SOPA is evil. Help the internet!

Jill Hives

Jill Hives

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Felt like I had no choice but to do my part to spread the word regarding this atrocious bill.

Here are a couple articles concerning SOPA, which is a bill that is possibly about to be passed by congress. Essentially, if it passes, it will fuck the internet. Youtube and other streaming sites will be fucked. Forums even, will be fucked. This place could be effected as well, because it would be hard to stop people from posting potentially copywritten material. This is an American bill, but it will effect the rest of the world, as the DNS root is in America. Websites the entire world uses could be in jeopardy.

Here is the wiki article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

Here is what the in house lawyer for Riot Games has to say concerning this bill : http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/oco15/iama_attorney_for_riot_games_directing_our/

From the sounds of things, one of the real problems with this bill seems to be the ambiguous wording. A copywrite holder could go after someone on a forum simply for referrencing a movie or song lyrics that that person does not legally own.

Now...here is a personal rant.

This is just the beginning, the Rothchilds (just if you didn't know this family owns the central banks in Britain, and pretty much control everything) even said that the internet never should have been given to the general public. Without the internet, it's unlikely something like the Occupy Movement could even have taken flight remotely close to as well as it did. They do NOT WANT US to have this much freedom in access to non government regulated information.


And finally a video -

[video=youtube;JhwuXNv8fJM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM[/video]


Taken fom above reddit site, posted by in house lawyer of Riot Games-

If you are voting in the US (or are referring US voters) please send them here: https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
If you're not a US-citizen, but want to make YOUR voice directly heard, please go here: http://americancensorship.org/modal/state-dept-petition/index.html

EDIT - I thought that it would be a good idea to also post a link to the actual bill itself.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:
 
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Oh, and...um..THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!!! Truly.
 
Jill Hives said:
Oh, and...um..THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!!!! Truly.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but when I clicked the thread, this is all I got. :(

jximw.png
 
HAH yeah...disturbingly amusing.

It actually horrifies me. :[
 
There seems to be quite a large amount of resistance to this bill.

Congress is (sigh) voting to begin (sigh) MORE DEBATE on the stupid thing on January 24th, the day they return from a break. Just... OMG. politicians.
There's another bill called PIPA which is basically the same thing.

This is a website I like, because it tells you the schedule, details and actual text of the bills in question, and you can see exactly who sponsored the bill and who voted for and against it:
http://www.opencongress.org/

http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/2460-Jan-24th-Our-Best-Chance-to-Kill-SOPA

And from what I've read, there is enough highly credible opposition to this that I doubt it will pass. However, I could be wrong.
 
I hope you are right! It seems there is much more opposition than not, but...with the right lobbyists rooting for it, anything is possible.
 
Bills pass then they get tossed when actual enforcement reflected upon to real people starts to happen, it's kinda like when the government decided they were going to force us all to buy health insurance. The bill passed but so far I haven't seen anything enforced about it.
 
As far as I know it has not passed yet. The Senate is voting on this very soon though, the 24th of January.
 
This is a terrible bill and must not be passed. Thanks for letting us know about it. I have been living under a rock the past 2 months.

The internet is like our collective conciousness and this would be the death of that. It will be a pain in the ass to enforce the bill and it will also probably lead to more covert and illegal websites. If passed, I think that it will eventually end up working as intended though because people will try to stick to mainstream 'clean sites' and avoid the smaller sites as viruses and malware will become rife on these.

There needs to be a better solution to copyright infringement. They have been unsuccessfully trying to stop piracy forever. Even some of the straightest and wholesome people I know seem to have no problem pirating. This is a very tough issue. I hate copyright and patenting in general but alas people need to get paid so they can eat.

Without the internet and blatant abuse of copyright laws a lot of artists and media would never have been heard anyway, the internet takes the message and makes it viral, enabling them to reach billions of people. So how will people get heard now?

Apparently Trent Reznor produced some band and he put free downloads of their songs on their website that were of a poorer quality, and gave people the option to purchase higher quality downloads. He also tells people at his concerts to burn and rip his music illegally because he thinks that his record company is ripping people off.

CDs and DVDs are dead. The internet is the main source of information and media entertainment for most people living in developed countries. We live in an era where information is available to anyone that cares to learn and can no longer be restricted to only the elite. Its a new age for media and our laws and cullture need to adapt.

Any ideas for better copyright laws?
 
[video=youtube;WJIuYgIvKsc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc&feature=colike[/video]

This is my contribution.
 
This is part of a creeping process of removing our rights and liberties

Even if they aren't aggressively enforcing things now they are putting the aparatus of control in place so that when the crack down comes everything will be ready

The struggle has started whether we like it or not. Its an uncomfortable reality but it's best faced if it is to be stopped.

This is part of a move to put us in a state of neo-fuedalism where the ruling class has dominance over a serf-like population

The 'banking crisis' has not hurt the bankers....they have been bailed out and are still getting massive bonuses; it has hurt the middle classes who are seeing their savings and pensions dissapear so that they will merge with the 'working class' as what will effectively be a slave class of people controlled by a totalitarian surveillance society run by the coporate interests

The internet brings people together and allows coordinated resistance so it was always inevitable that at some point they would seek to control it

At some point there's going to be a backlash from the people that's going to make OWS look like a picnic and that is why the government has passed the NDAA allowing the US military to detain US civilians without trial.
 
Yeah SOPA's a problem. My response to SOPA is "you fail. Please try again". I'm all for curbing on-line piracy, but it has to be done right. I'd like to see punitive measures to be more progressive, and reflect the gravity of the infraction. A site that has 90% pirated material shouldn't have the same consequences as a site that has 0.01% pirated material. As it stands now, SOPA may very well end up shutting down a lot of great value adding services on the internet, that are primarily legal.

Hell, SOPA might even shut down INFJf. We have links here to music videos on the internet that might not have a license to host those videos.
 
obama's actually done something good.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/16/sopa-shelved-obama-piracy-legislation

Congressional leaders are preparing to shelve controversial legislation aimed at tackling online piracy after president Barack Obama said he would not support it.
California congressman Darrell Issa, an opponent of Sopa, the Stop Online Piracy Act, said he had been told by House majority leader Eric Cantor that there would be no vote "unless there is consensus on the bill."
The news is a major blow for Sopa's backers in Hollywood, who had enjoyed broad support in Congress. But the Motion Pictures Association of America, one of the bill's biggest sponsors, said it would continue to press for new laws. "The failure to pass meaningful legislation will result in overseas websites continuing to be a safe haven for criminals stealing and profiting from America," the MPAA said in a blogpost.
The White House came out firmly against Sopa at the weekend.
"Let us be clear – online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle-class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs," the White House said in its first official comment on Sopa and a rival bill, Protect IP, now known as the Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act, or the e-Parasite act.
But the White House said it would not support legislation that "reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risks or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet."
The two bills aim to tackle online piracy by preventing American search engines like Google and Yahoo from directing users to sites distributing stolen materials. The bills would also allow people and companies to sue if their copyright was being infringed.
The White House expressed concern about both these elements and about passing legislation that threatened the openness of the internet. In the online statement it said any new legislation must be "narrowly targeted".
"Any provision covering internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing," said the White House.
The Obama administration also came out firmly against any plans to target the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of internet security, in order to tackle sites accused of piracy. Any proposed legislation "must not tamper with the technical architecture of the internet," said the White House.
The move effectively scuppers Sopa for now, and puts pressure on legislators ahead of a Senate vote on the e-Parasite act scheduled for January 24.
In a statement, Issa said: "While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House."
The tech community has fought hard to stop Sopa. Websites including Reddit and possibly Wikipedia had been planning to "go dark" on Wednesday in protest of the proposals. And the White House move will be a major blow for the bills' supporters.
This weekend Rupert Murdoch – whose News Corporation includes the Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox, took to Twitter to attack the Obama administration for its criticism of Sopa.
"So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy. Plain thievery," Murdoch wrote in a series of tweets that accused Google of hosting pirated material and selling advertising against it. Google dismissed his claims as "nonsense".
Art Brodsky, director for Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public interest group that has campaigned against Sopa, said: "You can't view this bill in isolation; it's part of a continuum. They will try to muddle through with something."
But he said the White House statement was "very helpful" and it was clear that any legislation that tried to make wide-ranging changed to the internet would now face tougher opposition.
Click to expand...
 
I just finished contacting my Congress Rep and two Senators to stand against this.
 
my senator's reply


"Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). I appreciate hearing from you.

Let me begin by saying I strongly support safeguarding the intellectual property of all Americans. Intellectual property rights are vital to our economy. Every day that intellectual property is insufficiently safeguarded, American businesses stand to lose billions of dollars that result in the loss of thousands of jobs due to copyright infringement and the sale of counterfeit goods. As you may know, I supported the America Invents Act (P.L. 112-29), which passed the Senate on September 8, 2011. This legislation would streamline the patent application process, establish new rules to protect inventors and eliminate unworthy patents, and create consistency for all applicants and patent owners in the application and litigation processes. It provides for the first significant changes to the nation
 
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