SOPA Storms Back

[ShindoL Shill]

Good lord, time to move to England.

england is just like america.
only more racist.
and it feels dirty.
it could be sparkling clean, but it just FEELS dirty. the clouds look dirty. and there are lots of clouds.

 

[Vivi22]

SOPA will pass and then be repealed after the consequences are fully realized. Did anyone expect it to be completely gone?

I think you're pretty optimistic. But I knew it was coming back.

...I just didn't expect it to rise in a day.

Agreed. I knew it would be back. There are too many companies and wealthy parties pulling dangling purse strings in front of politicians for it to simply disappear. But I do think the idea of it quickly being repealed is naive. Those same people pushing for this behind the scenes, and the politicians drafting the legislation especially, don't give two shits about the internet or the shit storm this would cause, and that absolutely will not change if it passes. The best we could hope for would be the Supreme Court doing something about it, and I wouldn't hold my breath. Even if they did chop it down it would be a couple of years down the line after cases go through the lower courts unless I'm mistaken.

But yeah, I really did see this coming back in one day. That's remarkably fast for the political world to move. Which really makes me wonder how much money and pressure people are putting on congress to get this through. Politicians rarely jump this high unless it's really worth their while.

 

[BlackStar42]

SOPA Storms Back

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




Permalink

And we will continue to raise hell about this bill and anything like it until you back down. You will not break the internet and you will be reminded that you work for us and our desires, the American People, not "industry representatives".

Right people, this guy just said it all. All you Americans get quoting this to your Congressmen ASAP (Is Congressmen a word?)

 

[Zanderinfal]

Good lord, time to move to England.

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

Wow, I forgot about that case untill now. I still can't believe they can do that!

OT:

 

[Zanderinfal]

Good lord, time to move to England.

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

Wow, I forgot about that case untill now. I still can't believe they can do that!

OT: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-
No, seriously, I feel it would be best if I slam my head into the wall. I would be doing something more productive for the internet then the White House is doing.

 

[TheSuperiorXemnas]

While there are many ways to say it, it all means the same in the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eal4fep7pK4

EDIT: I tried to embed the video, but I fail at that, so i put a link up instead.

 

[Major_Tom]

Fuck you Lamar Smith, fuck you and your stupid rhetoric, you ignorant son of a *****.

- Foreign Thief

 

[cfehunter]

I'm fuming enough volatile hatred towards these senators at this point that I'm surprised they haven't burst into flames at the thoughts alone.

None of this makes sense. Firstly, SOPA does nothing to protect IP or "American Jobs", the piracy will continue, we'll simply have handed alot of stupid Businesses a very absurd weapon for their legal divisions to use. If anything, it'll kill American jobs when Youtube, Facebook and other like internet businesses get sued out of existence. And lets not forget that the censorship is completely circumventable.

Don't forget that if facebook and youtube and other American internet giants get destroyed that you can garuntee another foreign company will move in to capitalise on the vacuum in the service market.

It'll be the republicans worst nightmare, big business going to other countries.

Perhaps when the America no longer have a comercial presence on the internet they'll repeal the law before their economy completely crumbles.

 

[chaostheory]

Leave it to the Republicans to be so egomaniacal that they don't take Obama's veto threat seriously. We'll see who has the last laugh.

You (along with everyone else) are misunderstanding what it means for a bill to be marked up. It means that they are taking Obama's threat seriously and are attempting to rewrite the bill in such a way that they can either get a super majority and overwrite any veto attempt or in such a way that Obama would not veto it. Essentially once they are done with the markup the bill could be completely different than it is now.

Everyone needs to calm down a little, with a bill this controversial and with this much money behind it, of course it was going to go straight to markup, it would have been much bigger news if it had been trashed completely instead.

As for the anti-Republican part of your post do your research, while SOPA was sponsored by a Republican this has actually been a very Bipartisan bill with about equal support and opposition from both parties.

Check this website for details on exactly who supports and who opposes (everyone not listed have not said anything one way or the other)
http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

Brb torrenting everything and all my shows before its Neo Nazi Internet.

Seriously, I thought we had it crap when Australia tried bringing it in AND the whole R18+ Games thing.

 

[DarthFennec]

... time to move to Canada ...

 

[Jorias]

What i don't get is why would you censor a platform that has brought so much to the world freely and without any loss of life (as far as i know). I don't think any other piece of technology on this planet can claim to have helped so many lives like the Internet. Not the car, not the bombs that Congress wants to create, not even supersonic planes that we have traveled in can match the speed and effciency of the internet.

Think of it this way, you censor knowledge you pretty much put a garrote around the neck of the American Economy, i mean even today i am in College trying to get a Degree in Network Administration and i am constantly studying Wikipedia articles on the different areas and subjects...without it i cant study, for Wikipedia explains it much better than the 100's of textbooks i have on it, and FOR FREE!!!!!, if i cant read the articles i cant learn, i cant learn i cant get a degree, i cant get a degree i cant get a job, i cant get a job i cant pay taxes, i cant pay taxes i rob and mug congressmen and Senators, i rob and much them i go to jail...now not only am i not contributing to the economy i am a burden to it!.....

Fuck YOU LAMAR!!!!!

 

[Varrdy]

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.

Thank God there are always patient know-it-all's such as yourself that can explain this unfathomable word to us poor, unwashed, slow-in-the-head peasants.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and remember less condescension and a bit more respect will get you a lot more of those "intelligent conversations" you crave so much.

In CoLoS' defence, he kinda has a point. We're all wailing and baying and crying about SOPA coming back and yet very few people seem to be armed with actual facts. Most of what I am seeing here is a lot of hysteria that is feeding on more hysteria. Responding to his comment with such disdainful sarcasm just makes you look arrogant. Maybe if the majority were not all screaming for a Waaahhhmbulance then he wouldn't have to type in such a manner!

Don't get me wrong, I think SOPA as it stands is a pile of arse and hope it dies but what we need now is level-headedness and INFORMATION. Anyone looking at this thread could very easily miss the reasonable and informed comments because they are distracted by the person screaming and wailing just because the person next to him is and so on.

I'm all for the prevention of piracy but SOPA and PIPA are not just badly-worded, I would go so far as to say that it was deliberate. Not unreasonably, America may want to protect what belongs to it but their usual way of doing so usually involves smashing someone else with the hammer of misguided-righteousness when what they should be doing is putting their own house in order first. This wont happen though because to do so would be to accept that America is in some way wrong or, even worse, inferior, which to your average American is simply unthinkable and is tantamount to treason.

As much as it likes to think so, America has absolutely no right to tell other countries what to do and how to conduct their business. Sure that never stops them but the more opposition to the bill that comes from both home and abroad then the more they have to take note.

However, all that will be for nothing if we don't keep a level head! Throwing toys out the pram, threatening, crying and panicking will just play into the advocate's hands. We need to show we are serious and the way to do that is by showing that we wont be cowed by those on the corporate payroll and blindly accept what they tell us. We need to prove we can think for ourselves and that we have the intelligence and the nous to force the bill into submission but it has to be done properly!

For the record, I am not claiming for one second that I have either the intelligence and the nous that I was referring to but I do know that many people do and we need to get / keep them onside.

Should all this happen but the bill be passed anyway, however unlikely it may seem at this moment, THEN is the time to get pissed-off and get the pitchforks out!

Wardy

 

[Robert Fuller]

Well, at least there are quite a few big companies voicing their opposition of the bill.

American Express Company
AOL
Boing Boing
BuzzFeed
CloudFlare
Copyblogger
ConsumerBell
Creative Commons
Curse
Daily Kos
deviantART
Discover
Disqus
DreamHost
Dyn
eBay
Embedly
Engine Advocacy
ESET
Etsy
Facebook
Fantagraphics
foursquare
Gandi
Google
GreenHostIt
HostGator
Hover
I Can Has Cheezburger?
IndieGoGo
Internet Archive
Irregular Times
Jive Software
Kaspersky Lab
Kickstarter
LinkedIn
MetaFilter
Mozilla
Name.com
Namecheap
OpenDNS
O?Reilly Radar
Pastebin.com
PayPal
Quora
Rackspace
Reddit
ReferralCanday
Riot Games
ServInt
Scribd
Teachers Pay Teachers
Techdirt
Torrentfreak
Tucows
Tumblr
Twitter
Ubu Web
Uservoice
Vimeo
Webs, Inc.
Wikipedia
WordPress
Yahoo!
Y Combinator
Zopim
Zynga Game Network

These guys have all joined in against the bill...

The list was taken from https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/community/.

 

[chaostheory]

You know this is probably a good thing overall as long as the bill is still in some form of limbo, as opposed to strait up being dead, an organized opposition to it will remain and no one will be able to sneak through a similar bill while the opposition is getting itself organized (like what almost happened with SOPA).

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The sorts of people who come up with this sort of garbage aren't likely to take one hit and call it quits; they're going to run it into the ground until it either works or they have nowhere else to go. It's the foundation of United States politics.

 

[TheDooD]

We pirate their shit, they pirate our shit and we all get along. Right?

Oh shit I forgot about money well since it's not real lets just give everybody high numbers that'll work just like money.

Wait rich people won't like that? Aww fucking hell back to square one...

You managed to throw in fiat money into the SOPA argument, I think I like you

I don't think anyone really thought SOPA was dead yet (as in what it stands for).

If it does pass (and i assume it will, eventually, in some context because of all the money involved) they won't go after youtube, facebook, and sites like the escapist -at first- but overtime the internet will not be the wonderful and maddening place it is today.

Eventually, they'll start turning the lights off.

I thought they were going to let SOPA die and quickly pass PIPA before us "plebs" could rally against it.

Money is the main reason quite a few people got into piracy thinking it's innocent. Like downloading a few CD, movies, games, etc every now and then really doesn't hurt anyone. If everybody had the bottomless funds so they could afford all those little things every time they wanted it.

You're right IF it passes they know better not to dare touch any major sites at all, even minor ones might start creating the torch and pitchfork mob the march into DC.

 

[ZombieMonkey7]

The empire strikes back

 

[Lopsided Weener]

Good lord, time to move to England.

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

You know, This could be the worst time and worst place to complain about the idiocy of our government, considering why the escapee is leaving.

Oh yeh, the Escapist servers are actually in the US arn't they? Looks like I'm screwed.