Poll: S.O.P.A (The Real Story)

[That New Guy]

I havent heard from someone that agrees with this bill, i think we all agree on the same thing. Many people are ignorant of this bill but who cares? Its a stupid bill and even if its passed im sure it will be withdrawn so quickly when people see the ramifications of it.

i dont live in america so you cant sue anything in my country, but you will be able to isolate international websites and force them to close down or take away alot of content and that will affect me. What will happen is websites and software growth from my country will be stunted as will alot of other countries, America will make its own little internet and all countries that use american servers which is a huge percentage, will just start hosting domestically.

In my eyes this bill was created to give greater control to the media corporations but its just going to make everything turn into one giant witch... sorry... piracy hunt.

TubeYou wants Youtube out of buisness so it finds a video someone posted and they happen to be wearing a pokemon hat, competition eliminated.

Im really tired, forgive me if this is poorly phrased or doesnt make any sense.

 

[That New Guy]

One thing that opened my eyes was this line from Wikipedia:

SOPA could require Wikipedia to actively monitor every site we link to, to ensure it doesn't host infringing content. Any link to an infringing site could put us in jeopardy of being forced offline.

In other words, not only can a site can be forced offline if accused of copyright infringement.
But also, a site can be forced offline merely for linking to a site accused of copyright infringement.

So it has the potential to take out multiple entire websites, just for one (claimed) instance of copyright infringement.

Topaz, you ever played the game 6 degrees of adolf hitler?

Basically you go to wikipedia and click random artical, then within six hyperlinks you need to get to the adolf hitler Wiki page, as an example ill play it right now and tell you what links i press.

clicked random artical.

1st. is Boulton Paul Atlantic, I can see a link on that page to the WW1 page so i will click that.

2nd. ww1, under the heading "discontent in germany" i can see adolf hitler.

in two links i got to adolf hitlers page from a RANDOM artical, now imagine each wiki page is a seperate website with links and "adolf hitler" is the infringed copyrighted material. every page could be taken down because everything links to everything on the internet.

Its a fun game, i suggest you play it.

 

[michael87cn]

S.O.P.A, (Stop Online Piracy Act) A lot of people seem to be protesting this bill heavily. Although I myself am not to eager for this bill to pass. It would be great if some of you actually knew what the objective of the bill is. A lot of people (no idea why) seem to think that SOPA's main purpose is to censor the internet and make everything shitty with black bars all over their favourite sites stopping them from enjoying content. That however is incorrect. The bill is meant to do Exactly what the name is, stop piracy. Protecting intellectual property is not the same as censorship; the First Amendment does not protect stealing goods off trucks. So why would it protect downloading things illegally from the internet. The only thing that makes me weary about this bill is the lack of clarity. I think it should be revised Heavily before anyone even thinks of passing it. Just remember to learn the facts before you make your decision on whether to Yay or nay this bill.

My thoughts on S.O.P.A

What are your thoughts on Libraries? The government were the first pirates, after all. What right did they have to purchase copies of other peoples work and put them out for free for any and all to come and utilize? I mean, the lost profits, the lost sales! The humanity! Ever since libraries came out, people completely stopped purchasing books!

THE HUMANITY OF IT ALL!

Oh, wait. Libraries are good things as they promote sales, as people tend to purchase what they like, and the right to 'truly' own something, cannot be gained by pirating it. (many games cannot be played multiplayer when cracked for example, a borrowed book must be returned, etc.).

There is nothing wrong with pirating. In fact, we need more of it. And we need it more publicly and more accessible to everyone. It will only improve business and sales, and give customers more control over WHAT they get with their money.

My opinion of course.

 

[Phlakes]

Piracy should be fought, and the principle behind SOPA is something I fully support.

But this is fucking not the way to do it.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Like I said in another thread, SOPA is too far reaching.

It needs to be a sniper rifle, not a nuclear bomb.

 

[The Funslinger]

This quote is used way too much, but it just fits:

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

I've often wondered what Thomas Hobbes would have thought of that viewpoint.

 

[LostCrusader]

1. The anti-circumvention clause of SOPA effectively undermines vital parts of the Information Security industry and in particular, undermines DNSSEC, a security technology that keeps the DNS system useful. DNS is how your computer translates human-friendly names like "escapistmagazine.com" to computer-friendly IP addresses. Other areas of InfoSec that get screwed over include developers and providers of anonymizing proxy and VPN services. Use, development, or hosting software to access the TOR network, for example, would be illegal under SOPA.

I was thinking about this point earlier this week, if all the bill does is block DNS for the websites, then how is this going to doing anything to stop the most likely tech savvy pirates from connecting to those sites by just using the actual ip addresses. I don't think they will have any effect on the people they are trying to stop.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

This quote is used way too much, but it just fits:

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

I've often wondered what Thomas Hobbes would have thought of that viewpoint.

I may be being completely thick but, I'll admit it, I have no idea what you are getting at.

 

[VladG]

S.O.P.A, (Stop Online Piracy Act) A lot of people seem to be protesting this bill heavily. Although I myself am not to eager for this bill to pass. It would be great if some of you actually knew what the objective of the bill is. A lot of people (no idea why) seem to think that SOPA's main purpose is to censor the internet and make everything shitty with black bars all over their favourite sites stopping them from enjoying content. That however is incorrect. The bill is meant to do Exactly what the name is, stop piracy. Protecting intellectual property is not the same as censorship; the First Amendment does not protect stealing goods off trucks. So why would it protect downloading things illegally from the internet. The only thing that makes me weary about this bill is the lack of clarity. I think it should be revised Heavily before anyone even thinks of passing it. Just remember to learn the facts before you make your decision on whether to Yay or nay this bill.

My thoughts on S.O.P.A

You do realize that the only thing SOPA will not do is stop piracy, right? It will at most slightly inconvenience people who pirate software.

Dedicated pirating sites are not hosted in the US, and as such not subject to being closed down, simply blocked in the US, and that can very easily be bypassed with a proxy.

 

[Sandytimeman]

snip

I think you should watch this. Seriously, I know its like 14 mins long but seriously take some time and watch this video. It states exactly my views, my concerns arn't this law, but the side effects of this law.

 

[chadachada123]

This is a really extreme analogy, but I hope the point will be understood.

Want to know the most effective way to stop piracy? Execute anyone that visits any sites other than sites that Universal, Disney, Road Runner Records, Viacom, etc own or deem "safe" to visit. No trial needed, because they "might" be pirating, and collateral damage is irrelevant. Oh, and only rich copyright holders have the sway needed to say which sites are "safe" and which aren't.

Also, one of the main problems with this bill is the fact that it's entirely and solely backed by large corporations, who are paying off Congressmen. This kind of corruption is what Ron Paul and other, er, freedom-fighters are pushing to end.

(I'm sure others will point out specific flaws with the bill itself, I'm just saying two of the overarching reasons why).

There's also the fact that this bill will probably do nothing to stop piracy...

 

[VladG]

First off, the good news: at tonight's GOP debate, all four candidates came out against SOPA. This means, no matter who wins in 2012, we will very likely have a president who is against SOPA for the next four years.

Or it could just mean that these candidates simply said this to gain votes and could give rats ass about the fate of the internet.

I don't buy it one bit from them.

That's basically the foundation of Democracy. He doesn't have to care, he just has to want to get (re-)elected.

 

[Red_Knight]

When movies and games and whatnot stop making hundreds of millions of dollars, then I'll believe there's a real problem. Not until then. The MPAA and RIAA will still make their millions and billions, and so will everyone else, cuz their prices are so damn high. They won't win this fight and then lower their prices. It's yet another attempt to squeeze every last dollar out of the American consumer by buying a law that suits them and ignores the people.

"Piracy" needs to be redefined, and SOPA needs to be thrown out and rewritten entirely to work, as Daystar suggested, like a sniper rifle, picking off the ones that need to be picked off while not abridging the lives of the rest.

 

[varulfic]

Who cares what the bill is supposed to do, the protests are about what the bill does. Why is anyone bothering defending this thing? SOPA doesn't need a devil's advocate... it needs a devil to torture it in the fires of hell for all eternity.

 

[Daverson]

What's SOPA's supposed to do, and what it'd actually do are two very different things.

Let's face it, if you think piracy is good for the industry, you're either a fool or a communist (and some would argue there's no real distinction between the two). I think most people, including a few pirates themselves, would like to see an end to piracy. Draconian measures like SOPA though, aren't going to end piracy.

You know how people are always complaining about restrictive DRM? SOPA is pretty much just restrictive DRM for the internet. It's not going to stop piracy, it's just going to cause a lot of technical problems for legitimate users.

SOPA wouldn't do anything to prevent:
-Filesharing programs like Napster
-Illegally sharing films, music and games through torrents
-People from creating and sharing key-generators, CD-Cracks and all the other things pirates love.

What it would do would be make legally sharing content much harder - as a modder, I used Megaupload pretty extensively to share my work. Now there's plenty of fan-sites that do host community content, but they aren't just going to hand their FTP information out to anyone who wants to upload a file, are they? (With good reason - for every one person who wants to stick a legitimate file on your server, there'll be at least 10 who want to put illegal content, adverts, malware or just plain junk there) Without these sites, what option does that leave for letting people get to my work? These days mods can be several gigabytes in size, sending files that big over Instant Messengers or Email just isn't feasible. The same thing goes videos and youtube, art and deviantart, flash games and newgrounds and so on and so forth. Effectively legally made free content would greatly suffer.

 

[Akyho]

S.O.P.A, (Stop Online Piracy Act) A lot of people seem to be protesting this bill heavily. Although I myself am not to eager for this bill to pass. It would be great if some of you actually knew what the objective of the bill is. A lot of people (no idea why) seem to think that SOPA's main purpose is to censor the internet and make everything shitty with black bars all over their favourite sites stopping them from enjoying content. That however is incorrect. The bill is meant to do Exactly what the name is, stop piracy. Protecting intellectual property is not the same as censorship; the First Amendment does not protect stealing goods off trucks. So why would it protect downloading things illegally from the internet. The only thing that makes me weary about this bill is the lack of clarity. I think it should be revised Heavily before anyone even thinks of passing it. Just remember to learn the facts before you make your decision on whether to Yay or nay this bill.

My thoughts on S.O.P.A

We know this. Its copyright law. However look on this page alone most of us are breaking copyright law with our Avatars. We break Copyright law alooooooooooot. However we are against Sopa because its so unspecified. Meaning if it is passed it is a free pass to abuse it and break freedom of speech. SOPA isnt aimed however companies are not above useing such things badly.

Look at copyright law as it is. 8year old girls being arrested for nursery rhymes. Yes she broke the law however they could have went about it a bit better. If that is us with our current laws I dont want to think about unspecific and vague laws.

 

[chadachada123]

First off, the good news: at tonight's GOP debate, all four candidates came out against SOPA. This means, no matter who wins in 2012, we will very likely have a president who is against SOPA for the next four years.

Or it could just mean that these candidates simply said this to gain votes and could give rats ass about the fate of the internet.

I don't buy it one bit from them.

That's basically the foundation of Democracy. He doesn't have to care, he just has to want to get (re-)elected.

I hate to do this info-drop, but I really do wish that this is read.

Ron Paul has always been against SOPA/PIPA, and was against the NDAA (and did a speech the day of the blackout wanting to remove section 1021 of the NDAA, the indefinite detention part).
Ron Paul has been against SOPA since before the Iowa (goddamned) caucus: http://torrentfreak.com/presidential-candidate-ron-paul-slams-sopa-111229/

The other candidates only came out at the debate, but Paul put it on his Facebook page the morning of Wednesday. Quote: "My campaign, and the entire freedom movement, would not be as strong as they are today without a free Internet, and that's just one of the reasons why the establishment hopes to censor it with SOPA and PIPA. I'm proud to see so many taking a stand today. Contact your representative and senators and tell them to oppose these disastrous bills."

Oh, and his son, Rand Paul, a US Senator? He's already said that he will filibuster any attempts to pass PIPA. Both Rand and Ron Paul clearly oppose the legislation not because it gets brownie points, but because the legislation is clearly giving the Feds too much power. The OTHER candidates are clearly just piggybacking off of Ron Paul to try and sway internet voters.

Edit: Just one more quick fact. Paul has voted against every pay increase for Congress, saying that Congressmen should not be paid this much for such an ineffective job. He's refused to accept, for 20 years, a government pension, saying it would be "immoral and hypocritical." When he says something, he means it, and unlike the other candidates, he has never gone back on his word to waste money or liberty.

 

[silversnake4133]

Large sweeping legislation like SOPA, PIPA, and the NDAA have FAR too much gray area involved to be as "black and white" as the OP makes it out to be. The only thing with stuff like this is that our government likes to keep the general public naive and gullible, that's why they only provide so much information in the things they produce (textbooks, news stories, website information *that they claim as being fully legal*, etc.). This essentially is how they can easily control us. They provide half-truths and comforting lies to keep the populous happy. Heck if it wasn't for the Internet, we probably wouldn't be as informed as we are today.

Personally, I believe that SOPA and PIPA were given "blanket statements" to the general public in order to keep the older, voting generations happy. Only the very black and white information was provided while all of the gray area was left behind coded bars. SOPA and PIPA are NO DIFFERENT than what the DMCA was. The Entertainment industry became upset because people were downloading content online for free and not buying their products. However, the DMCA was lenient enough to allow for a clause called "The Safe Harbor" that essentially allowed the use and distribution of copyrighted material as long as it was for educational, medical, or scientific purposes, or as long as the person distributing the stuff didn't do so to profit off of it. (Making cds or tapes for a friend to enjoy/sample.)

As long as the Entertainment Industry exists, there will constantly be bills like SOPA and the DMCA that will pop up in government, each one nastier than the last. So if anything guys, prepare for the real endless war.

 

[DrOswald]

S.O.P.A, (Stop Online Piracy Act) A lot of people seem to be protesting this bill heavily. Although I myself am not to eager for this bill to pass. It would be great if some of you actually knew what the objective of the bill is. A lot of people (no idea why) seem to think that SOPA's main purpose is to censor the internet and make everything shitty with black bars all over their favourite sites stopping them from enjoying content. That however is incorrect. The bill is meant to do Exactly what the name is, stop piracy. Protecting intellectual property is not the same as censorship; the First Amendment does not protect stealing goods off trucks. So why would it protect downloading things illegally from the internet. The only thing that makes me weary about this bill is the lack of clarity. I think it should be revised Heavily before anyone even thinks of passing it. Just remember to learn the facts before you make your decision on whether to Yay or nay this bill.

My thoughts on S.O.P.A

I have no problem with the intent of the bill, stopping piracy. But that was never the issue. The problem is that there is huge potential for abuse by government and big businesses. And quite frankly I don't trust either of those groups.

This is an issue of free speech because it threatens free speech, whatever the intent.

 

[silversnake4133]

When movies and games and whatnot stop making hundreds of millions of dollars, then I'll believe there's a real problem. Not until then. The MPAA and RIAA will still make their millions and billions, and so will everyone else, cuz their prices are so damn high. They won't win this fight and then lower their prices. It's yet another attempt to squeeze every last dollar out of the American consumer by buying a law that suits them and ignores the people.

"Piracy" needs to be redefined, and SOPA needs to be thrown out and rewritten entirely to work, as Daystar suggested, like a sniper rifle, picking off the ones that need to be picked off while not abridging the lives of the rest.

Either that or more direct distribution sites like iTunes and Steam need to be made where the creators of the content can be paid directly instead of going through a "Middle Man". Of course there are the obvious drawbacks where people can still distribute songs to countless other people through the use of burning information onto cds, but the prices online are SOOO much cheaper than they are in the stores. Perhaps that's why these kind of distributors still manage to make a profit despite the Internet pirates.