http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... egislation

Before everyone goes off on it, I should mention this first. SOPA has been shelved for now.

A number of websites have "Gone dark" today in protest of these two bills. Off the top of my head, Wikipedia, Reddit, and I think a couple of news sites as well... and then there are sites like Equestria Daily (Yes, I'm into the pony. Don't like it? Then don't say anything. It's not the point of this thread), MSPaint adventures, and XKCD have joined in.

Now, if you ask me, these laws are a HORRID idea. It's a fucking US law that affects the entire world. That is NOT right at all. Besides, we already have laws that are designed to protect one's intellectual property. They're called "Copyright laws" and they seemed to work pretty well thus far. It's just up to the holder of the rights to decide what to do with them.

As far as I understand, SOPA and PIPA will make it possible to close down a website even if it contains links to sites with copyrighted content, or if an user uploads something that violates intellectual rights.
That means something like wikipedia or even a decent sized forum will constantly be at risk.

Also as you mention, this is a law that effectively affects the entire world, which will no doubt be a legal clusterfuck of epic proportions once it hits the courtroom.

Protecting intellectual rights is all fine and good, but at which price?

Glad it has been stopped, at least for now.

It's only been delayed so far. But various websites have been doing blackouts and blacking out their logos in protest to SOPA.

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

That should summarize the jist of it. But essentially it gives big corporations in the entertainment industry the power to block and sue ANY website it can get a hold of. Copyright protection is already vicious enough as is (not necessarily due to industry but the fact that if you don't sue your IP becomes available to everyone so you have no choice but to sue). SOPA would essentially stop any form of risk taking over the internet. Its a wonder that people who are in power are those who do not even understand how the internet (or SOPA for that matter) works. Its a mess.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-0 ... bills.html

Something tells me that even if it makes it through both house and senate... Obama will not sign it.

I haven't read the bill yet. But I would think if they demonstrate "a chilling effect" of the law, the Supreme Court would declare it unconstitutional (eventually, after much damage).



I don't have any faith in that. He already signed the law that allows the US to hold "suspected terrorists" or "suspected terrorist sympathizers" for years (with a military review every three years) incommunicado. He did say that he wouldn't enforce it since he believed it to be unconstitutional.



This is not correct. Under former US Copyright law and the Berne Convention no one is required to take any action at all if one discovers one's copyrighted work(s) used without permission. Trademark and Patent law do require the holder take action. But a Cease And Desist letter is sufficient if obeyed. A diplomacy, online rp site received such a letter from the U.N.. The site ceased using "UN", changed it to "World Assembly", and nothing more came of it.

Down with government meddling, Power to the people!

Something about the effects of the protests.

Some of the skinny:

-25 Senators now oppose PIPA (the Senate version of SOPA), according to OpenCongress

-News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch accused "the blogosphere" of "terrorizing many senators and congressmen who previously committed" to SOPA and PIPA.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... senate.ars

And an interesting article regarding the loss of PIPA support.

Then they closed down Megaupload >.<

Guess I'll have to get Touhou stuff elsewhere *flails*.

If one looks it over, it only makes sense. They were making money off of copyrighted material. Copyright holders were losing nearly half a billion dollars off of that. And since it had servers hosted in the US, they did fall under US Copyright laws.

And I should point this out...



So it's not like they didn't try to let Megaupload stay up, but since they didn't remove the requested copyrighted material...

And the quoted article

Which rather shows that the existing laws are already working....

I'd read that it was 39 senators opposed to the bill, including at least one cosponsor. Wikipedia reported that congress received over 300,000 emails on the subject. Hopefully, the tabling of the bills is just the save-face way of trying to forget they ever came up with the idea.

Secondly, perhaps the publisher of copyrighted material could have given them some input. SOPA & PIPA are completely contrary to the views expressed by author Eric Flint, late publisher Jim Baen, & Baen publishing in their Baen Free Library. (It's a wonderful site. Everyone should check it out sometime.)

I guess it's the music industry behind these travesties. They seem to alternate with the film industry vis-a-vis copyright & the internet. These two keep coming up with numbers of how many dollars the internet costs them. Do they just make up those figures or are there actual facts supporting them. (And they probably count every download as lost revenue even though not everyone who does that would actually buy the music if it were not available elsewhere.)

And there's a picture that's been making the rounds that is both funny and poignant.

Yeah, it's the music and film industries that are mostly supporting SOPA/PIPA.

From what I heard, they consider everytime someone pirates a song or movie a lost sale which is how they get the random number of losses from the internet. Of course that is not remotely true as those that pirate may not have the funds to actually buy the thing they are pirating or they have no means to purchase it where they are at. I've pirated Touhou games but thats mainly due to the fact I cannot read Japanese and there are no American websites that sell them so they haven't lost any revenue as there are no means for me to purchase it through an American distributer.

In the end, they will set the numbers to make it look like they are seriously losing things like how they ignore how many jobs will be lost if something like SOPA goes through.

Games industry does it too with their own horrible anti pirating requirements.

In the end its all about greed.

And tell me, isn't that all that the world's about nowadays?