SOPA Storms Back

[poiuppx]

Wow. This guy really does not know when to bow out gracefully.

SOPA is dead. The White House has more or less said, in rather PC terms, that it will not, period, under any circumstances, pass a bill with SOPA's many, many, MANY issues and concerns. This isn't some grey area like with NDAA where their opposition was conditional on elements that limited the power of the executive branch; this is a straight forward 'You cannot have. Not yours.'

The public is against this. His fellow politicians are abandoning it. The blackout is TOMORROW.

If it's because he's a true believer supporter of anti-piracy, then he really needs to rethink this, and come back with a better bill next time. But this kind of steadfast dedication says something else to me. I'll hold off on posting what this stinks of to me, but suffice to say, I think the only business he's looking to protect is his own post and the money promised to him for pushing SOPA through.

That said, this is a good reminder to everyone involved in fighting SOPA and other bills that endanger the internet... the fight does not end with a single victory. Ever. The internet is strange and frightening to those in power, and dangerous to those in power who dislike dissent. It will, constantly, come under fire from those who do not trust it. Piracy is the excuse today. There will be a new excuse tomorrow.

 

[ROOTminus1]

Good lord, time to move to England.

Don't move here, you'll just get extradited back by our idiot government.

*nods* just ask Gary McKinnon or Richard O'Dwyer

McKinnon should be given a job in Intelligence, not a prison sentence, and under UK law O'Dwyer has done nothing illegal. If the US government can lynch O'Dwyer in current circumstances, f**k knows what's gonna happen if SOPA & PIPA are passed.

Gotta hope it gets vetoed at the Whitehouse

 

[Canadamus Prime]

This dude needs to pull his head out of his ass, like now. This stupid bill will harm the very consumers and businesses it's trying to protect.

 

[rofltehcat]

-.-

...

Politicians, please go and f*** yourself.

So this was all just to prevent the shutdown from Google etc... I seriously hope now that internet companies will now fight against this even harder.

 

[Paragon Fury]

I'm either deeply misunderstanding something or he's making no sense.

'Foreign thieves'? I thought SOPA only affected US citizens... and even if I'm wrong, it's still offensive.

You all do realize what he actually means, right?

If was being accurate and honest, he would say "Chinese thieves" since they are the biggest problem in piracy and IP protection. But because he can't do that without pissing the Chinese off, so he says the ambiguous "foreign" instead.

And the thieves part is accurate, if in implications and not definition. Sure, you can use technicalities to argue your way out of the "stealing" part of thieves, but you still amount to little better than thieves.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I live in Australia, and the blackout protests are happening right now. And I suppose the whole dirty foreigners thing comes from the fact that The Pirate Bay is offshore and the US can't do much about it.

Like the dude several comments above me said, when a bill is in markup in your system things aren't looking great for it. I can only assume that direct opposition from the executive branch is a pretty bad blow to its progression. I don't know that much about US politics, I only watch the daily show (since we can't get Bill Maher anymore), but we shouldn't stop the protests now. If we keep going strong then we can really drive this shit back into the water without winding up with a re-write in a months time. so yeah, 12 hour blackouts- GO.

we don't have the black outs in Melbourne yet

 

[Rossmallo]

Why. Can't. They. Just. Stay. Down. Seriously, this is frigging horrendous.

I don't think that I'm joking here - And I wouldnt be the one to do it - when I say that if this passes, there WILL be attempts on Lamar's life. I'm not trying to be funny. Be it pissed off pirates or normal irate nerds, I genuinely think there might be an actual assassination attempt on him.

 

[carletonman]

Attention all tech workers in the US! There's some lovely tech-ready buildings in Waterloo and Ottawa that would be more than happy to house your businesses. Its OK, winter only lasts 8 months here, and there'll be all the slides and nerf gun fights you can handle. (Unless of course the government makes us register our nerf guns...)

OT

Wow, talk about whack-a-mole legislation.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Good lord, time to move to England.

Except the SOPA bill allows the shutting down of non-US websites.

Can someone please explain to me how a national law can apply to the international community? And then after they've done that can they please arrange for every member of the NRA to be deported to England so that we can jail them all for seven years for possession of an illegal firearm, 'cause our national laws state that guns are illegal - and if your national laws apply internationally then so do ours, right?

Way to go US. When did you stop trying to win hearts and minds and start burning bridges? Oh yeah, sorry. How silly of me...

 

[Awexsome]

Yeah they weren't convinced to change the bad parts in so long I'm sure that a month won't be enough time. Although I'll hold out a little hope that with this kind of reaction they actually consider looking into changes that would actually help the stupid thing.

 

[Gmans uncle]

...fuck.
NOW I HAVE TO CORRECT ALL MY STATEMENTS TO FRIENDS REGARDING IT BEING DEAD!

Eh, well it is a markup after all, And that's bad news for it, I wonder why I'm the only person to mention tha...

I wish I could properly explain how the US Congress works to The Escapist community. How many of you actually know what markup is? I can tell you that markup is NOT where proponents of this bill want it to go. I can tell you that its chances of revival in this congressional term are slim and that this is a huge setback.

But you won't believe me.

Because the internet is for OMG!, not intelligent conversation.

As someone who works in legislative law, SOPA and PIPA (by proxy) are dead. Of course, anything can rear its head again, but for now it is over. Good job. You people made my work SOOOOOOOOO much easier.

Thanks.

Ah, knew someone else was paying attention, good on ya sir!

 

[headphonegirl]

I'm either deeply misunderstanding something or he's making no sense.

'Foreign thieves'? I thought SOPA only affected US citizens... and even if I'm wrong, it's still offensive.

unfortunately not, it will probably affect every country in the world to some extent. (y'know with the exception of china who did that to themselves already)

 

[Ciarin]

[
Nope. Any site that allows people to post freely can be accused under SOPA, as long as someone in there posts anything. Under DMCA people hosting that content have to act to remove it as soon as they are notified of such; under SOPA they are commiting a felony if they fail to police the site to stop it from happening, which is unfeasible on sites that have millions of users like Facebook and YouTube.

And the main danger is that a claimant doesn't need to bring up any proof that the infringing content is indeed damaging their sales; an overzealous music executive could shut down the Escapist over the intro and outro songs of the earlier Zero Punctiation episodes, and it's more likely than not that they eventually will, due to how copyright laws in the US work.

The only result of this bill will be a massive exodus of any technology-based company from the Us to escape from it, and as that's pretty much the only sector of the US economy that's still growing that will pretty much throw the country under the bus. Especially now that there's already a different crisis going on with the US as one of its lynchpins.

Section 103.4 states that you need to provide evidence that the site is "dedicated to theft". Which part of the Bill suggests that any post on a forum could be accused of causing a site to be dedicated to theft?
And actually Section 103.5 states that the site can counter any actions taken if it, under penalty of perjury, has good faith in that it is not a site dedicated to theft.
Wherever you have gotten your information from is simply incorrect; have a read for yourself:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3261ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr3261ih.pdf

Okay, so I just read it again to be completely sure. The section you describe (103.B.4.iii) absolutely does not lay out any evidentiary rules. The actual text is as follows:

(iii) Identification of the specific facts
to support the claim that the Internet site,
or portion thereof, is dedicated to theft of
U.S. property and to clearly show that im-
mediate and irreparable injury, loss, or
damage will result to the holder of the in-
tellectual property right harmed by the ac-
tivities described in subsection (a)(1) in
the absence of timely action by the pay-
ment network provider or Internet adver-
tising service.

This is highly unclear, completely and indefensibly subjective, and this is not to mention that this notice doesn't go to the infringing site; it goes to the ISP and payment providers, whose responsibilities at that point are for ISP's: remove access to the site; and for payment providers: to cease all financial relations with the site. Both of these must be taken within five days or the ISP and payment provider are held liable unless they make a counter claim.

I think one of the parts that may have confused you about this is that only AFTER action has been taken against the site, is it informed that a complaint has been made by a "Qualified Plaintiff" (which is similarly nebulous in definition). It is the perogative of the ISP or payment provider to inform the infringing site of action.

 

[poiuppx]

I'm either deeply misunderstanding something or he's making no sense.

'Foreign thieves'? I thought SOPA only affected US citizens... and even if I'm wrong, it's still offensive.

unfortunately not, it will probably affect every country in the world to some extent. (y'know with the exception of china who did that to themselves already)

There's a large number of sites in China that are still perfectly reachable, such as The Escapist. I should know, having gone there in person with the laptop I'm writing this on. As such... yeah, it'll affect them too. Just wanted to clarify.

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

I actually spent a long time looking up an image that accurately conveys what I feel on this matter, but I can't find one that has the right combination of surprise, anger, "What.", "Not this again...", "Why?!" and "God dammit..."

Why are these congressmen being so stubborn? Don't they realize that implementing this bill will cause chaos? Even if it's as harmless as they try to make it sound (which it isn't), the internet is very strongly against it and will protest in any way possible. I guess it's just what happens when old men try to vote on something that they don't understand...

Oh, well. Re-load your guns, everyone; the war's not over yet. Granted, it's just a markup, but get your weapons ready just in case.

 

[Gregg Lonsdale]

I live in Australia, and the blackout protests are happening right now. And I suppose the whole dirty foreigners thing comes from the fact that The Pirate Bay is offshore and the US can't do much about it.

Like the dude several comments above me said, when a bill is in markup in your system things aren't looking great for it. I can only assume that direct opposition from the executive branch is a pretty bad blow to its progression. I don't know that much about US politics, I only watch the daily show (since we can't get Bill Maher anymore), but we shouldn't stop the protests now. If we keep going strong then we can really drive this shit back into the water without winding up with a re-write in a months time. so yeah, 12 hour blackouts- GO.

we don't have the black outs in Melbourne yet

A few of my friends have started theirs, so I just assumed that this was the collectively agreed upon time. I've honestly no idea who's coordinating these, but I don't think it matters that much. There's a comments box to tell facebook why you're deactivating, so as long as enough people do it within a certain timespace we should get the message across. And of course your friends will notice your absence and inquire about it. We really need to make sure people know what this is and how much it sucks, because a lot of my non-gamer friends had absolutely no idea about it.

 

[marurder]

Plus the delay will make people forget about the various web service provers shutting down for the day, minimizing the political fallout AND if the companies do it again, giving strong reason to vilify them.

 

[MonkeyPunch]

"...we will continue to bring together industry representatives and Members to find ways to combat online piracy," Smith said.

Stop trying to make it sound like the people against SOPA are in favour of piracy, Mr. Smith.
Go ahead and find ways to combat online piracy... just not in such a Naziesque way please.

You know you could try drafting a law that would protect businesses and peoples copyrights and not infringe on Fair Use. In a less North Korean type of way would be nice.

Also another nice story about SOPA:
http://www.geekosystem.com/sopa-author-copyright-violator/

 

[Kargathia]

And on Wednesday, organizers expect about 7,000 websites, including Reddit, Wikipedia and Mozilla.org, to go dark in protest against SOPA and PIPA.

Chris Dodd, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, called the Web protest a "stunt" and a "gimmick."

"It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information [and] use their services," Dodd said in a statement. "It's a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."

I do so love comedy. Whatever SOPA might mean for free speech, it's off the scales when it comes to hilarious bullshit.