SOPA Opera

[anunitu]

Internet lockdown? Blacked out sites? censorship. Ahh, the things we do to protect ourselves from ourselves.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/11/sopa-internet-piracy-bill-criticized-as-internet-censorship/

Did we not say something to China because they controlled what their people could access online?

I am not pro or Con,but I am concerened about Government telling you what you can surf for.

Let the discussion begin.

[rags]

In a way I am for the SOPA bill.
I have a friend who is in a band that self-produced an album, so they are funding the production and distribution out of their own pockets .
They are selling it via the usual outlets, Amazon, iTunes, etc.
They also are aware of several websites that it was uploaded to for the purpose of free downloading.
They cant even break even, because of the downloads from those sites.
I see the SOPA bill as a means of protecting the intellectual property rights of the little guys,
not just the major labels or studios.
Just my 2 cents.

[donkey]

The great thing about laws like this is that though they may be intended for a very narrow set of circumstances they tend to widen. If some company with a lot of money decides that they want to shut down their competition temporarily it might find a way. An example of this might be Linux, the SCO group claims of patent and opyright infringement could potentially have the effect of shutting down every Linux distributions website until each case is resolved. Another example of a potential landmine is Wine, Microsoft could argue that it violates the Windows copyright and patents and have it shut down, reactOS could suffer a similar fate. There are hundreds of examples where even a temporary shut down could do irreparable damage to the ability of a company to compete or deliver its product in a timely fashion. It is ofcourse likely that any videos that involve somebody on a swing will have the website displaying them shut down since that is a clear infringement on US patent #6368227 "Method of swinging on a swing".

I agree that music and video companies should have the ability to protect their rights but not at the exclusion of others rights, it seems to be the trend in the US these days that an individuals rights are subject to change if they interfere with the rights of the corporations who have bought and paid for the members of congress.

[Bill Cravener]

 :tdown

It's already a dead subject. President Obama said he would not support it and even though I myself am a software developer that sales several products I don't want the government telling people what is allowed on the internet. Its bullshit being pushed by the motion picture association, the music industry and big time software companies. The bill aims to tackle online piracy by preventing American search engines like Google and Yahoo from directing users to sites distributing stolen materials. That's censorship plan and simple. Yes online piracy is a real problem that harms some of our nations most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs, but SOPA would reduce freedom of expression, increase cyber security risks and be a detriment to the innovative global internet as a whole.

[Bill Cravener]

Then there is also the E-PARASITE act, Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act, or Protect IP for short. :tdown

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/81-web-general/3627-sopa-shelved-but-what-about-protect-ip.html

[anunitu]

In my mind it isn't the laws original intent that bothers me,but in the past "They" used a pretty much Benign law for Purpose's it was never intended to be used for.

[bozo]

"To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes"

I like the way it adds "and for other purposes" at the end which is vague to say the least.

It has the potential to be misused for much more than just preventing piracy IMHO.

What about preventing online access to child pornography? I suppose the government doesn't care much about stopping that.

[oex]

"To promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes"

What about preventing online access to child pornography? I suppose the government doesn't care much about stopping that.

I suppose it depends what you value as a society as 'intellectual property' and what *abuse* matters....

A child's dreams or a countries power....

[dedndave]

unfortunately, these types of laws do not apply for the little guy trying to protect his efforts
they are only enforced for those that can afford pricey lawyers (and law-makers)

[DarkWolf]

I still find it funny that one of the largest violators of copyright law and IP is protesting on the grounds of free speech and open internet. (I meant Wikipedia)

[donkey]

SOPA is pretty disturbing, copyright laws in Canada differ widely from the US, but under SOPA any IP registered in the US is subject to the law. Since IP registration is regional, Canada is in the IP block allocated by ARIN and sites that have broken no Canadian law and have no US presence could be subject to shut down and prosecution in a US court under US law. Our government is looking into the problem however it may be that W3C will have to isolate the US block of IPs in order to free other countries from the predatory and illegal measures in the bill. I have no problem with a company or person protecting their copyrights, I just have a problem when some US lawmaker tells me as a Canadian what I can or cannot put on my Canadian website because of the way the W3C decided to allocate IP addresses.

[xanatose]

:tdown
It's already a dead subject. President Obama said he would not support it

Well, he did say the same thing about the NDAA and the sections that allows indefinite detention of American citizens without trial or even proof. You just need someone to say you are a terrorist.  And on December 31, he signed the law.

So Obamas word is null and void.

[Rockoon]

This idea that Obama would have vetoed the NDAA is hilarious given the fact that it was the white house that requested that the language that exempted Americans from the law be removed.

Here is a Democrat Senator saying exactly this on the floor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0PdDGqK0S4

Stop listening to what they say. Start watching what they do.