Sopa
 

The Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas | Techdirt
Community for the Opposition of the "Stop Online Piracy Act"
Stop American Censorship
Universal Censors Megaupload Song, Gets Branded a “Rogue Label” | TorrentFreak
Daily Kos Action
Avaaz - Save the Internet!
Stop Online Piracy Act Vote Delayed | Threat Level | Wired.com
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/1...r-internet-...

(That video provides a good, simple explanation, but the links [which I stole from the description, yes] either go into far more detail or give you a chance to act against it, so give them a look as well)

If you aren't bothered enough by the fate of the entire internet to even try to look into this, I'll give a very basic summary here: SOPA is a bill designed to 'stop piracy'. The intention of the bill is to change current laws regarding the controlling of piracy across the USA (and by extension, the whole world). The new bill will allow DNS blocking of sites that have previously harboured copyright infringement without actually promoting it. If you don't quite understand the dangers of that, allow me to give an example that should have us all worried: this site. We can post links to songs in our album reviews. We have our own section for posting song lyrics. We do not have rock solid guidelines on discussion of potentially illegal material, and users are capable of even promoting illegal activity without censorship. By the rules of this act, our site is a danger to the world of music and should be shut down. Do you think that's right?

If you're living in the US, I'd highly recommend trying to do something to stop this. All the links I've made available give you plenty of chances to fight against this affront to humanity. And if you aren't in the US, you can still help prevent it like I'm currently trying to. Spread the word, tell everyone you can to help get it known that this bill is wrong. And if you're somehow actually for this bill, then maybe you should do some research into what the bill is and how it'll stop your internet box interneting like it used to.

Sorry, I don't quite understand what we who are living in the UK ought to do. Are we going to be affected?

I don't see how this site will be endangered by this, sure, we have links to songs, but we don't infringe any copyright.

There is no ****ting way this will actually happen

*Keep calm. I'm trying to humour him.*

Don't patronise bro

It seems a bit too blown out of proportion. I'm not going to drop the "conspiracy theory" bomb, but it does seem too much like hyperbole.

How is it hyperbole? It's a legitimate thing

I dunno, there's a lot of big names behind it and a lot of support from the US senate, who are, as with all politicians as soon as the internet gets mentioned, a bunch of ****ing idiots who have no idea what they're doing.

@Salami The US has a lot of control over how the internet works across the world. The specifics are complicated, but their laws affect everything in a way. Add to that the fact that you could potentially lose any site that's remotely based in the US.

Is it likely for this bill to be passed?

Well, there's a good question. I'd say that in all likelihood, no. One look at the list of (very powerful) internet companies opposing the bill, not to mention to public appeal against it makes it a dangerous move for the US to take. But there are a scary amount of politicians supporting it as well, and if there's one thing that groups like the RIAA are good at it's casting their humanity aside in favour of deepening their pockets even further. I think there is a small chance that this bill might go through, or its younger sister which is nearly as bad will be passed in the wake of it. That's not a risk I'm willing to take, at all, which is why I started this thread.

Well, I think it's unwise to underestimate the power of politicians, especially the semi literate ones. I shall look into this further.

I don't know. I'm wondering what happens if it does. I mean, if you rip away megaupload, youtube, etc. From the Internet you'll have a group of bored, wreckless, frustrated youth on your hands.

But, it seems unlikely. Two words: Advertising revenue. I mean, the existence of piracy makes a ton of money. For that reason, this thing is bound to fold, even if it happens.

I can see it happening just cause cause the US is ****ed up. But on the other hand, it's not gonna happen.

The politicians for SOPA obviously have no idea what they are doing. It's just a bunch of old suits pushing the interests of big businesses, but that happens a lot, so why am I surprised? It's a shame really, I download music because it helps me discover a band (I'm not rich), and I take most of my hard earned money and buy records I really like because I want to support bands I really like. It's like seeing a musician on TV, or on Youtube. It helps the artists get their name out there and sell some albums.

House Kills SOPA - Denver Computers | Examiner.com

Whelp I'm gonna go have me a victory drink and do my best to smile for the rest of the day.

Nah, it's been shelved. I wouldn't let your guard down yet. Also, look out for PIPA.

Let's hope it doesn't gain any more strength, because if it did, and became a major threat to the accessibility of knowledge and new ideas in the process, the West has become so crippled by an apathy pandemic that I seriously doubt public opposition towards it would generate enough momentum.

I concur with others though, I can't see it happening.

Wikipedia is going offline for 24 hours in 3 hours. Craigslist is going offline, I think already. Reddit is going offline as well... And those are just the big ones I've heard about. Nerdcore musician MC Frontalot's webpage is going offline too. Well, they'll just be plain pages explaining SOPA to those who've been living under a rock, giving links about it and advising you contact a representative.

Here's what wikipedia has to say:

Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Take action - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

tl;dr They know it probably won't pass. They know it's been tables for now. But it's still a looming threat on the horizon. Something like that.

Well if Obama doesn't go all turn cloak like he did on the NDAA it wouldn't even matter if SOPA or PIPA passes. The bills will be vetoed and he'll probably secure his re-election (well even more than he already has with the Republican candidates...)

I have to say I feel a little ashamed of claiming victory so hastily, I should know better by now.

http://torrentfreak.com/sopa-is-baaa...medium=twitter

SOPA is baaack

I love politics, and I love campaigns more than you can imagine. So I love this SOPA thing because its created not only political unity among the grassroot folks, but they have threatened open war against the bills sponsors, speciafically Red State and its creator are going to primary the lead sponsor in (Tennesse?) and I presume, if she manages to beat this challenge, back the Democrat.

I'm psyched. I love a bloodbath.

I wish Facebook would do a day blackout, imagine the horror as millions of loony people feverishly try and tend to their virtual farms but find that they can't because of SOPA. Lamar Smith will rue the day he fucks with peoples FarmVille time.

SOPA not dead yet

And, we can't forget about PIPA too, the Senate's version that pretty much would go the same thing.

And so it begins, hopefully ESA will be go the route of GoDaddy.

The following is a quote from another forum, but this is the stance of the owner of MB on SOPA:

The sad day when SOPA get's passed is when I completely lose any sort of hope for the government. When greedy corporations have the ability to pass bills with their influence (money) and millions of people don't have a say. It frustrates me, it really does.

Already contacted my representative. Hopefully other people near me did too, but as of right now, that's somewhat of a difference than we can try to make.

Google have taken action to protest against it. Hopefully the ignorant politicians supporting it might realise that the biggest internet-based company in the whole ****ing world going against the bill might mean that they don't know what they're talking about.

Ignorant politicians think of nothing, but themselves, hence the word "ignorant".

It's pretty ridiculous what they're trying to do with the SOPA/PIPA bills.

One thing I found ridiculous is that they want to hold domains responsible for everything that goes on on them, regardless of who does it. It will essentially cripple all US multi-user domains like blogspot, youtube or this website. Okay, I'm not sure if they're all based in the US, but they would be ****ed if they were and this bill got passed.

edit :

Not 100% sure about this, but it looks like you could (in theory) get jailtime simply for embedding youtube videos in your blog posts.

Yeah there are some very large holes in this act. I'm pretty sure I read that if a company has suspicion of copyright infringement or piracy, they can shut the site down with this act. Not to mention what tore said about individual actions representing the site as a whole.

I truly believe piracy is nowhere near as big a problem as the government makes it out to be. The mistake the RIAA, Hollywood, ESA, US Government and all the other idiot entertainment companies make when campaigning against internet piracy is that they count every downloaded album/film/game as a lost sale. Problem is, just because someone illegally downloaded something doesn't mean they would have bought it if they hadn't downloaded it. Which is why those very large numbers of lost sales they like to show off when campaigning against piracy are nowhere near accurate.

I just called my representatives and told them I strongly oppose the bills. I hope everyone else does the same.

I hope you Scandinavians don't mind me coming over if this gets passed.

I wish I could. I can't believe the US wants to control how the rest of the world browses the Internet. Further proves the fact that the US government and the corporations who support SOPA only think for themselves.

https://twitter.com/#!/rupertmurdoch...21072943542272

https://twitter.com/#!/rupertmurdoch...77142495453184

****ing hypocritical idiot. I reached my wit's end with Murdoch's ignorant lies the minute I first saw them, and this is just laughably bad. As if a pornographer and spreader of hateful media would use 'blocking porn, hate speech' as justification for him supporting PIPA.

Hopefully Lamar Smith can see the dangers of this passing first hand.
Lamar Smith Caught Infringing On Photographer's Copyright | Techdirt

If this gets passed, is anyone up for mass suicide in front of the white house?

Its worth mentioning that the bill allows any service provider suspend a site from being viewed from not only actual copyright infringement but just even suspecting that a site is committing copyright infringement.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...h_Congress.jpg

This man doesn't understand how the internet works.

nope, he just hates the internet.....and puppies.