"Foreign thieves from stealing America's intellectual property."
No idea they played the nationalism card in the description, how despicable.
No idea they played the nationalism card in the description, how despicable.
SOPA Storms Back
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
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Have you heard of the state I live in, Ohio? I'll take dirty clouds every day over 53 degrees one day and snow the next.TrilbyWill said:
Seriously, you really want me to go fetch my printed version of the bill and find the line plus page number? Look, I'd rather not fetch it, since I only read it since it came out, and my memory is not that great, like I've said before.The Cool Kid said:
My point is that the wording of the bill is to general, not tight enough. I can't remember if they changed the wording since then but I don't exactly like the fact that they can put you in jail for copy right infringement.
I think SOPA will pass in some way or form. This protest won't have any effect in the long term. They'll just break up SOPA and tack the provisions onto other bills and pass it that way. The way to get around internet regulations is by using new technology. Technology will always be ahead of legislation. If these laws wants search engines to remove search results, we'll use non-US based search engine. If they block DNS, there's already a project trying to create an alternate DNS called .p2p. If they shut down sites linking to contents in the US, sites will move out of US. If they block advertisers from advertising on blocked sites, advertisers will move their company outside of US. None of these measures can't be circumvented by technology.
I would like to see the thought process that went into the bills creation
OH NO those foriegn thieves are stealing all our hilarious cat videos
We must stop this great injustice at once
OH NO those foriegn thieves are stealing all our hilarious cat videos
We must stop this great injustice at once
Something like SOPA will eventually pass, and some greater protections against piracy should pass. But being obstructionist isn't really going to help in the long run. Nor is it helpful to argue that we will circumvent everything. At the end of the day, the domain name registry is in the United States, and there's almost nowhere that a site could be located that is not subject to the Berne convention or the World Intellectual Property Organization treaties. We have to deal with this.
And it's not as simple as "companies should change the way they do business" or "they can't stop piracy, so they should stop trying", or any other easy canard about how "information wants to be free" and that this is the wave of the future. We don't stop throwing people in jail for stealing cars just because we can't stop all car thefts.
Copyrights should be enforced. That is not only a moral covenant, but a utilitarian one. Speaking as someone who enjoys both Sequence and Mass Effect, I can recognize that the latter would not have been made without copyright protections. The choice is not between "paying for games and music and movies and television shows" and "not paying for them", but between "paying for them" and "not having them".
You can argue that piracy leads to more sales, or that it's good advertisement, but the decision to avail oneself of that should be left to the content creator, not the public. You can argue that "artists" will make art no matter what, but I doubt anyone here believes that Dragon Age III gets funding if EA knows people will be able to pirate it without recourse.
If we aren't willing to play ball, to compromise, to offer better copyright enforcement without draconian measures, the draconian measures will happen. So, if we do eventually beat back SOPA, the next step is not jumping up and down and being happy, the next step is to actually go to EA, and go to the MPAA, and the RIAA, and the ESA and say "we get it, you need to enforce your copyrights. Let's figure out the best way to do that without hurting other things."
We have room to demand concessions, not capitulation.
And it's not as simple as "companies should change the way they do business" or "they can't stop piracy, so they should stop trying", or any other easy canard about how "information wants to be free" and that this is the wave of the future. We don't stop throwing people in jail for stealing cars just because we can't stop all car thefts.
Copyrights should be enforced. That is not only a moral covenant, but a utilitarian one. Speaking as someone who enjoys both Sequence and Mass Effect, I can recognize that the latter would not have been made without copyright protections. The choice is not between "paying for games and music and movies and television shows" and "not paying for them", but between "paying for them" and "not having them".
You can argue that piracy leads to more sales, or that it's good advertisement, but the decision to avail oneself of that should be left to the content creator, not the public. You can argue that "artists" will make art no matter what, but I doubt anyone here believes that Dragon Age III gets funding if EA knows people will be able to pirate it without recourse.
If we aren't willing to play ball, to compromise, to offer better copyright enforcement without draconian measures, the draconian measures will happen. So, if we do eventually beat back SOPA, the next step is not jumping up and down and being happy, the next step is to actually go to EA, and go to the MPAA, and the RIAA, and the ESA and say "we get it, you need to enforce your copyrights. Let's figure out the best way to do that without hurting other things."
We have room to demand concessions, not capitulation.
Well, actually I'm not so worried. As a few people have said, it's actually pretty battered right now. Still, I'd be even happier if it was as dead as possible...
Hmm, same music and everything.
Hey, let's see what Charlie Brooker has to say!DVS BSTrD said:
Hmm, same music and everything.
My gut reaction was : Why don't journalists just start accompanying these stories with the amount of donations relevant senators and representatives have received from Hollywood and Internet companies?
Then I found this resource (which graphs it rather nicely?) http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/
And it doesn't line up as clearly as I would have expected. Can anyone explain why? Is it wrong to cynically expect senators to always vote as they're lobbied?
Then I found this resource (which graphs it rather nicely?) http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/
And it doesn't line up as clearly as I would have expected. Can anyone explain why? Is it wrong to cynically expect senators to always vote as they're lobbied?
I respect your well presented thoughts, Andrew, but think you are stuck in (and spreading) bad mindsets.
Taking something physically away from you - is theft.
making a perfect copy of something intangible - is not theft.
(I think it's important to maintain the line between theft of actual property and infringing conceptual rights).
Michael Bay won't be able to make 200 million dollar robot action movies without the hollywood system. But he will still be able to make something uniquely his own.
Also, there will still be transformers tie-ins. They might have to go back to something cheaper though (they might even have to go back to just making cartoons? like the ones that made it beloved in the first place?)
The loss of scale and spectacle, afforded by ruthless corporate profiteering - sound scary. But society will happily get over it.
Physical theft is a wildly different ballgame from infringing someone's publishing control.Seldon2639 said:
Taking something physically away from you - is theft.
making a perfect copy of something intangible - is not theft.
(I think it's important to maintain the line between theft of actual property and infringing conceptual rights).
The awesome people who made Dragon Age a franchise worth loving: will still be awesome. they will make something new.Seldon2639 said:
Michael Bay won't be able to make 200 million dollar robot action movies without the hollywood system. But he will still be able to make something uniquely his own.
Also, there will still be transformers tie-ins. They might have to go back to something cheaper though (they might even have to go back to just making cartoons? like the ones that made it beloved in the first place?)
The loss of scale and spectacle, afforded by ruthless corporate profiteering - sound scary. But society will happily get over it.
MY 'Positive, gentlemanly,relatively sane & calm' reaction to this:
SOPA is like Justin Bieber, or autotune.No matter how much you want it gone, it will stay.
The problem is that the distinction is one based on personal belief. The argument is that because it's a non-rivalrous good, taking a copy of it does not remove any value from the original, and does not take the object from the owner. It's a fine argument, but based on the fundamental assumption that whether someone is harmed (and thus stolen from) is based on whether it removes something of value to the person who owns it.warrenEBB said:
Let me give you a "for instance."
You own a widget, which has no value to you. Its only worth is that you can sell it to me. Let's assume for a second that I'm the only possible purchaser (it's a unique widget). If I take the widget from you, have I harmed you? It does not "cost" you anything, since it wasn't worth anything. The only cost to you is the loss of the profit from selling it to me. Was that theft?
If the difference between taking "real" property and intellectual property is that it does not take anything of value from the owner, then my theft of your widget is not a problem.
Maybe. But without funding? Without the investment (which will only happen with profit motive) to pay for the engine, the programming, the voice acting?warrenEBB said:
There's this misconception that creation comes from "awesome people", and that copyright protections are simply "corporate profiteering". But, the things we like simply won't be made. You'll have fifty "Angry Birds" clones, and zero Mass Effect games. The next major technological advance isn't going to be some bedroom engineer working by himself, it will require massive research and investment, which will not happen without strong IP protection.
Hell, why would those "awesome people" even make a video game they know can be taken without compensating them, and sold or simply given away by other people? Why would New Line Cinema make the Lord of the Rings movies?
Maybe some people would make things for pure art, but those things will be vastly more limited than what we've come to appreciate. And that's ignoring any technological development, or medical advances, which depends entirely on intellectual property protections.
WHY WONT YOU DIE!?!?!?!
OT: Well the blackouts alot of websites are doing should really help alert people to the giant ball of stupidity that is SOPA.
OT: Well the blackouts alot of websites are doing should really help alert people to the giant ball of stupidity that is SOPA.
Dammit ! I thought this thing was dead, looks like Lamar Smith is one determined son-of-a-***** . If SOPA pass, shit WILL go down, i can see the riots coming from a mile away but it won't stay, if it passes, i give it a month and they will pull the plug on SOPA because of the overall rage that it will cause in the population.
No, but he wants it to seen patriotic-the American word for nationalist. That stuff was a cause of world war one, wasn't it? I am an American and I am completely against everything that man says. After all, we live in a global age now. "Foreigners" need to be respected more than this. I am good friends with many who aren't from the United States, and it's a shame we still have fools like this in powerful positions in America.