The Internet Needs Laws

[Redryhno]

The problem isn't the absence of laws, the problem is that the internet is too big to patrol and enforce the laws already set in. Same goes for the real world. Resources are too few and projects are too many. course funding wouldn't be as much of a problem if politicians didn't get lifelong incomes for ten years of "service", or whatever they call it now.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

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.

 

[Crazedc00k]

I agree that the internet needs regulations. Not just those accused of piracy should apply though. Companies that perjure themselves by abusing innocent sites or users should face a persuasively severe punishment.

And I've yet to hear it explained to me why it makes any sense to allow the american entertainment industry to censor the greatest achievement in human history.

 

[omicron1]

Easy answer: Do you want the entire web to be like YouTube? Content vanished for no reason, fair use ignored, artists' own personal uploads blocked by their parent companies? Anyone, at random, able to shut down anyone else's media? All in pursuit of some edge in profits that never materialized, all to shut down people who did not pay (exorbitant fees) to use material for which companies had copyrights? And (the kicker): The true illegal/damaging uploads simply moved elsewhere. The full TV episodes, full-length movies, music videos? Just got themselves hosted on other sites. And the industry was no better in the end (arguably worse due to the exposure videos give to artists who might otherwise have remained buried), while the public was a whole lot worse off.

This is what SOPA means. More than free speech or censorship, it is about whether we want a YouTube Internet or not. And I, for one, do not.

 

[Something Amyss]

It seems like this is going to be a trend now....

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,

Hate to interrupt you mid-sentence, but there's multiple issues at hand. Who, exactly, is insisting this? It sounds like a strawman argument.

but where government-sponsored (SOPA and PIPA) or company-sponsored (DRM) restrictions are the worst possible creations?

SOPA and PIPA are just about the worst possible way to handle things. Laws already exist and enforcement is possible. This kind of regulation is poorly conceived and worthless.

I ask you, Escapists: Should the Internet have laws and some form of control?

It already does.

 

[Something Amyss]

The problem isn't the absence of laws, the problem is that the internet is too big to patrol and enforce the laws already set in. Same goes for the real world. Resources are too few and projects are too many. course funding wouldn't be as much of a problem if politicians didn't get lifelong incomes for ten years of "service", or whatever they call it now.

Which brings in the big problem with a lot of claims:

Realism.

It's completely unrealistic to expect the internet to be fully policed.

This does mean bad people will do bad things, but again, the same's true in the real world, as you already said.

The internet is an even harder place to police. The big problem is making it easier will either strip the rights of legit users or severely limit functionality.

It's not the best scenario, but what can we do?

 

[Silas13013]

DMCA is abused by corporations all the time already. Just look at youtube. Videos that are clearly fair use are pulled down from there all the time for no good reason. These corporations are very rarely, if ever punished for their platant abuse of power.

And you want to give corporations more laws to abuse. No thanks.

Section 103 of SOPA says that anyone who abuses the system (IE brings down a site/video/whatever wrongly) will be thrown in jail on account of perjury and the site that got taken down will be paid restitution. Additionally, SOPA doesn't override fair use. SOPA only affects sites that are illegally making money off copyrighted material. Posting a youtube video or saying 'STAR WARS' in a forum isn't going to get you thrown in jail.

Check it yourself: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c112:1:./temp/~c112dvV5Hv:e29080:

I swear that people haven't actually read the bill and are just regurgitating what they hear from other people. FACT CHECKING IS IMPORTANT GUYS.

I also noticed how people raging on SOPA never bother to cite the bill. Well, there is the link to it. Read the bill and cite whatever you feel is worth citing.

SOPA does override fair use by not defining what a rouge website is, only requiring that a judge find that the site is rouge, which has already been made apparent that most in politics do not understand technology.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=lifebook&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=8170766506550055119&sa=X&ei=n0YXT87RBYbDgAff2LSgAw&ved=0CHgQ8wIwAw

Here is a good plain English version of the points of SOPA that people have a problem with. Asking people to read the law straight in its legal-jargon is unrealistic. Even educated people cannot be relied upon to interpret laws through all the muck, that's why lawyers exist in the first place. So saying "read the actual text" doesn't help your point and actually will confuse a lot of people, making the situation worse.

Psst, dude, you posted a link to a computer, I don't think you meant to do that

OP:

But dude, of course it needs laws. It has them, the problem is companies who want to expand on those laws want to take courts pretty much out of it. Excuse me for a second while I let you tell me why that's a "brilliant" idea.

Bahahaha oh wow you are right

Here is the correct link http://mashable.com/2012/01/17/sopa-dangerous-opinion/

 

[Joshimodo]

To echo everyone else here: Laws already exist and are in place.

That said, we are in a Wild West time period. The Data Rush instead of the Gold Rush, hacking and piracy instead of robbery and highwaymen, and so forth.

 

[xDarc]

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?

Protect them from what?

If you mean protection from others stealing their IP, selling their IP and profiting from it, protections already exist.

If you mean protection from file sharing, then no absolutely not. For the same reasons they never made laws to protect IP from any of the devices people have used to share media over the past century. That's the whole flaw with how the media wants to "protect" their property, by targeting the medium or the device.

Just like guns don't kill people, the web doesn't illegally download. So leave it alone.

 

[Redryhno]

The problem isn't the absence of laws, the problem is that the internet is too big to patrol and enforce the laws already set in. Same goes for the real world. Resources are too few and projects are too many. course funding wouldn't be as much of a problem if politicians didn't get lifelong incomes for ten years of "service", or whatever they call it now.

Which brings in the big problem with a lot of claims:

Realism.

It's completely unrealistic to expect the internet to be fully policed.

This does mean bad people will do bad things, but again, the same's true in the real world, as you already said.

The internet is an even harder place to police. The big problem is making it easier will either strip the rights of legit users or severely limit functionality.

It's not the best scenario, but what can we do?

All that can really be done is what's happening now. they police high risk areas, and when they find new outlets for the same things, they try to close off that position too. it's too hard to police the whole internet, as you said as well, but by letting a few minor things slip they're able to catch that much more of the major problems.

 

[Blobpie]

The internet is the internet because of the complete freedom it offers.

But by it's very nature, the fact that the vast majority of the population of the internet is anonymous, following through on these laws would be extremely difficult.

 

[w00tage]

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.

Sorry, but that is what we refer to as a "big lie" - an statement that's repeated so often and loudly that it is accepted as truth, even though there's no evidence to back it up.

To put the false premise of "ten bazillion views on Youtube is ten bazillion lost sales" to bed, let me borrow an analogy from another thread where I had the same discussion.

Consider what would happen if every store in the US said "tomorrow, EVERYTHING IS FREE". How many people, who have had the chance to buy the same products at any time, but haven't, would go out and load up with free stuff?

Everyone, that's who. Me included, because there's always something I can use, but (and this is the important part) don't want to buy. If I want something, have the money for it, and I'm ok with the price, I buy it. If I don't buy it, it's because I don't want it, don't have the money for it, or don't agree with the price.

So if I go out to the store on "free day" to get something I could have bought all along, there's no way that means that I would be buying it if "free day" had never happened.

I hope this analogy proves to everyone that claiming that an unlicensed use of content (viewing or download) equals a lost sale is completely false. Hate to say it like this because I don't want to be seen as siding with IP theft, but there is no proof that anyone is being harmed at all by unlicensed content distribution.

 

[Mariner]

I don't trust a human to make or enforce laws over the internet.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

It has laws we don't need to add any more right now.

 

[baconfist]

If I had an apple in each hand and told you that the one in the left hand was free then said the one in the right costs $5 and I get to kick you in the testicles, which apple would you be more likely to take? Companies like EA spend a lot of time and effort developing code to protect their products from theft. Then they make code to spy on their customers and pull products off platforms like steam, which to me is the same as trying to kick me in the balls when I want to buy stuff from them.

There's so many things that software companies could do to reduce piracy but they would rather find new ways to kick you in the balls.

So many companies trying so hard to stop people from stealing their work so little time spent making their work easier and cheaper to buy.

 

[chadachada123]

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.

Sorry, but that is what we refer to as a "big lie" - an statement that's repeated so often and loudly that it is accepted as truth, even though there's no evidence to back it up.

To put the false premise of "ten bazillion views on Youtube is ten bazillion lost sales" to bed, let me borrow an analogy from another thread where I had the same discussion.

Consider what would happen if every store in the US said "tomorrow, EVERYTHING IS FREE". How many people, who have had the chance to buy the same products at any time, but haven't, would go out and load up with free stuff?

Everyone, that's who. Me included, because there's always something I can use, but (and this is the important part) don't want to buy. If I want something, have the money for it, and I'm ok with the price, I buy it. If I don't buy it, it's because I don't want it, don't have the money for it, or don't agree with the price.

So if I go out to the store on "free day" to get something I could have bought all along, there's no way that means that I would be buying it if "free day" had never happened.

I hope this analogy proves to everyone that claiming that an unlicensed use of content (viewing, equals a lost sale is completely false. Hate to say it like this because I don't want to be seen as siding with IP theft, but there is no proof that anyone is being harmed at all by unlicensed content distribution.

At first, I had no idea where this analogy was going. Then once it got closer to the end, I was like "oh...I see what you're doing there..." and was impressed. I agree completely.

Much of the piracy problem can be solved by simply offering real prices. The majority of Americans can't afford more than a couple of games and a few albums per year. Were they able to afford more, they would pay for more, but holding them to maybe 50 new songs a year...it's unrealistic. They aren't lost sales, because they would have never gotten the money to begin with.

On the other hand, many new artists become known because of file-sharing. My friend pirated Enter Shikari's first two albums, and it's because of him that I became a fan and saw them live. Without that exposure, Enter Shikari would have lost some $60+ from me alone (ticket + shirt, subtracting some presumed costs).

 

[Torrasque]

The internet has laws. The laws are also enforced.

I dont see what the hell you are on about.

Thats all I really have to say about this subject.
Pretty sure this is trolling.

 

[Forgetitnow344]

More laws on the internet would be ludicrous. Look at all of the laws in place already and then find a particular porn site as accessible as Youtube FULL of bestiality and child pornography. I'd link to it, but I'm pretty sure that would get me banned. If you're really curious, know it extremely super unsafe for work. I'm sure you can find it if you try. Go ahead, she isn't looking.

But that site exists and is full of illegal content despite the laws against it. The internet doesn't cause any problems that don't already exist in the world, and more legislation will not fix that.