundreds of links into our submissions bin. Thousands of comments are made daily. We have a system to surface the good content, but the chaff still exists. If we suddenly had a mandate to retroactively filter out all the links to potentially copyright-infringing sites in our database, we wouldn't have many options. We're talking about reviewing hundreds of thousands of submissions, and every comment on 117,000+ stories. And we're far from the biggest site around — imagine social networks needing to police their content, and all the privacy issues that would raise.
Small sites and new sites would be hurt, too. A website isn't a single, discrete entity that exists on its own. A new company starting up a site would have to worry about its webhost, registrar, content provider, ISP, etc. The legislation would also raise significant financial obstacles. New companies need investments, and that would be much less likely (PDF) if the company could be held liable for content uploaded by users. On top of that, if the site was unable to live up to the vague standards set by the government and the entertainment industry, they could be on the receiving end of a lawsuit, which would be expensive to fight even if they won (and such laws would never, ever be abused). It's hard to conceptualize the internet without noting its unrivaled growth, and SOPA/PIPA would surely stifle it.
This legislation hits near and dear to the hearts of many Slashdotters; if SOPA/PIPA pass, IT staff for companies small and large are going to have their hands full making sure they aren't opening themselves to legal action or government intervention. Mailing lists, used commonly and extensively among open source software projects, would be endangered. Code repositories would need be scoured for infringing content; the bill allows for the strangling of revenue sources if its anti-infringement rules aren't being met. VPN and proxy services become only questionably legal. The very nature of the open source community — as the EFF puts it, "decentralized, voluntary, international" — is not compatible with the burdens placed on internet sites by SOPA and PIPA.
What can we do?
So, what can we do about it? There are two big things: contact your representative, and spread the word. Slashdot readers, on the whole, are more technically-minded than the average internet user, so you're all in a position to share your wisdom with the less internet-savvy people in your life, and get them to contact their representative, too. Here's some useful information for doing so:
Propublica has a list of all SOPA/PIPA supporters and opponents.
Here is the Senate contact list and the House contact list.
You can also use the EFF's form-letter, the Stop American Censorship form-letter, or sign Google's petition.
If you don't live in the U.S., you can petition the State Department. (And yes, you have a dog in this fight.)
SOPAStrike has a list of companies participating in the protest, and this crowd-sourced Google Doc tracks companies that support the legislation. Tell those companies what you think.
Further reading: Wikipedia has left their SOPA and PIPA pages up. The EFF has a series of articles explaining in more depth what is wrong with the bills. Here are some protest letters written to Congress from human rights groups, law professors, and internet companies.
Go forth and educate.
Making sure that everyone knows what is happening and what is at stake is probably the most useful thing anyone can do.
Palm trees and 8
Include a big campaign contribution with your letter if you want to make sure it's not just thrown in the trash or just added to the pile.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Why is slashdot ignoring the blackout?
With so many links to questionable content, this illegal news source seems like a hive of crime.
...work on ways to bypass SOPA and PIPA. Congress doesn't care that it will censor the internet, because they're the ones who will be doing the censoring. Censorship always makes perfect sense to the censors
Creating undetectable breaches of such unenforceable laws is the way out of this mess and those workarounds might just work in China too. So you'll be saving the internet and advancing human rights in China all at the same time.
http://xkcd.com/865/
Stop SOPA and PIPA now!!!
There was a time when Slashdot was at the forefront of such kind of fights against "the man" (e.g., Sony Rootkit fiasco).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Disabling Javascript on en.wikipedia.org is a good start.
This morning on NPR's Marketplace Morning Report, there was a footnote similar to a few other mass media articles I've seen. They pointed out that if necessary, you could use Google's "cached copy" of a site like Wikipedia, if you are otherwise blocked by the SOPA front page. It's like a digital scab on the picket line.
Then it struck me: isn't this advice a sort of inducement to piracy, and therefore a strong statement about SOPA's odious nature? If a site blocks its own publication of data, say, Sony/EMG/WarnerBros takes down its own webpage, isn't relying on a third party copy to get that content without their authorization just another form of "stealing" in their eyes? Wikipedia content is under some copyleft premise, but I don't think that changes the point: there are times that everyday reasonable activities can be construed as piracy in ways that a law or a technology can never adequately distinguish.
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How about for the rest of us who aren't in America?
I'd really like to help, since if this passes it's only a matter of time before it's in the UK too.
What can we non-US citizens do to help?
I would have expected the tech-savvy slashdot to do something similar to what google and reddit have done in protest. Why not?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
But I think a dark /. would be a good solidarity statement anyway. Geeks who weren't planning to do anything special in protest today might put some extra effort in.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
God knows, I don't know how many times a sales guy, or some piece of legislation, proposed something that would have been awesome in theory but that was just totally unmanageable in practice. On more than a few occasions I have seen these features go into production over my protests, only to see them die a rapid death when management realized how much time it was taking to keep them up.
Having said that, I'm also an author and copyright owner and my book can be found on multiple pirate and other sites around the Internet. I would love the ability to press a button or fill out a form and have the link removed from every index.
To be honest, I don't know how many sales this is costing me, but not knowing isn't a particularly comfortable feeling. Maybe the big boys can just blow off a certain amount of piracy, but I'm still very small and every sale, or lost sale, makes a difference.
...and got a response saying that the link did not complete because the site was down in protest over SOPA.
Isn't that shooting yourself in the foot a bit?
I listened to a clip of senate hearings on NPR this morning. After a stream of warnings by PIPA opponents, Patrick Leahy (D) said something to the effect of "If this bill is as bad as you say, it won't get five votes. If it protects content providers from piracy, it will pass easily."
Way to ignore the point. He is admitting the rest of the country can burn as long as content industries are happy. That is the definition of special interest control.
That when the radio was talking about companies like Facebook, Google, and Wikipedia protesting legislation put to Congress by the Motion Picture Industry that there is nothing that I can do. US government isn't much about people anymore. I have no clue how SOPA got this far.
The only correct thing to do is to abolish all copyrights and patents and to prevent complete decay and decline of the political and economic systems.
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I am posting the links to the comments here, because they apply to each and every situation and you can follow those threads if you are wondering as to how /. crowd responds to the idea, and it's not favourable here.
The reason why /. crowd doesn't like the idea of abolishing copyrights and patents is due to high degree of hypocrisy. How many people want to see government picking up the bills for other types of failing businesses, like stores, manufacturers, miners, medical clinics, transport companies, telecoms, banks, insurance, etc.etc.?
The point is that copyrights and patents are standing on the way of innovation and invention and economic progress rather than helping it in any way.
In one of the threads I mentioned the case of Louis C.K. - he didn't need the copyright laws to protect him from anything, he is not going after people downloading his show for free, but he is offering to download his show from his site for $5 a pop and he made over million bucks by now. In that thread people argued that copyright still applies to Louis C.K. work, but they missed the point - he specifically offered a non-DRMed version and he said that he understood that people would be sharing his show on torrents and download sites, and it didn't bother him, it was a business risk he was willing to take.
Just like a new restaurant owner takes a business risk of opening his business in some specific location, sinking his capital into it (or borrowed capital) and risking losing the investment and time it took to build up that investment capital. Same thing with somebody writing a book or a play or a song or a shooting a movie or a show or painting a picture, whatever, it takes time to build up capital to open a restaurant, it takes time to write a book, it takes time (money) to make a show.
It does not matter to the market how you do it - you shouldn't be protected from failure in the market by government, nobody should be protected that way, it distorts the market, and just like with protections of money (default on gold promise in 1971), protection of mortgages (insurance by FHA, F&F,) FDIC, any type of protection by government, it all turns sour and goes bad and hurts the economy.
The only correct way is to let the market function, those who can rely on trade secrets should do so, but this encourages competition if there is no government protection against failure.
If Louis C.K. sucked and his shows weren't popular, he would have lost his investment. SO WHAT? Instead he proved that his shows are worth paying $5 for even with many people downloading the shows for free he still made enough money to continue working that way. His business model is sound, the people who believe their business model must be protected by government regulations are wrong and the government shouldn't be serving any company. Government for the people, by the people, of the people, right?
So it's hight of hypocrisy to be PRO-copyright and PRO-patent while complaining about bank bailouts also with public money! After all, the copyright police (FBI and such), that's also public money. The prison system where people can go for violation of copyright also is public money.
Many don't see the problem with their hypocrisy, but they also do not want SOPA and PIPA.
Well you can't have copyrights and patents and NOT have SOPA and PIPA eventually.
Just like you can't have abolition of the Cons
You can't handle the truth.
No. Instead of being reactive, we need to be active.
Reactive is to fight laws. Active is to change laws and constitution, so SOPAs won't be possible in the future.
Businesses should not be taken down, harmed, punished, etc other than by court decision.
One does not have a right to go to police and shut down the business without court order. It started long time ago when health inspectors were given a right to shut down businesses (remember Friends episode?) and people let it be in the same name of security and safety.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
What Can You Do About SOPA and PIPA?
Take SOPA/PIPA seriously. By that I mean if YOU, or a company is going to protest, then do more than have a small link at the bottom of your screen (like Google). Or do absolutely NOTHING, like Slashdot. Yes I know the majority of people who read Slashdot are aware of the issues, but to anybody who pays attention it looks as if (companies like) Slashdot don't care; because they don't even have a banner add voicing their opposition to aggressive Internet police states. I read Slashdot everyday and I haven't heard anything from Management about any opposition.
The power here lies not with businesses, but with the individual (i.e. People Power); if religious fanatics can get companies to stop advertising the reality TV show All American Muslim, then certainly the majority of normal people can get companies to stop supporting Internet censorship and an Internet police state.
People need to take this seriously. People usually panic after it is already too late. As a recent example; the crew of the Italian cruise liner that sank only told people to abandon ship after about an hour after it started sinking and after the ship already started to keel over. Of course I could point out Nazi Germany; most people didn't complain because most people weren't effected until the allies started bombing residential neighborhoods in Berlin. Sometimes it takes a kick in the ass to get people to realize that their government's policies are evil.
Ordinary people need to email their friends and families about this issue, and they need to include links to their representatives telling them to oppose these overwhelmingly evil measures. They need to use Facebook, instant messaging and anything else to communicate the urgency of the issue. Also as important people need to remind the public NOT TO BELIEVE WHAT GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY ARE SAYING. This is important. People are continually told that repressive measures are only for the good of the country. This is a lie and people need to be exposed to the fact that they are being lied to.
People need to be told that this is NOT a copyright issue, but an excuse where governments and large corporations can have unprecedented control over YOUR communications. They need to be told that this measure is used to enforce corporate power and greed, and that ordinary artists, like usual will not be the benefactors of "copyright" enforcement, but only the people who actually own and control the copyrights (which is usually a corporate entity) will benefit. These measures will further erode copyright by giving the companies with access to lawyers and politicians an unfair advantage over smaller companies and the consumer. They need to be told not to believe Rupert Murdock because he is not trustworthy. They need to be told not to believe Sony because they are not trustworthy. They need to be told not to believe the Big Lie that congress is being paid big money to support:
Reference:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ol56z/reddit_founder_alexis_ohanian_on_cnbc_why_is_it/
Vote for Ron Paul. Register Republican so you can vote for him in the primaries. You can unregister afterward if you want.
Ron Paul: Tells The Dangers Of SOPA And PIPA
Ron Paul on SOPA: They Want to Take Over the Internet!
Why's The Media Shafting Ron Paul, And Ignoring NDAA & SOPA Dangers?
Or just DuckDuckGo "Ron Paul SOPA" to get many, many more examples.
Last week my congresscritter held a public information session, which I attended. He is hard-core Tea Party. During the q&a I told him that SOPA was a mistake and should be stopped. He seemed to appreciate the problems with SOPA and gave a very similar reply to the one from the White House.
I think is is important that more people visibly communicate with their representatives that they are opposed to such laws, and that the people are closely watching Congress.
The really sad part was the reaction of the majority of the audience, average age estimated in the 60's. They either had no clue at all, or felt it was a good thing that the government was controlling the internet.
An elderly gentleman accosted me afterwards and said that he had been "hacked" and that if I were ever hacked I would support the government clamping down in the internet. I tried to explain SOPA to him, but it was a lost cause.
I'm being serious. Make a super-PAC and use it in the next election season against people who introduce or push bills like SOPA and PIPA. Attack politicians where it hurts: Election year.
I wrote a story for Ars on this theme if anyone wants to check it out: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/protesting-sopa-what-you-can-do.ars Good luck! I also love the idea of an anti-SOPA Super PAC.
It's easy to end an e-mail letter, but those aren't as effective as a personally written letter. In order of effectiveness, petitions are the lowest, followed by e-mail form letters, followed by personally written e-mails, followed by mailed form letters, followed by phone calls, followed by personally written mailed letters. Personally visiting your Congressman's office is also highly effective (this is probably less possible with your Senator, unless you live in a small population state, but Representatives often have offices that the public can easily visit and offer feedback). The most effective thing to do, if you don't have a lot of money (large cash donations are VERY effective), is to become a volunteer (assuming your Rep is someone that you can get behind on most issues and you'd like to see reelected) and get plugged in. It's not as difficult as you'd think. Once your Rep knows you by name, and potentially respects your opinion, you can slip some info in about tech issues from time to time. Of course, this does take a lot of effort and time commitment, which is why most people won't be doing it - but if you've got the time, and want to make a difference, it's definitely something you can do.
Check out Treesandthings.com for offbeat news
The MPAA and SOPA-sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) are trying to brush off the protests as a stunt, and Smith has announced markup for the bill will resume in February.
Cynical corporate sluts in positions of political power are tenacious, to say the least.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I can tell you that Lamar Smith does not care what you think. Congress has been paid $96,000,000,000 dollars by the MSM and Hollywood to enact this censorship. Money talks, the other thing walks.
I'm glad to see someone is doing something about this! I only wish others like Google would join in.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I am an advocate of copyright. I feel it is a very effective mechanism for channeling revenue to those who advance science and the useful arts.
We have overstepped the bounds of cost effective copyright grants and enforcement. We have exceeded the efficient level of enforcement, and I suspect we have exceeded the efficient level of revenue channeling. We have passed more copyright legislation in the past fifteen years than at any other time in our history. More than during the advent of the printing press, the radio, the cassette tape, or any other disruptive technology. We are not balancing the potential value of new technology against the perceived cost of adapting copyright to the new reality. Moreover, the legislation is not working. It is not significantly inhibiting copyright, but it is harming the progress of new business models and entrepreneurship. It is not rational to pass ever more extreme legislation when what has gone before is not working.
We are channeling a lot of revenue into copyright holders, and that money is coming back in lobbying. That cycle is self-catalyzing, and it has gone beyond what is cost effective. It is harming our ability to compete in the global marketplace, and is a cycle that is hostile to our national economic interests.
It is time to demand a moratorium on new copyright law, coupled with a serious research effort on the cost effectiveness of copyright enforcement. That research should have the explicit objective of answering the question: "How much can we reduce government interference in the market while still advancing the progress of science and the useful arts?"
Failure to do so should be seen as an act of aggression against our economy by those who are benefiting from this government fiat monopoly, and should be met with total opposition.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The bills are massively unpopular on the internet but we are still losing the spin war on this. The blackouts are being covered on main stream media in droves (a good thing!), but every MSM reference that i have seen describes the bills as the 'anti-piracy' SOPA/PIPA bills. Lots of people, even many of us on this site, might support bills that are just anti-piracy... in the head of many, anti-piracy is a good thing.
We can lose hearts and minds if these bills are seen as anti-piracy. Get the word out that we don't object to these bills because they are anti-piracy, we object to these bills because they are anti-internet!
The internet breaks with these bills. Great firewall of America type broken. That is what we are against! Go spread the word.
It looks like O'Reilly and No Starch-- two sites that went dark-- get to watch Google send the traffic to the torrent sites. http://wayner.org/node/80
Or at least the beginning of the end?
Even if SOPA/PIPA are stopped, the next few bills will do essentially the same thing without being so obvious about it; a freedom lost here, a restriction applied there. If you try to boil a crab alive, it will protest and attempt to escape. But if you turn the heat up on the crab gradually, it will boil without ever realizing its peril.
I don't have any faith in the ability of the little guy anymore; if the corporations want it, they will get it, and it's only a matter of time. We have seen this time and time again.
Please tell me I'm wrong, and this nightmare will not come to be. I don't want my Internet broken, but I don't have billions of dollars to give to politicians to make them listen to me. What can I do against the likes of multinational companies that have more rights and power than I can ever hope to have?
The only thing you can do against the likes of these laws that harm the public in order to cater to short-term special interests is to ensure that your elective representatives answer to you and only you (plural), so you could easily kick them out of office AND INTO PRISON when they begin to contemplate such shenanigans.
To achieve that you have to first vote out all the D's and the R's and replace them with people that are willing to criminalize corruption to an extent that will make premeditated murder look like jaywalking in comparison, revoke corporate personhood, make corporate executives personally responsible for the actions of the respective corporations and in general restore sanity to all branches of government.
In other words: it will never happen.
The best way to get the attention of congress is to have one of the IP stooges lose an election.
Identify one of the prominent supporters of SOPA/PIPA who is weak in his district and support his challenger in the next primary and general election.
When a congressman loses a seat for taking on a third-rail issue, the surviving congressmen remember that for decades.
That's what AIPAC does. You don't see any congressmen criticizing Israel, do you?
Strategically, it would be best to attack somebody who is a jerk on other issues too; in other words, an all-around jerk.
The only problem is that it's hard in this country to defeat a well-financed incumbent, no matter how much he sells out the interests of his constituents.
But it does happen. I give democracy about 50% odds.
Or you could, you know, grow a set of balls and engage with the political system to make the country better.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Interesting that you should say that, since SOPA/PIPA require Court Orders to do anything.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
As it basically means blocking all the search engines and anything with user interactions, implement it in 2 stages: first block for the families, known people, IP ranges, etc to anything related to the companies/corporations/politicians behind SOPA/PIPA (or that supports them) and later (anything between 10 years and 10 millenium later) to the rest of the internet. If you support it, well you can taste what it really mean before everyone else, and your family/employees/etc could give some helpful input giving some perspective to them
It could be done from the top or from the bottom, just removing from search engines results, and any kind social sites any reference to the politicians, political parties, companies, musical records and so on (hey, could eventually violate some copyright, better be safe than sorry) could make them have a hint on what would be the world with those laws they are pursuing.
but I agree with the sentiment. Right now I'm waiting for my kid to finish getting ready to school, so I've got time to post to /. . After that it's off to my day job for 9 hours. Right now a lobbyist for SOPA is doing the same thing, but he's going to spend 9 hours fighting for it. Oh, at the end of my 9 hour shift I'm going to study programming in hopes of getting a better job.
If I'm going to fight SOPA, PIPA or any of the other horrid things the 1% has in store for me, then I need more leisure time. That's what the rich were talking about in the 1800s when they said 'Idle hands are the devil's plaything'. That said, the 1% are working hard to make sure I don't get it. They're busing Unions, dividing Americans against one another based on race, creed & sexual orientation. They're scaring us with terrorists. They're fighting on multiple fronts, and I can't get the time to fight on one. This, folks, is why I'm a socialist in favor of 'Basic Income' (google it when wikipedia comes back up).
I guess one of the really big problems is, SOPA is just a symptom of a larger, more complex problem. Americans are big on simple answers to complex problems. That's why George Bush jr resonated so well with them. How are we suppose to fight when we don't even know there's a war going on?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The companies that WILL be hurt by these laws should unite and back candidates as replacements for the supporters of these bills. Media has always been a significant part of U.S. policies. It is time for the new media to take an active role. It is a duty of an American to oppose an individual entering into an elected position if they know the individual is misrepresenting Americas best interest. Unfortunately, when there is no other candidate opposition is fruitless. Presenting a candidate to replace these people degrading freedom, padding their re-election trove, and making corporate desires the priority of American policy, does not have to cost lots of money. If the large media sites on the web were to find and support replacement candidates the public would rally to vote them into office. Put online polls to real use. Use them to find the right people to run. Put banners to real use. Promote those people.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
As others have said, there is one major presidential candidate who is against SOPA: Ron Paul. I don't personally support Mr. Paul because of unrelated issues, but it's a fact he is opposed to SOPA, to the point of joining the blackout.
Slightly off-topic but if you are asking "what can I do" and you want to get at the root cause, not the symptom, you might want to check out the Move to Amend.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16612628
Or from the article: ".........."Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging," said Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America......."
So, just to summarize it, after their total refusal to sit on the table and resolve the issues of the SOPA/PIPA bill, they actually what? This funny senator blames them that they don't sit on the table!!! WTF?
Why not after the day of scaring the public that these sites simply block IP addresses known to serve US government interests. That way if those people want to use the resources of the web they can do so at home.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Thanks. You are right, somehow I got misinformed via second hand re-tellers of the story.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Most likely, no.
If a site was censored because of SOPA, several things could happen. They could be cut off from any electronic financial transactions. No online sales or donations. No ad revenue. They couldn't afford to stay up, unless people started mailing cash and checks. Even still, they could lose their bank accounts, therefor being unable to even cash the checks.
The IP, or even the whole ISP could be blackholed by the US Gov't. That would stop anyone who's network traffic transits the United States from reaching the site anywhere in the world. Blackholing the ISP would mean that every site hosted there would disappear. No amount of circumventing DNS would help you.
Any cooperative nation can do the same thing. I would suspect several European nations would pick it up fairly quickly. As it expands, I would not be surprised to see them start blocking large swaths of the Internet as "illegal" and "untrustworthy". Those "untrustworthy" areas would be countries that don't cooperate with the US.
I would expect that Slashdot would be taken down fairly quickly. They illegally copy story content. It's legal under "Fair Use" right now. It wouldn't be after SOPA. What people put in the comments are definitely illegal. That would result in Geeknet being entirely blocked. So enjoy Slashdot while you can.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
You do now. Actually, I'll give you two.
The runner up story is Susan Boyle. When Wikipedia comes off blackout, go look her up and check the sales records - some such highest selling new artist in X years.
But let's do your story.
If you're gutsy, you'll post a link to your book and dedicate it "A gift to protest SOPA". Pick a CC license, I suggest "Attribution Only" (So that people can't replace your name, but all told, people are usually pretty good at keeping original artist names on their copies.) Put a rider in "Since this copy originated on a special post, please let me know if this copy inspires you to buy it". Give us an address to send checks/payments to, etc.
Or, if you are still a little squeamish, send *me* all that info which I won't re-share, but I'll report my results. My email is "not obfuscated" so send it along!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Example of how third party website interpret SOPA and PIPA:
http://www.infowars.com/why-we-must-stop-sopa/
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
While we're on the general topic, I'd like to remind folks about another bill being considered, the Research Works Act. Previously covered on Slashdot here, the act is being pushed by the journal industry, and would reverse the current requirement that papers resulting from federally funded research be freely available to the public.
What does SOPA-sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) profit from this closed minded attack on the 1st Amendment? I think an investigation into this issue would be, telling. And when all is said, and done; disclosing to the public that information on this "For Profit" congressman might begin a trend.
Can we go back to the good old days of using IP numbers instead of text string that goes thru a DNS server. I think it might be harder for governments to censor that.
I'm sure APK is unaffected by all this...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
to do that, he has to be rich. to be rich, he has to play along. noone can put on a lifelong masquerade to hide his/her true intentions of eventually fighting against the rich, whereas playing along with them. you have to be one of them in heart and soul to play along.
Read radical news here
From their page on SOPA
Is it still possible to access Wikipedia in any way?
Yes. During the blackout, Wikipedia is accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by disabling JavaScript in your browser, as explained on this Technical FAQ page. Our purpose here isn't to make it completely impossible for people to read Wikipedia, and it's okay for you to circumvent the blackout. We just want to make sure you see our message.
Proponents of SOPA have a 10-word sound byte saying why SOPA is "great:" "this bill will stop online piracy." What we need is a 10-word statement of why the whole idea of SOPA, PIPA, and the like is disastrous. How about:
This bill gives law-enforcement powers to Big Media.
I am sure someone can improve on that. Please, do.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
I half expect /. to go dark in like 3 days since that's how long it normally takes the news to show up here.
I've been trying to contact all of my legislators, but the web page containing Virginia Senator Mark Warner's official contact form seems to be dead (see http://warner.senate.gov). Does anyone know of a good alternative way to get messages to him?
By slashdotting Congress.
By "engage" I didn't mean run for office. I meant first and foremost to cast an informed vote; to write to one's representatives, perhaps to join advocacy groups like, for this issue, the EFF or EPIC; maybe march in protests, that sort of thing. Those do require some time and commitment but they certainly don't require wealth.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Same here, but it was more like you used No-Script to block the 'personal appeals' and blocked WikiMedia like I did, thus preventing a blackout of Wikipedia. Check your No-Script permissions.
This doesn't really surprise me.
One of the most interesting things about the interwebs getting excited about any pending legislation is how few people bother to read the actual text of the bills they're complaining about.
Thomas.gov will have the complete text of any pending legislation, plus modifications and annotations as it moves through the legislative process. Including little notes like "this is the version sent to the President for signature"...
The search function isn't too friendly with acronyms (searching for SOPA yields nothing), but if you can type out the popular name of the bill (Stop Online Piracy Act), you'll go right to it.
For that matter, if you know that the first word of the name is "Stop", you should be able to find it (that's how I did it last night - amazing the number of Bills with "Stop" as the first word in the name).
And SOPA is neither long nor complicated. You can read the entire text in two minutes.
So WHY CAN'T THE PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT IT AT LEAST READ IT FIRST AND MAKE VALID COMPLAINTS? Instead of that sort of idiocy...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This is the common-sense approach, something of which the US government seem to not understand! Past a law that enables the government to shut down pirate sites.
The first step in ANY copyright infringement discussion should be for the owners to offer a way to automate the checking of their copyrights. Perhaps a "whois" of copyright owners... maybe "whoowns"; whatever. Short of this, I see these bills and their kin as nonstarters.
Instead of bribing our elected officials, spend that money creating a database of registered copyright owners, their content, dates covered, etc... and guilt these companies into checking against it. As a bonus to the rest of us, it would also be nice to see what content is no longer under copyright.
Do your wikipedia search (you'll see what you want for a second, then you'll get the black splash page), then View > Page Source, select all, copy to notepad, save as x.html, then open. Voila!
COLDSTOR Data went dark this morning at 12:01. As a confidential digital archive we believe that we are particularly vulnerable to the potential mischief encouraged by SOPA/PIPA. Moreover, as a developer of "Chain of Custody" and other, physically unalterable proofs of ownership and authenticity, we do not want our technology hijacked in order to force clients to pre-emptively "prove" they own what they store. No one should be allowed to poke around in other people's data whether it is to look for essays by a Chinese dissident or someone's "personal use" copy of Baby's Got Back. We have already jumped through enough hoops to ensure our client's data archives can't be considered a "library" (and vulnerable to Patriot Act excesses) and to ensure that email we store for more than 6 months can't be considered "abandoned property" (via a loophole in the Electronic Privacy Communication Act). Enough is enough. We support the efforts of Richard Stallman, the EFF and Senator Wyden to derail what is just one more poorly thought-out, lobbyist driven, technically illiterate piece of legislation, We encourage slashdotters to call Senator Pat Leahy, the principal sponsor of the Senate bill at (202) 224-4242. We've also posted a list of co-sponsors on our website. Call them/write them/visit them. Jack Bryar COLDSTOR Data http://www.coldstordata.com/
Don't you guys have guns for such an occasion?
Here's a SOPA comic for your enjoyment. Figured it was fitting, for today.
***** START RANT *****
I sent letters to my representatives over a month ago. Two never replied, and one of my senators replied with a canned response stating that she is a supported of PIPA and that despite my concerns, she knows what's best for me and the economy, even if that involves compromising the infrastructure of the Internet, negatively impacting security, and infringing on the rights of United States citizens. So, to paraphrase, we need a lobby with lots of money, or we can go p*ss up a rope.
***** END RANT *****
-h
I meant first and foremost to cast an informed vote; to write to one's representatives, perhaps to join advocacy groups like, for this issue, the EFF or EPIC; maybe march in protests, that sort of thing.
and none of them will matter. they will still get their payment from the media corporations, and then just do what they ask them to do. even if they do not get elected next term, it doesnt matter - they will be sitting on a well placed position in those companies. on top of cash in their banks.
Read radical news here
constrain communications of those your consider enemies?
The Declaration of Independence expresses a feedback loop "Of the People, By the People, For the People". The founders recognized it is the people right and DUTY to keep their government in check. But they also foresaw the probability of government to deteriorate and fail the people. And they provided the people with instructions to follow in doing their duty as U.S. Citizens, to put off the current government and replace it with governance that will follow the feedback loop the founders intended.
For this feedback loop to work, the people need information about what their government is doing. Bradley Manning showed intent to make such information available to the people. Wikileaks made similar information available to the people and the Occupy movement is providing the government with feedback from the people.
There is plenty evidence the government is violating the founders intended feedback loop. When any system requiring a feedback loop for verification on staying on course, fails... lost and in this case its clear skerd happens.
The government lives in its own world, has its own laws, even Washington DC is separated from the Union, its own country more or less (like Vatican City, separate from Italy, and London separate from England). The Government has its own benefits, retirement, medical, etc...all different than The People that are supposed to be a part "Of the People, By the People, For the People".
Addiction and what the addicted will do in denial and to maintain their addiction, and regarding the government, military command is certainly included.
So yeah, military tactic of constraining free communication of the enemy......they have been identifying as "The People."
The Founders of the United States gave us, the people, instructions to follow in doing our duty. See the Declaration of Independence for it.
It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information use their services.
The full response from MPAA makes fill with the rage of a thousand suns. I finally saw some media coverage on SOPA. It was on CNN, it stated that wikipedia was having a blackout in protest of Sopa but was immediately followed up with Time Warner who owns CNN support this bill. It took her less than 10 seconds to report and then she quickly moved on to the next subject.
Foot placed squarely in mouth since 1983.
They have as much to lose as reddit and Wikipedia. It seem hypocritical to me.
Move offshore.
Find a few free speech friendly jurisdictions. Register your domain name and host your web site there. Open a foreign bank account and use the services of foreign payment processors. It will probably be necessary to spread your business around between several jurisdictions. That way, a subpoena served on your hosting site (for example) will have no authority where your bank account resides and vice versa.
Even if our legislature drops the SOPA/PIPA legislation effort, I'd move offshore anyway. US politicians have demonstrated an irresistible addiction to the sort of infulence that causes this sort of BS. And it will happen again. But perhaps hidden in other legislation. So, until our politicians can demonstrate an ability to stand up in the face of such pressure, perhaps for a probationary period of 50 or 75 years, I'd keep my business offshore.
Have gnu, will travel.
The answer is removing corporate money from politics
good luck with that.
all they will need to do to have the same thing will be to guarantee an employment for the representative in backroom dealings.
they already use it for bureaucrats - they couldnt donate, gift or do anything to fcc chairwoman. but, she screwed everything up for the sake of content industry, and what happened ? she resigned, and immediately got a juicy job at that industry.
you can be sure that she wouldnt screw up things, if she was not guaranteed employment beforehand.
you cant remove the power of wealth on politics. you need to remove wealth from life, OR, you need to make everyone equally wealthy so that noone can undo the other. this is what we do in politics by the way - by mandating that everyone has one, equal vote. but that doesnt prevent from who can be elected with that vote from getting bought. now, if everyone was equally wealthy however, or equally poor depending on how you put it, then noone would be able to wrest the representative to their side, and the participation would have to be democratic.
we are not living in democracies.
Read radical news here
Please find another example. A lot of people don't agree with or support Wikileaks. I know Slashdot has an agenda, but please let it go for once if this issue is important enough.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
For the first few minutes, the Wikipedia block page had a "Learn more" link that went to a page on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, that page was also blocked. They did fix it soon enough.
PIPA is still alive.
40 (FORTY!) senators are co-sponsors of PIPA, the last time I checked.
Write them. Don't email them. Don't waste your time on online petitions. Write a letter, and then send it by **FAX** to your senator.
Why fax? because snail-mail gets quarantined, email is too easy to ignore, but an old-fashioned piece of paper is something bureaucrats understand.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
They don't need to go completely black. Duckduckgo.com has a prominent link and XKCD did something as well.
And XKCD currently only shows one panel unless you go to a specific one. Unfortunately I can't figure out what number it is for posterity.
Way to go! Seriously, this is exactly what the blackouts are about: getting people to talk about the issue. Not just tech geeks, but laypeople as well. The fact that you're talking to them and informing them is more meaningful than just reading some web site put up by anonymous people and companies that might have an agenda. So keep right on informing; THAT is how these bills will be defeated.
That's a good sign.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
I hope that you just wanted to post quickly without thinking about what you said:
I totally believe that if you produce something you should be paid...
I just produced this post, pay me.
A lot of "art" is produced with claimed values without anybody at any time offering to pay any amount at all for it. Statue goes missing with a value in the hundred thousands because that is what the "artist" claimed so that is what the value must be...
In the real world the model is very different, you get paid, so you produce something. There is a direct link between labor and pay and it is not for person doing the labor to just do the labor and claim the pay they want. A plumber does not get to claim a magic number for his work that he did without someone asking him to do it.
A lot of MPAA/RIAA problem is that artist have gotten used to being payed insane amounts for not doing very much and they want more of it. Money for every blank CD found because some might contain their content. What about where I bought their CD and made a copy of it for my own use only as a back-up? I still got to pay extra?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
That's why this is a particularly good time (right now, not November) to strike back at the people who are most responsible for it, rather than just the bills. It'll only be about one third as effective in the Senate, but for the House, every one of them needs to lose their party's nomination and not be on the ballots in November (unless they want to run as independents). This is something Democrats and Republicans can work together on, as such a cleanup would effect both of them about equally and doesn't really have any sort of partisan ideological component.
If we establish a rule that pushing this kind of nonsense can only be done by sacrificing the next election, it'll help a lot. And eventually the revolving list of supporters will all be junior reps without important committee positions to make it happen. SOPA only got as far as it did, because its top dog has so much seniority (since 1987!!?! WTF is wrong with you, TX-21?).
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yeah, yeah, I know. Facebook sucks and all that. But - if you do have a Facebook account, posting a little blurb that tells your friends in your own words why SOPA/PIPA are evil, then letting them know that even a few sentence email to their congress critters goes into the balance and counts, along with the links to get hold of them helps.
To contact your representative:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
To contact your senator:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Check your premises.
Sen. Chuck Schumer's phone line is jammed. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's phone line is jammed, and her contact page is offline. On her Facebook page, the line of comments on the issue is endless and they're 100% opposed to PIPA/SOPA.
As somebody that's watched this country go off the rails the last 30 years in a row, though, in my heart I think the American people need to send a much stronger message to DC, like by burning that town to the ground and salting the earth afterward.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I might suffer from a case of idiocy as well, but in this case I blame my ADD.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
What is next? The invention of the wheel?
Fundamental questions:
Why is it always the USA that comes up with these stupid ass legislations?
Be it (C) related (DMCA?), 'terror' (NDAA), or otherwise? It always has to be extreme and oh so right while we forget the recent history that led to these laws. SOPA/PIPA: did we notice that the (C) terms are extended and extended each time beyond reasonable without a doubt?
Do we notice that the (C) cartels want this? Not the people?
Same for the so called anti-terror police state laws: no real benefit except for enslaving the people in the fiat money, two party system that paints the outside world as less than what they call themselves.
Ever thought why the USA has to police the world?
Ever thought where the 'socialist' europeans get their money from? (taxes!)
Ever thought about socialism for the rich? (it is called a bailout)
Ever thought about how all this happens?
Stop Online Piracy Act will stop online piracy exactly as much as Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 did: NOT AT ALL.
But it will be even more disruptive to innovation and legitimate business than DMCA.
It's time for some serious pushback. The computer industry needs to propose the "Copyright Term Harmonization Act", which would bring US copyright law into conformance with the WTO TRIPS agreement. The TRIPS agreement only requires WTO members to offer a 50 year copyright term. The US goes beyond that. It's time to cut back to 50 years from first publication. That would deal with most of the "orphan works" problem.
The MPAA wouldn't care all that much. Revenue from 50 year old movies is tiny. (Except for Disney, but even there, they're mostly pushing remakes now, not re-releases of their original Cinderella.) The RIAA would scream. All the 50s and 60s music would go public domain, and record companies are still making money from 60s recordings.
Also, the FTC should be directed to resume their antitrust inquiry into record company pricing and payola.
When I see all these websites going Black, and posting how Bad SOPA is, it makes me really proud that we American's can Stand Up to Totalitarian Rule!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
It turns out eternal vigilance is actually pretty hard.
trying to follow an American style system of finances. The basics of the scam are you borrow money to buy up properties, use those properties as collateral to borrow more money, and pay yourself huge sums of money in management an consulting fees. Then when whole house of cards collapses you just get bailed out by the tax payer buy using a fraction of your ill gotten gains to buy off the gov't. See Bain Capital for the classic example of this, but they're hardly the only one. The other major component to this are financial vampires like Goldman Sachs who do billions of micro trades a day to siphon money off the top. No actual investment goes on, they're just pocketing money from other investors.
If you're noticing a pattern here, it's a wealth transfer from the middle and lower classes up to the 1%. Trickle up economics. The middle class goes away, and without them the economy crashes. You know American isn't in a recession, right? But do you know why? It's because the 1% are making so much money that they skew the numbers. Take them out and large sections of the US economy are in depression, let alone recession.
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The key problem with the Internet today is law enforcement. It has taken 15 years, since the dawn of the web age, to get international agreement on clamping down on exploitation of children for sex. For the most part, it has only been in the last few years that some of the last countries have signed on to this. This is not something controversial - pretty much everyone agrees that selling a six-year-old for sex is wrong and selling movies of a six-year-old being raped isn't much better. And yet it took 15 years.
There has been international agreement with most countries about extraditiion for murder for perhaps 100 years. And yet, there are still havens to which a murderer can flee from which there will be no extradition. And how long has most of the world recognized murder as a crime?
Today anyone can find themselves or their business being attacked from foreign locations. If your business is the selling of creative works digitally you can be completely put out of business by web sites offering your materials for free or at low, low cost. Even if you are sellling physical goods, you can find your business impacted severely by someone selling look-alikes at 1/10th of your price. Sure, they are fake but how does anyone know until they hold it in their hand that the quality is low? Today, in the Internet age price rules the marketplace and quality has little or no part in things because you can "see" the price but the quality is invisible. As it is with customer service - if you don't need any service, you will never find out it is bad.
Today the selling of pirated or fake goods cannot be stopped. All it takes is to base the business in a place that just doesn't care and there are many. If the purpose is clearly to separate comparatively rich Americans from their money there are many supposedly lawful places that will make it easy for scammers to operate simply because the current government agrees with ripping off Americans. Same goes for Western Europe. Yes, the scammers are breaking the local laws but the local law enforcement isn't interested. Trying to recoup money through a lawsuit will simply be a waste of time - again, the deck is stacked against foreigners in their courts.
So for all the clamoring of "due process" there can be no due process for these scammers. The countries they are based in have no "due process" of any sort for foreigners against their people and they do not recognize any laws against anything done "virtually" - because it is all virtual. Sure, maybe in 50 years they will catch up to the Internet age - but it could just as easily take 500 years. Anything that is going to be done is going to be very unilateral without any cooperation from a foreign government or foreign law enforcement.
Yes, SOPA and PIPA have major flaws. But the Internet isn't going to exist as a law-free zone for the lucky ones that can operate from law-free havens much longer. The alternative to law enforcement from US and Western Europe on a unilateral basis will be enforcement from Master Card, Visa and Sony. Their way will be quite different but the effect will be two Internets - one for crime and one for entertainment. Locked down, supervised entertainment. And you can be that no Apple device will access the "crime" Internet at all. Neither will your US-based ISP support such access. It isn't going to take much to have the corporations figure out how to implement this and do it in spite of government wishes to the contrary.
So we can either figure out unilateral law enforcement against scammers and crooks or we can let the corporations do it for us. Failure to choose will be choosing the latter.
When proposed legislation pisses off enough powerful corporate executives, awareness-raising is easy!
Dear Mr.[redacted],
Thank you for contacting me about the internet streaming of copyrighted material. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.
On May 12, 2011, Senator Leahy (D-VT) introduced S. 968, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act. While I am supportive of the goals of the bill, I am deeply concerned that the definitions and the means by which the legislation seeks to accomplish these goals will have unintended consequences and hurt innovation, job creation, and threaten online speech and security. On November 17, 2011, I signed a letter along with Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) objecting to the bill as it is currently written.
On December 17, 2011, Senator Wyden introduced the "Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade" (OPEN) Act (S. 2029), of which I am an original co-sponsor. The bill has been referred to the Senate Finance Committee, where it is currently awaiting further review. The OPEN Act is a more effective approach to stopping foreign web sites that are found to be primarily and willfully used to infringe intellectual property rights. The OPEN Act builds on the existing legal framework used by the International Trade Commission for addressing unfair acts in the importation of articles into the United States, or in their sale for importation, or sale within the United States after importation.
Our trade laws have yet to catch up to deal with the global digital economy. The OPEN Act recognizes that the Internet has created new opportunities for foreign products to reach the U.S. market and that there is little difference between downloading a pirated movie from a foreign website and importing a counterfeit movie DVD from a foreign company. For those foreign web sites that are determined after an investigation to be primarily and willfully infringing, the International Trade Commission will issue a "Cease and Desist" order. The "Cease and Desist" order may also be served on financial intermediaries that provide services to that foreign web site, compelling financial payment processors and online advertising providers to cease doing business with the foreign site in question. This would cut off financial incentives for this illegal activity and deter these unfair imports from reaching the U.S. market.
The OPEN Act addresses the same challenges as the PROTECT IP Act, while protecting freedom of speech, innovation, and security on the Internet. The challenge of rogue web sites is one that many nation's face. The United State has always been seen as a leader on Internet issues. Laws we establish in the United States regarding the Internet are likely to be used as models around the world. And because the Internet is global in nature, it is important that we carefully consider how the laws and policies we adopt in this area may be received and translated by other countries.
Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter. You may also be interested in signing up for periodic updates for Washington State residents. If you are interested in subscribing to this update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov./ Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Maria Cantwell
United States Senator
For future correspondence with my office, please visit my website at
http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/
That the White House is against SOPA/PIPA is *such* a joke since it alone could veto both bills. Do you really think both houses have the 66% plurality to override the President? I sure don’t! Not in an election year with such horrible pieces of legislation!
Obama could end it now just by saying, affirmatively, that he’d veto it.
Instead he pussyfoots around enough that every libtard believes he’s “against” it. No, he’s not really against it. And if the recent legislation is any guide, he doesn’t like it because it doesn’t let him unilaterally shut down sites himself.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
Reverse Robocall them if you can afford it.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
Prevent any organization who supports it from your website for 24 hrs. Block their IPs. Or perhaps redirect them to a page about the legislation and why it is bad.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Please, no. If we do that, they'll be forced to find a way to.
Let's just continue to pretend it doesn't exist so that their half-assed censorship attempts can also pretend it doesn't exist.
Too late. The US dominates the globe. They have become the "The Borg" in a sense.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
...useful arts
LOL. What the heck is "useful arts"? And what has it to do with copyright? So, not-so-useful arts get no copyrights?
Proponents of bills like this are particularly dangerous because they can express their support in single-line sound-bytes that the less-initiated can easily digest (think PATRIOT Act).
What we need to do is simplify the explanation of why this is so bad, in the most specific terms possible. Joe Sixpack doesn't understand (or care) that SOPA/PIPA = censorship and restriction of free speech; for him, those are little more than abstract concepts. Joe Sixpack needs to understand how this can and will directly affect him, even if we find some of those things trivial.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Regarding SOPA and PIPA:
Everyone knows my opinion on US interference with ANY nation's right to use the internet according to THEIR laws, and to require the US media conglomerates to pursue "pirates" and counterfeiters according to the laws of their home nations.
I just don't feel like repeating myself, so just hit up my Facebook "Wall" or my Slashdot user page and scroll through the history instead.
I'm TIRED of screaming at brain-dead US government policies that are CLEARLY dictated by special-interest lobbyists, not the will of the American PEOPLE.
"By the People, For The People" -- not "the Corporations." Corporations are NOT people until you can execute one or put it in jail.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Hear, Hear. I am so tired of citizens being ignorant of what they need to do to participate in American politics. It is so easy. All you have to do is,
:)
1. Found a company.
2. Grow that company to be a leader in a billion dollar industry.
3. Get your employee count up to at least 3000.
4. Donate $200,000 to $1,000,000 dollars to your local politician.
That's it. Now, get off your lazy asses and let your voice be heard!
If anyone finds a working Contact form or e-mail address for Matt Blunt, share it. I ended up sending an e-mail to MATTBLUNT.COM@domainsbyproxy.com because it's the only thing that didn't bounce back with "sorry loser, we don't care. p.s. that address we gave you was bogus." I expect to probably get a form letter back sometime today from that one.
I imagine that most of the people reading this has used napster back in the day or has pirated music\movies in some fashion. I certainly did years ago.
As long as the internet itself just shrugs this off we will continue to get these crappy laws.
The congress has a responsibility to enforce copyright law...like it or not. Is it any different then them not enforcing it?. We are not only talking about mega corps, but plenty of other smaller content people. Even if it was only mega corps they still have a write to be protected. Walmart gets police support at their locations as much as a small hardware store.
Congress will always get it wrong. There is simply no way to write this law...so make the law unnecessary.
Is Brittany Spears starving because of piracy, no, but it is simply not an excuse. If I stole a box of cookies from Walmart the CEO would not starve, but I still can't steal cookies.
Smaller fines like speeding tickets maybe part of the solution, but ultimately how do you enforce it without the support of ISPs, etc.
Come on open source community, write some scanning tools that help Youtube, etc detect piracy...let them rank it. Let the end user watching some illegally uploaded video know they are getting the content in an improper fashion. Share ad revenue with the content. Do something!
Finally pirate bay has to get shutdown. They are simply profiting off of piracy. If you were writing the law how would you go about blocking them?
Lastly, Wikipedia is still up if you disable javascript or hit the mobile site. I love the idea of blacking out the site, but I can't help feeling as a donator that they should have just had a link to turn off the black screen for the average user. Imagine if someone who looked up CPR today ends up not getting the info in time...
.
When an Internet client connects to the Internet it puts out a request to locate any local seeder/trackers, and then requests from them any addresses that the client requires. The dynamic seeder/trackers split up the domain information to organize the domain data efficiently, as to ensure the proper data replication in case of network partitioning or link failures. The client request is returned if found in its cache, otherwise it is forwarded based on the current domain mapping between servers. Before trusting the returned DNS record the client would first need to verify that DNS record via the sites published PKI public key.
Without a single centralized point of control there would be no way to 'take a domain down' once the information is published to the cloud. The weakest link would be at the ISP's Internet connection, but then the initial DNS injection point need not be at the same location, as any client even on a dialup connection could inject the initial announcement packets if it contains the properly signed data.
Yes, I realize there have been some p2p efforts in the past, but its now time to take this seriously.
The whole thing is becoming quite the SOPA opera.
I'm terribly, terribly sorry, and deserve whatever PUNishment is forth coming.
As a consumer, you not only have the right to be a customer but a you have the right to boycott. Live it, and Love it! I have for years boycotted all Microsoft products, and continue to do so. If we all give up something to make the point we can make changes for the better. This is the power of the consumer in our Economy.
Take this or something similar, and send it to those that back SOPA and PIPA. Be Vocal, make noise! A boycott is not simply you stopping a money exchange, but persuading others to stop exchanging money also.
Dear Business,
For years I have been a customer of yours. As a customer, I provide free advertising to family, friends and acquaintances of your goods and services. This free advertising has gained you additional customers, increased your sales, and allowed you to maintain your business.
Since you are backing legislation that disregards my rights as granted by the Constitution and Law of the United States of America that ends today! The legislation you are backing is known as SOPA and PIPA.
As of today, I am boycotting your business and will continue to boycott your business until such time as you stop pushing for legislation that damages my rights and liberties as granted under the US Constitution and Laws of the United States of America.
A boycott is not just me refusing to purchase your goods and services. A boycott is also me requesting to my family, friends and acquaintances that they no longer purchase your goods and services.
In the past I have helped your business as a customer, I will now harm your business with boycott. This is my right as a consumer, and I choose to exercise that right to the fullest of my abilities.
Sincerely,
-your-name-
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
time to get stabby!
hey, I've been advocating that for years! I can't get anyone to listen.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I would think that a boycott of new movies and music would work. I am sick of entertainment industry running Washington; my protest will take the form or no more movies for me. I won't miss them...
Think about fluffy bunnies.
Seastead this.
Glenn Reynolds, the influential libertarian blogger (who opposes SOPA/PIPA), reports that a staffer for Congressman Tim Johnson emailed: "Glenn, no name please. I work for Congressman Tim Johnson. Just to let you know, we’re getting about a hundred emails an hour opposing SOPA. We were already opposed, but this certainly makes us feel that much better about our opposition."
Apparently the Senator withdrew his support. Trying to link to his site: http://rubio.senate.gov/ shows nothing. He did make a facebook posting withdrawing support https://www.facebook.com/SenatorMarcoRubio/posts/340889625936408#!/SenatorMarcoRubio Interesting times...
Round up some web billionaires and get them to lobby the hell out of congress. If you can't get the money out of politics then use money as a weapon the same way Hollywood and the Music Industry does. "Going Dark" is insufferably silly because it gives ordinary anonymous slackers the impression they are doing something while in fact it accomplishes nothing. You'd be better off selling ribbon magnets.
My Congressional district is having an election to replace David Wu (the crazy guy). There are Democrat and Republican candidates -- I won't vote for those, obviously, so my choices are Progressive or Libertarian. While I'm not crazy about a truly Libertarian system, it probably does more good than harm to have at least a few of those voices in the House, so I'm leaning that way. Unless somebody wants to try to sell me on Progressive...
Hey, what say we give the Federal government even *more* revenue, power, and control, and increase it's size and scope even more!
I mean, just look around!
That's worked SO well over the last 60-80 years to bring us to the Utopia we have now, hasn't it?
[crickets]
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Correct. Let's take back the language. George Orwell's main point, if you *really* read his work (not just one or two books and only look at the surface details.) is that those who control the language control thought. So start speaking plainly. Here are some ideas for substitutions:
Issues == problems
private security contractors == mercenaries
incetivize == subsidize
cloud computing == remote client/server
etc.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I don't understand.
We have many of our elections being counted in secret.
We have foreign companies now counting our votes.
We have voting machines, with no way to track votes counting our votes.
What is the result?
A bunch of people that pass Patriot ACT, SOPA and NDAA, TSA. (Sorry the list is too long now...)
Suprise!
Only complete idiots would be thinking about how to use a political system that gave them the above to somehow expect the very same system will stop stop these evil people, and I do mean _evil_ people.
You people are morons, and future generations are going to look back at how Mud Huts everyone is living in got into vogue, and curse you all.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Update: The gentleman did in fact email me a copy, so now it's my turn to decide what happens next.
A couple of notes:
A Legit issue underneath all the snow-job the **AA is churning out is that there is indeed a longer gestation period for "non-traditional sales" so on purpose I "won't pay today". (Otherwise that's just more of an inverted retail transaction.)
Also this situation is different because "the clock starts today" whereas the poster's point was that he couldn't figure out the "correlation - causation" link between unknown downloads vs. sales.
This feels like an important project for me and my stance on copyright, so everyone, watch for further posts later in other threads and we'll see where it all goes. Mr. Author, please pay extra care not to "get impatient" here. I have some ideas but the time passing is in fact part of the point, so that it doesn't just become astroturfing.
See you all In Another Thread!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
cannot do very much other than watch while Americans debate whether they will or not allow a bunch of uneducated legislators attempt to destroy the internet as we know it. For the rest of the world, and that includes Americans along, is an opportunity to descentralize the control over the net. I guess this debacle will soon follow the approach of a substitute for the ICANN, and the internet will never be the same again, whatever government should be in control of a central identification system aka DNS.
Some people are listening. Marco Rubio just announced he is withdrawing his co-sponsership of the bill and now opposes it, saying, "Since then, we’ve heard legitimate concerns about the impact the bill could have on access to the Internet and about a potentially unreasonable expansion of the federal government’s power to impact the Internet. Congress should listen and avoid rushing through a bill that could have many unintended consequences." If enough senators can be swayed by an influx of negative reactions to the bill, we can kill it.
Normally I'm in the "If you do nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about." category, typically because the profit/gain of someone from giving you something to worry about in those cases is negligable.
Here, the profit/gain is still very small, but some groups pushing for it are known to heavily abuse their power, and do anything for a little gain, even at a massive and unfair cost to others.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Shut down the MPAA.
Seastead this.
There is at least one other major presidential candidate who is against SOPA: Barack Obama.
This is exactly why we need to support and vote for Ron Paul.
He's the only politician that stands against crap like this and will reduce the power of the Fed.
Al the other candidates are just empty suits that will be the bitches of big corps, and who support SOPA and PIPA.
if you stopped reading at 'wikileaks', just fuck off. we dont need people whose thought process and horizon are triggered on/off with keywords. there are a lot of those in congress and senate.
Read radical news here
did you think they care about losing an election ? when they lose it, they will be awarded with an exec position in the content industry, and will get sign up bonuses.
Read radical news here
I'm really pressed for time, but I found time to move my (piddling 13) domains away from GoDaddy and let them know why. I didn't manage to do it in time for the announced day, but I got it done. Punishing companies that support this garbage is not an immediate solution, but it's good for the long term because reducing corporate support for it eventually gets reflected in lobbying efforts and campaign contributions.
Just for kicks, I decided to see what the local broadcast TV news was saying about this if anything.
The local FOX network noon news actually ran a piece on it surprisingly early on in the program but the spin they gave it - that most viewers would come away believing - was that the people protesting SOPA were "misinformed"!
Of course, FOX is one of the big media companies.
Why not just decentralize DNS and domain name registration to remove control from the hands of the ISPs. Then the only way they can turn off the internet is to really turn off the internet...
Bow before me, for I am root.
It's not important just that people KNOW. They much DO SOMETHING.
The number TWO thing they can do is take up the Staff time of CongressCritters. The number ONE thing they can do, is convince those CongressCritters that they will vote against them (put them out of office)
The best way to do either of these is to call up the CongressCritters office and demand to talk to the appropriate staffer. Make it clear that you intent to vote against their boss if their boss votes for SOPA. You can even add on, that you'll explain this to all your relatives and friends, and actively campaign against their candidate.
The squeaky-ist, noisy-ist wheel gets the oil. In reality, a very small organized group can quickly block almost any legislation using such tactics, especially in an era when elections are won by narrow margins.
As far as organization goes, you've got to actually have it. You can't just post things to the internet and pray. You need lists. You need circles. You need one person, checking on ten people, checking on another ten. You ask, can you get 50 people to call? Who are they? Did you call them to make sure they called?
Just like in the office, you get things by actually monitoring; a "political machine."
Does anyone know of a good alternative way to get messages to him?
A phone? (202) 224-2023.
That is all.
My two cents, http://thunderfist-podium.blogspot.com/2012/01/real-problem-with-sopa.html
The runner up story is Susan Boyle. When Wikipedia comes off blackout, go look her up and check the sales records - some such highest selling new artist in X years.
Or you could turn off Javascript and look it up now. (block wikimedia.org, the only script running)
My email is "not obfuscated" so send it along!
Neither is mine, and to my knowledge, it has never been abused.
Am I seriously the only consumer who has recognized the blatantly obvious reasons for the current state of rampant piracy? SOPA and it's relatives as a solution is more akin to refusing to put doors on houses relying instead on strategically placed security cameras outfitted with Facebook-searching facial recognition software to catch burglars. Audio CD's were invented in 1982, this technology is most likely older than you. DVD's 1995. Instead of expecting taxpayers to protect your assets, it's time protect your own. We the people of the united nations of earth will not give up our freedoms or right of privacy in order to keep manufacturing costs nice and marginal for such an ungodly lucrative industry. Either change distribution mediums, or give it away for free. Most of us are tired of purchasing such perishable disks anyway. Not to mention the profits from new sales of firmware updatable memory card players. I'd way much rather be punished for the naughtiness of a few by being required to buy a new electronic device then to remove the front door to my house and hope my government doesn't walk in, give me a trusting smile, and rape me.
Drive to the National Mall in D.C., douse yourself with gasoline, and light yourself on fire!
SCOTUS confirmed that Congress also has the right to bring works currently in the public domain back into copyrighted status. So if SOPA/PIPA pass we have to worry about current violations and future unknown violations should Congress decide to re-copyright a work. Next up, the Department of the Interior will relocate us all to caves so we can stare at shadows on the wall and pretend they are real.
Got a live person with my representative, bad voicemail from Boxer, and Feinstein had her phone off the hook.
I for one will be making sopaipillas for dinner tonight in solidarity
That doesn't take balls. It takes brains. Kinda the point.
Al Franken supports. I would've never thought.
http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/
Waiting for you by the bridge
With enough brib^H^H^H^H campaign funds, the politicians will pass any law.
Wikipedia is viewable as long as you have NoScript...
Stop SOPA and PIPA
www.rashdownloads.com
visit and support
The US government should not have this power over internet censorship. As a computer programmer I understand that this bill would not stop the illegal activities it is reporting to fight. What it will do is reduce the ability to share legally. This will effect me and my friends because the channels used to exchange copyrighted material is the same channels I use daily to update my operating system... and applications... legally! To me this looks like a mechanism to rid the Internet of free exchange of information and application sharing so that all traffic is driven through expensive corporate controlled channels. It is my opinion that this is a fight to control the concept of Sharing in general. And sharing is not something that should be stopped. I believe sharing is godly as it is a fundamental aspect of a good person and a real aspect of wat allows humans to express humanity.
Given the legal terror tactics employed by the MPAA and the RIAA, would it be possible to get both organizations labeled and subsequently banned as terrorist organizations?
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
You're gonna be sorry, you're ALL gonna be sorry!!!!1
As much as some quarters would dismiss today as slacktivism or a cheap stunt, the Internet has needed for a long time now to take the political process seriously.
There is this sort of mythology that has been embraced regarding the idea that technology can route around misapplication of the legal process; that some combination of steganography, encryption and dark fiber will always allow us to enjoy the freedom we've taken for granted on the Internet. But we're on borrowed time. The abuses of copyright law as it currently stands are myriad, whether it's publicly funded research locked down in private journals, or fair use aggregation and citation of news coming under legal attack, or DMCA takedown notices being inappropriately filed, without repercussion, by "content owners" who don't actually have a right to the content they're taking down.
Hide inside TOR if you want to, but the fact of the matter is some truly awful precedent is being set and horrible legislation crafted because only one side reliably shows up to this fight. Take solace in the idea that someone will make you a "free Internet", at least until encryption is illegal over cable and airwaves. Enjoy your privacy until it becomes mandatory to provide ID to browse the web -- commercial interests already examine everything you do and put it in your permanent file. At the end of the day, do not expect technology to provide an answer when the law sets the specifications for the Internet.
I couldn't be happier that the Internet is finally creating a notification and response system for awful legislation. Now it's time to let your representatives know they'll lose your support if they draft, sponsor and pass anti-Internet bills. If they ignore you, vote Rastafarian. Also, consider buying your movies and music used, selling back to the used market, and encouraging your friends to do the same. It's high time to send a fuck you back, because right now everybody thinks we're a joke.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
The way to keep these bills from resurfacing like the creature in a bad Hollywood horror film is to punish the senators and congressmen who signed on as supporters. Because you know the big media will be pushing for something new as soon as the hubbub over SOPA and PIPA dies down.
Punish means voting for their opponents, sending them money, even campaigning for them, and, this is the important part, telling the jerkwads in Congress you are doing it and why. The one thing that outweighs their greed for bribes (campaign donations), is fear of getting voted out entirely, and the gravy train stopping.
On the other hand, if they come out against these laws, thank them, and say how much you will support them in the future. Make censoring the Net a toxic subject, so the next time the media come knocking (and they will), they get told to get the hell out.
http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
Worth every second it takes to watch it and, more importantly, SHARE IT.
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
Thanks slashdot for taking action and joining the blackout. /. is now frozen and this will be the only news story of the day.
/. wouldn't join in, since the community is so overwhelmingly against SOPA and PIPA. /. would already know about it is pretty fair, but still. This is Serious.
Several of us were wondering why
The argument that anybody on
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
The fast easy way to spam your congress critters with your opinion on legislation....
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
keep your opinions about the validity of the patent system out of this. Yes they are connected. Maybe you have a point. But when you argue against SOPA from the standpoint that piracy is OK all you do in the eyes of the general public is justify the position of SOPA supporters. The most effective thing we can do here is argue against this based on the fact that SOPA is basically martial law for the internet.
I'm somehow reminded of the episode of South Park where they try to change the state flag.
When is the SOPA/PIPA movie going to be released? It better not be a made for T.V. movie I can record or an internet indie I can download. Trouble will be had.
No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!
The reaction and the level of taking action you americans have exhibited in this occasion, both individually and on tech-corporation level, has been much encouraging. For a long time now, i see -at least the more aware - americans sparing effort for something good. i actually was surprised when ows thing had happened recently. but this is icing on the cake.
maybe hope is not lost for your society yet and you can take it back ....
Read radical news here
And it has a bit of content. Anyone have rights to any of it? Take-down notices, anyone?
lamarsmith.house.gov
If laws like this p#ss you off, then follow the money.
Are you still buying DVDs? CDs? Seeing movies in the theater? On Netflix or other streaming service? Renting from a video rental service such as Blockbuster? Watching entertainment on Cable TV?
If you want to stop corporate-centric laws such as SOPA/PIPA, then you must cut off their lobbying revenue. When you buy entertainment you are contributing to the lobbying warchest. SOPA/PIPA exists because of YOU!
Hit the **AA where it hurts. Boycott cable TV, boycott DVDs, boycott movie theaters, boycott CDs, boycott any entertainment distribution center.
I cut off cable TV since 2000, that wasn't hard at all. Now I am going to cut off CDs and DVDs.
If you're recoiling in horror about how difficult that is, there is a whole other life waiting for you out there.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
The UK should have thought about that when it insisted on signing the Berne Convention!
While your point is valid the treaty in question is the US-UK extradition treaty, not the Berne Convention. As for "the UK" the only defence we have is that it was the government who signed it and we kicked it out at the last election. With the financial collapse people have been talking about the failure of capitalism but my concern is that this is just a symptom of the underlying failure of western democracy to provide governments that act in the best interests of the people as evidenced by the UK-US extradition treaty, the financial collapse and SOPA/PIPA. At least with the latter you may have caught it in time to do something about it but the overall trend is concerning.
I love it that Slashdot's walking the walk. Good on you!
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
No, you cannot influence it, but it WILL have an effect on you.
True, but will it be a bad effect? There is the concern over pressure for copycat legislation but, if that does not happen, then it might be a good thing for non-US people in the long run. If this legislation ham-strings US technology companies it means that non-US tech companies will get a boost. For example if Google search results become unreliable due to censoring what's to stop a non-US search company starting up to fill the void which Google leaves? The huge advantage with the web is that switching to a new search engine is trivially simple - there is no MS-style lock in. Certainly in the short term it will cause problems for everyone but in the long term I do not think it is so clear.
Actually Wikipedia is not really blacked out. If you stop the page loading after the text appears but before the black overlay it is quite readable.
So basically you gave up and let them win by default ??
May I remind you of a few famous quotes:
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
-- mis-attributed to http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
-- Thomas Jefferson
Isn't there any way to stop bill like this passing in the U.S via the legal channels ? I know that lawsuits cost a lot of hard money in the U.S. It is also important to stop all this lobbying money going into the U.S congress and politics. As that is nothing but corruption with a nice name on it.
Not being from the USA, I am limited in my response. Mine however will be pretty simple. The list of supporting companies was published. I won't buy their products.
I mean I saw "1-800-CONTACTS" was on the list. They sell contact lenses online. WTF do they have to do with SOPA? I have bought contacts from them before. I will be buying a years supply this month. Guess who won't be getting my business. It is a small thing really, but if more people put their money where their principles are...
I've burnt out my rage gland now... and have started thinking positively about what the post-SOPA Internet might look like.
It occurs to me that SOPA relies very heavily on the Domain Name system that the Internet uses so heavily - primarily so that we don't need to remember IP addresses - but also, to a lesser degree, so that we don't need to have fixed IPs.
Once SOPA is entrenched, and domains start getting blocked - either as legitimate takedowns, witch-hunts, or corporate espionage (I'll be expecting Samsung and Apple to be off the air within days of SOPA's activation) - a more dynamic website that doesn't rely on a DNS, and that has a flexible IP seems to be the logical approach.
Or perhaps some very powerful proxy servers based outside US soil... will SOPA have the ability to block them when they are transports and not hosts? Perhaps a combination of a proxy server with its own naming/IP translation table?
One thing I am sure of: People will get what they want from the Internet regardless of what the legislators say.
The first great cyber-civil war appears to be commencing... how does the right to bear arms relate to that?
Senator Marco Rubio just annonced on his Facebook page that he's withdrawing his support for the Protect IP Act. (Credit to Steve from HardOCP.com's forum for the story).
Therefore, I have decided to withdraw my support for the Protect IP Act. Furthermore, I encourage Senator Reid to abandon his plan to rush the bill to the floor. Instead, we should take more time to address the concerns raised by all sides, and come up with new legislation that addresses Internet piracy while protecting free and open access to the Internet.
I also agree with Steve from HardOCP, he would have been more credible if he have done this before today
Elok
I was heartened to read that some prominent congressmen have withdrawn their support for PIPA/SOPA: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/technology/web-protests-piracy-bill-and-2-key-senators-change-course.html
Well, bitcoins would become less of a joke if people bought something other than weed and botnet time with them. I'm not sure that currency would really hold up, but there's always a black market for a desired good if normal payment is outlawed - it's just a question of what new form the financial transfer would take.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Are there any representatives out there who are for ending copyright altogether? Those are the reps we should be supporting.
There is no place for copyright in the future of human society.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Never heard of the business cycle, have you? For every action, there's a counter-action. I'm not certain precisely which shell the pea is hiding under, but one of these legislative initiatives should soon have you rebinding your F11 key to proclaim:
Extrapolative summation is one of the worst cherry-picking tactics around. The summation is often shouted loudest around the point of inflection. Furthermore, this is a distraction. Counting lawyers is not the governing variable here. I think this is covert segue back into macroeconomic levernomics. The vacuous poles are always quick to boil any issue down to an employment statistic. The left counts workers, the right counts government workers. I'm not getting sucked into counting lawyers unless it's an Angry Birds expansion pack.
Who said you have to vote for the powerful parties?
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Or, if you are still a little squeamish, send *me* all that info which I won't re-share, but I'll report my results. My email is "not obfuscated" so
Sadly, your email is a Yahoo email, so you won't receive it today...
In an internationally accepted fashion that wouldn't have a high risk of interception? Probably cash mailed to mail drops. That'd probably be Euros, as the US Dollar has been ... well ... not so strong.
As anyone who has dealt with drugs to non-locals in the US knows, ship by UPS or FedEx. The gov't can tie crimes to transferring anything related to a "crime" via USPS, but that doesn't apply to courier services.
Back to the good old mail order days. Oh how we are progressing. If the gov't gets their way, we'll be back to print catalogs, and printed newsletters mailed to interested parties. Talk about dropping a nuke on the information superhighway.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
If they really implement a take down system that bypasses the courts I think the best way to deal with it would be massive false claims.
Start filling out claims for every image on slashdot.org and file them with the upstream ISP.
A web crawler that harvests web sites and files claims on _every_ resource.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Follow the money.
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand". -Milton F.
You voted for them, over and over, they have the same comfortable (D) or (R) after their name as you do and that makes you feel good about your "team". But now your teammate is sponsoring SOPA/PIPA... What happened?
Are you feeling puzzled by this flagrant grab for power?
The reason you are puzzled is that you have a problem with trust. Or rather, that you trust in your government too much. You're only feeling the sting of that trust being broken because for once, it's your ox that's getting gored.
I guess my question for you, Mr. and Mrs. Big Government, is: why do you trust "your guy" and demonize the "other guy"? News flash: "your guy" is a DEMON!!
I've said it before, I'll say it again, if you voted to keep any of the current party leaders in power (don't forget the leadership controls the legislative agenda), or if you've ever voted for any of the original SOPA/PIPA sponsors, then YOU are the problem. YOU let this happen. Don't shrug your shoulders and complain how you didn't know or "why is he/she doing this to me?" YOU empowered these bastards! Shame on YOU! Don't repeat your stupid mistakes again. Your pack of liars that call themselves a political party isn't worth it - it isn't worth saving.
We're now, finally, playing for the whole kit-and-kaboodle. This is it. We're actually seeing the leading edge of a movement to take away control of our free ability to communicate with each other!
Oh, you don't think these bills can't possibly pass? Hm, how cute your optimism is! Let's take a quick trip down recent memory lane, shall we? Remember the lost cause of Obamacare and when Scott Brown got elected? It was gonna get the filibuster! Hooray, that obamination of Pelosicare is dead!! But then, suddenly, the Senate didn't matter ... those hogs in congress just waved their greasy, fat little fingers and passed the house bill through the senate with a simple majority via "Reconciliation"! Reconciliation is a device that was only supposed to be used for BUDGET resolutions! Illegal? No, but definitely breaking some established rules. NOT COOL.
Don't forget: what the people want and demand no longer matters. These bills have big money backing them, they're going to at least come up for a vote. It's possible they could pass - there just need to be the right legislative devices used - deem-and-pass ("demonpass") at midnight if you have to. Do you really think Obama wouldn't rubber stamp just about any bill Harry Reid sends him? C'mon, WAKE UP, O IS A FAILURE!!
There is only one solution: it's time to primary challenge all these incumbents. You wannabe hippie OWS'ers and all you boring religious nuts and scatterbrains on the tea party side need to come together on this one issue and FLIP THE GODDAMN SWITCH! Every clown on the following two lists must be booted from public office at the next possible election - these are our ENEMIES!
http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/7786/blog/2012/01/12/house-sopa-cosponsors
http://www.campaignforliberty.org/profile/7786/blog/2012/01/12/senate-pipa-cosponsors
Dave
The people are becoming aware that some absurd law scribbled on paper by filthy, sub-human bureaucrats does not carry the same weight as the laws of nature. History shows that when the injustice and oppression of the common citizen becomes too much, they will rise and throw off the shackles. Have a nice day!
That'd probably be Euros, as the US Dollar has been ... well ... not so strong.
Not following international finance? The dollar is increasing seen as the least crazy currency, as the financial meltdown of the EU continues (S&P really laid into euorpean soveriegn debt this week). The only reason the markets aren't betting on the dissolution of the Euro is that there's no actual mechanism for that - much as Greece et al need to return to currencies thay can print like crazy, no one has an actual plan for how Greece could return the the Drachma.
Back to the good old mail order days. Oh how we are progressing. If the gov't gets their way, we'll be back to print catalogs, and printed newsletters mailed to interested parties. Talk about dropping a nuke on the information superhighway.
Yeah, I can see that as the SOPA-enabled future (though perhaps Freenet might actually take off in that case).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hi AC!
I'll find out more ways we can give him funds! Stay tuned!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I have previously written my Congressman and my Senators, but today I called the office of Senator Joseph Leiberman and found, to my disgust, he is a co-sponsor of the awful PIPA bill (the Senate version of SOPA).
I told Senator Leiberman's aide, who was handling phones this afternoon, that this bill would run me out of business. I design and build websites and the law is written in such a way that it would cause me to have to police my own clients, including any link they posted on their own websites. Also, any of their competitors could, with a complaint and no due process, demand that their websites were shut down. I also said that if the MPAA and the RIAA, who wrote this awful bill, were to start producing content that was compelling, they would not be experiencing the loss of revenue that they are blaming on the pirates.
I called Senator Blumenthal's office and found, to my relief, that while he initially was for the bill, he would not vote for it unless it was radically changed. I told the aide on the phone that I was an expert on the Internet, that I design websites and that this law could, effectively, end my business. I also told the aide that I had met the Senator when he was the Attorney General for the State and that I liked him, trusted him and hoped that he would listen to my concerns and never vote for any bill like this.
In both cases, I gave the Senators' offices my zip code and any other information they requested.
This kind of telephone call from an intelligent person who actually knows what's in the bill and what kinds of problems it could cause really gets the attention of these people in the Senators' offices and I would encourage all Slashdotters in the United States to do this. Senators are not experts on the Internet. They really need our help to let them know why the law that was written by the record industry and the film industry destroys our freedom.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
If the Author does this like you suggest, I would buy a copy of his book just to congratulate him on principle. I can only speak for myself so here's my anecdote: I prefer physical books over electronic copies however, before I buy a book I always read a portion from somewhere near the beginning to get an idea of whether the authors style appeals to me. If I can't find a physical copy and amazon's preview doesn't apply to that book I would happily and without guilt download a pirated copy, and if the writing style appealed to me, I would then purchase a physical copy. I've also lost count of the number of albums that I've ended up buying after stumbling across an artist I haven't yet heard of on youtube.
squabble squabble ObamaBush squabble squabble envirocorporation squabble squabble **SOPA ALERT** SAY WHAT!?!?!!! STAY AWAY FROM OUR INTERNET OR WE WON'T BE ABLE TO ARGUE ANY MORE!!! Then all of us millions paid attention, thousands mobilized, and the government was afraid of the monster we have made here in cyberspace. The good news is, with millions of us watching over this incredible invention that is us, the government is going to have a hard time giving our Internet to any of its cronies...
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
"by whitehatnetizen (997645) on 09:55 PM January 18th, 2012 (#38744614)
If the Author does this like you suggest, I would buy a copy of his book just to congratulate him on principle. I can only speak for myself so here's my anecdote: I prefer physical books over electronic copies however, before I buy a book I always read a portion from somewhere near the beginning to get an idea of whether the authors style appeals to me. If I can't find a physical copy and amazon's preview doesn't apply to that book I would happily and without guilt download a pirated copy, and if the writing style appealed to me, I would then purchase a physical copy. I've also lost count of the number of albums that I've ended up buying after stumbling across an artist I haven't yet heard of on youtube."
I think at the moment this is only an eBook - so there's that, and I don't know / don't think it's on Amazon. I have an email pending from him about how he'll let me choose distribution promotions.
So far I've gotten some early good comments from readers glad to see something new developing in the content game.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Yo..yo.. if US Govt (& the Indian Govt (is also behaving as a..naive); trying to filter content through Google, Facebook and in total 21 Media websites across India :/ )
can't backoff...then c'mon lets BRING IT.. bring our own hacker grid (n they can keep their BS to themselves)!!! :/ :/