The Internet Needs Laws

[Joccaren]

The Internet has rules. What it needs is not more rules, but better enforcement of them. Sadly, this is largely impossible without removing a lot of the functionality of the Internet.
Even then, lets say they do find a way to enforce them, they need to have more reasonable punishments. Anything over a $60 fine for downloading a single song - something that costs $2, but I am hearing you can be fined $25K for - is extreme. Of course, scaling would need to be worked out for other items to be more appropriate. It should cost more to pirate and get caught, but not send you straight into bankruptcy. If they tried to enforce any fine like the 25K one on every pirate - most of the country would likely go broke. I'd wager that the majority of Internet users, especially younger ones, have downloaded at least 1 file illegally in their time, or illegally used an image. Charging everyone 25K for every single thing they pirated/illegally used would not end well.

Also, something funny.
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/lamar-smith-sopa-copyright-whoops
Link to photographers page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxherder/4189641199/
It also seems that if the page linked in the description is the same, that image has been removed)
Also, for further lols, this:
http://ohinternet.com/Rules_of_the_Internet

 

[TheEndlessSleep]

People must make more money from the internet than they lose or there would be nothing here... It's a non-issue.

 

[Yopaz]

The internet has laws. The laws are also enforced.

I dont see what the hell you are on about.

The thing is, the laws as they are do not work, as is evidenced by the rampant and easy piracy of media. This leads to companies trying to protect their property by creating increasingly draconian measures to protect them. I'm not an expert in copyright law or other laws that govern media and free speech, so I want to know if anyone out there knows a better way to structure the laws of the internet rather than the "our way or no way" version proposed in SOPA and PIPA.

Laws entail a court system. These legislations will give the power to the companies themselves, rather than the judicial system, to decide if something is allowed or not.


Companies are in it for the profit, not for justice, they will abuse this power to make more money and in doing so censor everything.

So do you think we should make a deciding body, perhaps an organ of the UN charged with finding and maintaining a balance with copyright and free speech?

Spend some time in a country were a majority of the population is poor. Now notice how many times your wallet or other possessions are in risk of being stolen.
Are there no laws against stealing in that country just because people get their stuff stolen? As there has been said there are laws on the internet. It is in fact illegal to use threats of any kind. Threatening someone that you are going to kill them is illegal both online and offline. Not usually enforced in any case, but the internet does have laws as it is. It is also illegal to download games and those who have been caught uploaded and lost lawsuits over it can tell you that the punishment is in no way light.

You're not asking for the internet to have laws. You are asking for the internet to get its own police force.

 

[FernandoV]

The internet has laws. The laws are also enforced.

I dont see what the hell you are on about.

The thing is, the laws as they are do not work, as is evidenced by the rampant and easy piracy of media. This leads to companies trying to protect their property by creating increasingly draconian measures to protect them. I'm not an expert in copyright law or other laws that govern media and free speech, so I want to know if anyone out there knows a better way to structure the laws of the internet rather than the "our way or no way" version proposed in SOPA and PIPA.

Laws entail a court system. These legislations will give the power to the companies themselves, rather than the judicial system, to decide if something is allowed or not.


Companies are in it for the profit, not for justice, they will abuse this power to make more money and in doing so censor everything.

So do you think we should make a deciding body, perhaps an organ of the UN charged with finding and maintaining a balance with copyright and free speech?

It's cute that you're looking to defend corporate profits but look out for yourself first.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

The thing is, the laws as they are do not work, as is evidenced by the rampant and easy piracy of media.

there are lots of murderers and drug dealers in the world that havent been caught either. does that mean that the police system doesnt work? no. does it mean that we should give the victims the right to vigilante justice to help the system work better by allowing them to kill the criminals and anyone suspected of helping them? no. so why the hell should we let companies take down entire websites for simply linking to a website with copyright infringement for "helping piracy"?

 

[Westaway]

I rather like how the internet is the wild west. And Sopa will do alot more damage than good.

 

[Odbarc]

Isn't this new law just going to affect the good guys while hackers and such will get around this internet-DRM and have MORE laws and restrictions put in place that affect, once again, only the people not doing anything wrong?

I haven't really kept up with it all.
If it's on the internet, it should be free. Technology should be moving towards anti-copy, not anti-use.

 

[MLionheart]

As far as I'm aware it's more of the case of SOPA and PIPA being so vague that it could ruin the internet and DRM is just badly done. Yes there should be laws, but laws need to be done done right before they become "official" otherwise it just becomes a dictatership.

I could be wrong. This is just what i've come up with with what i've heard about from others.

 

[Kopikatsu]

See, the comments being made about SOPA/PIPA (END OF THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT, blah blah blah whatever) were the same ones being made about DMCA way back when. DMCA passed. The world is still spinning, no?

 

[CrazyGirl17]

While I think there should be governing laws to the internet... I also believe in having limits. And that means not turning it into freaking 1984!

 

[TheDooD]

There are laws for this stuff, it's simply companies that make millions on even failure movies/games want to make more money because they feel that any piracy number is a reasonable basis for saying we lost profit.

So if [game] was pirated 4.2 million times, they lost 4.2 million sales. How does that make sense? There's many things that could have factored into that, like people trying the game and there's no demo, or game isn't available where they are, or they had to download it a second or third time because the first download didn't work, etc etc.

Yes piracy sucks but saying we lost x amount because x amount of downloads happened is a shitty reason to give them the right to police the internet.

This bill would smash any little guy trying to make just a living while these corporate heads thumb through a magazine for their next yacht. This bill violates EVERY right we have in this country and anyone ANYONE supporting this is a brainwashed goon backing billion dollar corporations over the little guys: artists, musicians, writers, video creators, creative minds, small businesses, blogs.

I'm really not sorry these guys have piracy problems because they already make billions of dollars and they're actively attacking OUR rights because of the few that are doing bad. (I in no way condone piracy I'm merely making a point that I don't care what their problem is when their solution is to come out with a bill that attacks everyone's rights. )

There's a better way and they should be (strangled) ashamed for lobbying this anti-rights bullshit against us.

As long as there's weak minded people too caught up on money this will always happen. I realized we don't need internet laws. The first thing that needs to change is money as a whole and business practices. I say this because the main reason people pirate games, movies, books, etc. Is that they don't have the throw away funds to enjoy such things because needed items in life are becoming very almost obscenely expensive and the money makers that are already set for a few generations want to charge more eventhough said products my not reflect the price. Look at the prices of cable, satellite TV, video games, and movies. Pretty much the main stream stuff doesn't seem worth the price. You'll end up only watching like 7 or so channels out of a few hundred. Or wait until you can buy the game used, or you can get the movie on DVD or wait for it to be on HBO.

A majority of media companies backed SOPA because holy shit the stuff they're producing isn't really entertaining anymore. I barely watch TV I mainly have it on as white noise or if it's a show I REALLY want to watch. They blackout coverage on SOPA until the net blacks them out. Forcing them to say something about it. Youtube, sites like it, plus Justin TV / Twitch and other streaming sites provide a lot of entertainment for free. Then some of the makers STILL get bank by making it. It's something the popular media can't get around they want to overcharge people and pretty much force them to watch crap TV because they want it to be their only outlet.

 

[seraphy]

It already has a number of laws. Law 34 is rigorously enforced. As is 35 and 36.

Laws 1 and 2 have become lax over the years though.

Rule number 85 is my personal favorite.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

It already has a number of laws. Law 34 is rigorously enforced. As is 35 and 36.

Laws 1 and 2 have become lax over the years though.

Rule number 85 is my personal favorite.

Rule 284 applies to both equally.

 

[instantbenz]

SOPA is bad because it's too far reaching.

Laws need to be precise and target very specific scenarios, SOPA needs to be a sniper rifle, not a nuclear bomb.

The internet is a very hard thing to regulate, any attempt to do so would have to be surgical in its accuracy so as to avoid collateral damage.

I totally used that analogy yesterday in a post. crazy.

but seriously op you are not getting it if you don't see the current laws and this ridiculously real and grave threat to all of our freedoms. The WORLD's internet freedoms are at stake. However much people hate Obama, we are lucky that his rise in fame occurred through social networking, he actually gives a fuck about the internet.

Anyway, we need people who understand to write these laws, not uninformed, money-hungry, elderly asshole politicians.

A tweezers, not a bulldozer. A sniper, not a nuke. Logic, not greed.

 

[BabySinclair]

There are already laws that are abused. The problem lies not in with the legality of actions taken on the internet, people will always break them anyways. What needs to change is how the IP holders distribute their services and products. More people would buy movies if they weren't $30 on DVD and games wouldn't be pirated as much if they had demos that showed a proper and representative amount of game play. Distributors could also either stop region-locking releases or lower the price of new games to encourage more sales.

Not saying that there shouldn't be laws, just saying most of the problem rests with the means of distribution of music, movies, and games.

 

[michael87cn]

Today, sites across the Internet are going on strike to protest SOPA and PIPA. Their aim is certainly noble, and it may stop these particular bills, but it's a delaying action at best; there is too much money being lost by people and companies for them not to keep fighting for some form of substantial copyright protection.

The Internet community as a whole seems to regard this as anathema, but WHY? Most people support some form of protection to prevent artists from being pirated into oblivion, and we have other laws in place restricting access to certain content (child pornography is the most obvious). So why do people insist that the Internet should be a lawless place, where pirates can steal freely with the 'promise' that if they like some content, they'll go back and pay for it later, but where government-sponsored (SOPA and PIPA) or company-sponsored (DRM) restrictions are the worst possible creations?

I ask you, Escapists: Should the Internet have laws and some form of control? How should people and companies be allowed to protect their intellectual property?

Because killing the patient to cure the disease isn't an acceptable solution.

 

[Ariyura]

Megaupload has been shutdown by the feds but still people want to say laws aren't in place.