SOPA / PIPA

[Owen]

However, the DMCA is misused already. Helpful (to the giant corporations) ISPs and web hosts take down web sites when there really is no infringement, because they don't want to get involved in a legal battle. Notice this is already going on. Taking away safe harbor from site owners and massively increasing the power of copyright owners and the government is NOT going to help.

Isn't DMCA strictly for DRM? Because circumventing DRM is not the only problem---we need to tackle a lot more than that.

No. The DMCA already defines a system whereby a copyright holder (or authorised agent acting on their behalf) can submit a request to a website owner requesting the removal of infringing user-posted content, requiring the removal (or a response) within a defined time period - and if they comply appropriately with this request they are protected from legal action (The "DMCA Safe Harbour"). Google have noted that 57% of the requests it receives are against competing companies, and 37% are completely invalid and I see no reason to expect SOPA to be any better - especially as experience with the DMCA shows that most providers, on receiving a takedown notice, immediately terminate their contract with the site's owner with no redress.

[gravaera]

I have never read the bill, and frankly don't care to do so anymore because I'm not a kid anymore, so now I can buy my movies/manga/anime etc, so I don't need to pirate stuff anymore.

But the whole discussion isn't even about piracy. If you argue this way, you're completely missing the point.

It doesn't really matter what reason you choose, what really matters is that you give government the power to block access to parts of the internet. It's called censorship.

You're making a pretty subtle mistake in the way you're going about arguing against the bill: the bill's aim is not to censor anything -- it's aiming to blacklist content pirating websites. Taking one small aspect of the bill and flogging it dead when it's nothing more than an implementation detail will get you nowhere. It's actually more important to recognize that the bill itself is unneeded, and the extension of permissibility it gives the state is uncalled for, even if it didn't use partial censorship as the vanguard of its approach to attacking piracy.

Even if they found another way to shut down those sites, with a new set of laws, it would still be unnecessary and ineffective simply because of scope and boundary issues. New laws are not needed. An international coalition and effort is needed. Pirating websites can be hosted in countries whose laws are not as unforgiving as the USA, and thus be somewhat immune to punitive measures. That is the core issue, and so any moves to combat the websites should address that issue. Not aim to go about it in a way that will do absolutely nothing to the (professed) target problem. The censorship is not an issue when the whole bill itself is flawed at its very root.

The reason bills like this get passed is because people get too emotional about things that really don't matter. You're actually experiencing censorship everyday, but you just don't know it. Frankly, most people don't even visit anywhere more than probably 10% of the websites available on the web in their whole browsing lifetime -- censorship is hardly the core issue. My reason for being against this bill is that I can clearly see that there is another way to fight the pirate websites without giving the US government more unjustified room to take unreasonable measures against people who would mostly be criminalized by the bill's vague, overextending scope. That is all, I don't really care about there being "censorship" of the internet. Newspapers, magazines, television stations and eveyrthing censor information everyday. I simply want to know that there's one less reason why the government can just hold me without reason and charge me as a "terrorist" or "pirate" or "national security threat" or "suspected criminal", citing some ambiguous legal garble and then put me away in a cell to rot for DWB.

Basically, "I want to be left alone and not harrassed by things I don't have time to care about".

People get all bothered and start passing all these buzzwords around and just argue emotionally. But it's difficult to expect people like this to be able to really challenge their government or anything so w/e

[Owen]

I have never read the bill, and frankly don't care to do so anymore because I'm not a kid anymore, so now I can buy my movies/manga/anime etc, so I don't need to pirate stuff anymore.

But the whole discussion isn't even about piracy. If you argue this way, you're completely missing the point.

It doesn't really matter what reason you choose, what really matters is that you give government the power to block access to parts of the internet. It's called censorship.

You're making a pretty subtle mistake in the way you're going about arguing against the bill: the bill's aim is not to censor anything -- it's aiming to blacklist content pirating websites. Taking one small aspect of the bill and flogging it dead when it's nothing more than an implementation detail will get you nowhere. It's actually more important to recognize that the bill itself is unneeded, and the extension of permissibility it gives the state is uncalled for, even if it didn't use partial censorship as the vanguard of its approach to attacking piracy.

But, actually, that implementation detail is worse than the intent of the bill. The bill itself is unnecessary, but if you grant the government censorship powers, it has been demonstrated time and time again that they will abuse them.

Today, it may be sites containing pirated content. Tomorrow, it may be child pornography. But I guarantee you that next will be "obscene content" (something which can only be determined as such after a court case!), or "terrorism instructions", or "sites depicting or containing information illegal activity", etc, etc.

As was once said about Mark Twain, 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.'

--

As of SOPA: Piracy does not actively harm someone - it deprives them of something they are due - and therefore does not belong in criminal courts. It should remain a purely civil matter.

[fronty]

Today, it may be sites containing pirated content. Tomorrow, it may be child pornography. But I guarantee you that next will be "obscene content" (something which can only be determined as such after a court case!), or "terrorism instructions", or "sites depicting or containing information illegal activity", etc, etc.

One thing that is surely going to be blocked in the (near) future if the power is given but is missing from your list is "sites that are against censorship and contain information about why blocking is wrong". In Finland authorities maintain a list of DNS names of child porn websites which operators can "voluntarily" block, you can't really do anything about ending up on the list, there's nowhere to to complain about it. Unsurprisingly there's lots of pages which are on the list but don't contain any child porn, including probably the most well known site which contains information about flaws of the system. What could they do about ending up on the list? Nothing. Does everyone know the site contains 0 child pornography? Yes. Have they been removed from the list? Of course not.

[Rusky]

The problem with SOPA is not its (declared) intent of stopping piracy. The problem is that it's horribly unsuited to that task, and in the process of utterly failing to do anything about piracy introduces massive collateral damage to the internet's structure and gives the US government the same technical abilities that are used in e.g. the great firewall of China.

[CWood]

Forgive me if I repost content, I haven't had the chance to read the whole of this topic yet. Willdo tomorrow though.

What the US gov't fail to realize is, that by passing SOPA and PIPA, they are allowing companies, government agencies, and (probably) individuals to sue/tear down websites, for no real reason. Not only is this oppression, but this is gonna ruin the day for business startups, its gonna ruin business competition, and therefore hinder innovation, and the whole of American industry is going to stall entirely. By doing so, given that America is a global economic superpower, this act threatens the economic integrity of the world, and if this bill passes, Greece's issues are tiny compared to what could happen.

Not only that, but the Internet is an entity of and in itself. It grows organically, and by passing these two acts, entire sections of it will be ripped away. Internet deforestation, if you will. However, unlike deforestation, it will happen much quicker, much more ruthlessly, and will threaten the integrity of the Internet.

Threatening the integrity of the Internet, and the global economy, can only have one possible outcome... Get building your radiation-proof underground shelters, and do it FAST! This can only end in war.

[Solar]

Have you ever been in the position of defendent in a copyright infringement case?

Since I unfortunately do have first-hand experience, let me paint a picture for you.

You get a letter from an attorney, citing how they come to suspect you of copyright infringement. They go on accusing you of infringing on copyright commercially (i.e. for profit). Then they tell you how high they claim the amount of damages is (i.e., what they could sue you for). Then they tell you that they would agree to settle the dispute out-of-court for a much lesser amount.

So you are facing the alternatives of a) paying the settlement without the legibility of the claim ever being checked, or b) paying an attorney (who is payed relative to the claimed amount of damages) to defend you in court, with the risk of the judge ruling against you.

Case a) will cost you, say, 600 bucks. Case b) will cost you anything from 200 bucks up to a six or seven digit number, plus a criminal record, and you cannot really tell what it will be because most judges don't have much of an idea what they are ruling about.

So much for the possibility of "having the legibility of claims being checked in court". This is the least of the weapons in the arsenal of the copyright owners, something like a machine gun, and it is used to mass-blackmail people. (In my case, I would swear any oath that I did not commit the claimed infringement. But I will also not risk going to court for that.)

So, there is the machine gun, and it is abused. The DCMA is the towed artillery, and it is abused. Now they're asking for cruise missiles. Should they be given those, on grounds that they won't be abused (because you could have the legibility of the claim checked in court)?

[davidv1992]

For those intrested in reading more of this I found the following article pretty interesting: http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/so ... nt-matter/

[Solar]

Tomorrow, Wikipedia will black out for 24 hours in protest against SOPA / PIPA.

From their statement:

We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.

But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or, if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.

[Jezze]

Yeah I saw that. Great initiative. Anyone knows why Google and Facebook didn't join? They probably couldn't afford it.

[gravaera]

I'm against SOPA but but but D:

[Rusky]

I wish they would just change the color scheme and make their banner bigger, rather than completely blacking out. That would be much more effective without making the general public feel irritation toward SOPA/PIPA opponents.

Facebook would have a much better chance to do something meaningful that way- they (or even just their users) could start sharing information about SOPA the way they normally do. Maybe Facebook could give those posts a black background or something.

But blacking out a website, while it may get people's attention, will probably just annoy them.

edit: This was a little difficult to find, but it actually looks like this: https://test.wikipedia.org/?banner=SOPA_blackout_alt which is better than what I expected, but it's not a Facebook explosion.

[OrionAS]

These things are illegal they try to do.. They promote piracy and I will give you a couple of examples down bellow.

1) Steam that controls many video game companies, what they do is totally stu#$#d and unacceptable. The way you can translate this policies, is the need to promote piracy even more, so they can bring up an excuse for a total control of the market.

They force gamers for example to pay phone bill and internet connection provider, to be able to play their "offline games". So tell me, is internet free in the world? Is it cheap? If you make the mistake to buy software that supports these networks (steam, origin, etc), is it worth it without internet and phone bills? No its a trash... So basically THEY promote piracy to video game industry. The world is 6-7 billions, but they always point to a couple of millions users that allready pay phone and internet connection provider.

It is very well known that if a product is good and we love it, we are going to buy it!! Piracy is a marketing thing, its an advertisement of the product. If its a crap you are not going to buy it, if its worth it, you will.

I grow up and used pc from the 90s and at that time, yes we had piracy but it was not a problem at all! we always buy the products we need and deserve this money. Since this companies (steam, etc) entered the market, WE cant buy it, even if its worth it!! Because its a trash, no use!! We can’t use it or access it without paying bills!! So they deserve piracy, they deserve to be punished by us (the customers).

I am always avoiding to buy for example software titles that force you to pay bills and access it. Because if I dont want to have bills, I cant use it.. I am a pc gamer and I always complain to video game companies, "WHY" they dont distribute the game in 2 versions, 1 offline for those who dont wish to pay bills, or for those who love to use the software without internet connection and internet distribution through these networks. The answer I always get from them is: Sorry for this inconvenience, if you wish to play the game offline (even if its offline title), you have to purchase a console (xbox360, ps3, wii, etc). So we have to spend even more money for hardware that brakes much easier, force you to pay extra fees in online services, poore service (With reserviced hardware!!), etc..
You see? its more than you think behind this fraudery!!! they cause piracy, so let them cry as much as they want! They have to roll back.


And I am going to make you laugh with these laws.. Especially the naming they got..

I am from Hellas, and the word " SILENCE " it has many definitions in our language (you know ancient and modern Hellenic).

SOPA is a definition of SILENCE (or STOP TALKING, or a gentle "Shut up") in our language.

PIPA is a very rude word.. It mean blo#$#ob
So this laws are indeed trying to " SOPA and PIPA"

The only thing these crows have to bring up, is a new law with the name of "APOPISO"... that means " FROM BEHIND" in my language..
I hope I made you laugh a bit.. and dont let them rule your lifes, they caused it, so they can bring excusees to control you even more.

Sorry for my english and I am also dyslectic..

[gravaera]

...

People get all bothered and start passing all these buzzwords around and just argue emotionally. But it's difficult to expect people like this to be able to really challenge their government or anything so w/e

\o/

[TylerH]

Isn't DMCA strictly for DRM? Because circumventing DRM is not the only problem---we need to tackle a lot more than that.

No, DCMA can be used for any copyright infringement on the internet. But, it only requires the site take down the offending content. If the site fails to take down the content or prove it isn't infringing a copyright within the given period, it opens itself to being sued as if it was actively infringing the copyright itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_M ... tation_Act

Yep, I already noted that I think the DNS issue is ridiculous in my first post on this thread. There are some implementation problems that I hope will get fixed if SOPA is to be made official.

I don't think anyone is arguing that copyright infringement is wrong. It seems to me that they are instead arguing, in agreement with you, that the tools that the government plans use don't really solve the problem. From a purist point of view, where SOPA/PIPA are only used to block offending websites, it is perfect. The problem is that the world doesn't work like that; people abuse things and they will abuse SOPA/PIPA just like they already abuse DCMA. You have to consider what you're losing compared to what you're gaining; in this case, you're creating an avenue by which any website is open to frivolous litigation, which I consider a huge loss, and you're gaining nothing, because the blocks can be circumvented (with Tor hidden services, for example).