SOPA

[Bond]

Apparently a few legislators will attempt to tack it onto an anti-child-pornography bill sometime in the future. Classy.

[Typhoid]

Originally Posted by Bond

Apparently a few legislators will attempt to tack it onto an anti-child-pornography bill sometime in the future. Classy.

Well, if you can't beat 'em, threaten them into opposing a bill that also has anti-child-porn attached to it.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

Well, if you can't beat 'em, threaten them into opposing a bill that also has anti-child-porn attached to it.

Hopefully the media and people don't act stupid enough to let this slide.

Wait.. all the major media companies support this...

Ahem, hopefully the people aren't stupid enough to let this slide.

[TheSlyMoogle]

I don't think they'll let it slide.

[KillerGremlin]

I hope it doesn't slide, but like I said early in this thread...

There are just scary implications with SOPA. Rumor on the street is that SOPA is a guaranteed failure. However, SOPA is going to be attached to the end of some "Stop Online Child Pornography Act" that congress will be unable to vote against (because who is going to vote against stopping child porn).

Ultimately you figure this is going to get passed at some point. SOPA is less interesting to 99% of Americans than the Kardashians.

A part of me feels like this country deserves what it has coming. 80% of the lazy fucks in this country don't vote. So this is what you get. Congress with an all time disapproval rating, and this SOPA bill that is going to end the Internet as we know it.

I stand by that statement. I think most Americans are too preoccupied to care. The fact that SOPA is being called the "anti-piracy" bill by news outlets is upsetting too. So far every news story I have seen makes it sound like people are in favor of piracy...

The only way I see prolonged defeat of the legislation in this bill is if a company like Google:

1) Blacks out ALL their services for a day; no Gmail, no blogspot, no Google Voice, no Android, no hosting, NOTHING

2) Google has a press conference where they discuss how much information they have. Google is a scary entity. They know what type of strange porn you search for, they know about your web browsing habits. But MOST importantly: they also know what strange porn your Congressman looks at. They know what Obama searched for.

Transparency always wins. If Google becomes a transparent entity...then everyone gets their grievances aired our.

Kind of like in Mean Girls.

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

I find it legitimately hard to see a happy ending to this process. As defeatist as it may sound, I don't see any reason why pushing this same bill as an attachment to a "stop child pornography act" would fail. However, I do have the utmost faith that the informed will continue to be able to pirate their warez.... always has happened, always will happen. I'm curious to see how individual prosecution for copyright infringement will be carried out outside of U.S. jurisdiction though.....

[Ginkasa]

Originally Posted by GiMpY-wAnNaBe

I'm curious to see how individual prosecution for copyright infringement will be carried out outside of U.S. jurisdiction though.....

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01...dition_piracy/

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

O’Dwyer is being extradited under controversial laws agreed by Tony Blair in the wake of the September 11 attacks – then billed as essential to the war on terrorism - which are currently being used to try and extradite Gary McKinnon on hacking charges. Under the terms of the deal US authorities have only to show “reasonable suspicion’ of a crime, while UK requests have to come with proof.

....terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.

[Professor S]

This issue is directly tied to the over-regulation of American business. Gimpy hinted toward the marriage of government and business earlier in another thread, and SOPA and PIPA are just another example of it. Want to wonder why there is a sense of inevitability around this? Because moneyed interests want it to happen.

The only way to prevent things like this from happening is to put a firewall between business and government. You might say this will lead to corporations running the country... but um, isn't that kind of what's happening now when we have more regulations than at any time in US history? Without regulations/government intervention business has no means of forcing individuals to do anything. They have to compete, and create better products quickly and cheaply. The ONLY time business gets past this hard and fast rule is when government uses force to manipulate markets.

While I've never considered myself a fan of completely free markets, the more I see the inevitable effects of regulatory capture, the more I keep changing my mind. If Paul wasn't so myopic, or borderline anti-Semitic, on foreign affairs I'd have a hard time not supporting him.

[Professor S]

As for the problem of intellectual piracy, this is an issue of policing, not prevention.

[TheGame]

[KillerGremlin]

I mean I don't want to say it isn't possible and then...it becomes possible.

But there has to be so much shit on those megaupload servers that no human could possibly sort through it in a reasonable amount of time. And an IP Address is not clear evidence of downloading. Think of the thousands of appeals that the RIAA would have to deal with...I don't think they would actually target 25% of the population. They are probably going to target single individuals on a per case basis. But even that is futile, because who has a million dollars? These lawsuits are frivolous which is why they've been stopped.

The end game is finally controlling the Internet and the distribution of data. Moving forward, if they can control how you obtain your digital media, you will be forced to pay what they ask for. It will be no different than Cable TV.

It's all about control. Some time in the 1990s the MPAA/RIAA lost an opportunity to jump on a golden business opportunity, online file sharing, and fell victim to Napster/p2p/etc. Now you have bandcamp, paypal, amazon with its DRM-free mp3s, etc. The middle man has been cut out thanks to the Internet, and they don't like it.

The middle man should have no say...because as has been pointed out a million times: a downloaded album is not a net sales loss. There is a good chance the person who downloaded the album wasn't going to buy it in the first place. So by that logic, there really is no damages. With the Internet, you can go to Radiohead.com and give the band 10 dollars direct for a Lossy FLAC encoded album that is DRM free. In less than...Napster was what? '98? In less than 10 years the Internet killed corporate music.

According to my folks, there was a time when cable TV was commercial free. I think it's pretty retarded that cable is a paid service, and it has commercials. I think what is even more retarded is they don't offer some premium package for 5 or 10 dollars more a month to not watch commercials. The Internet is changing the way we advertise, commercialize, and harass consumers. It's fucking ridiculous that I buy a PC game and have to verify some DRM bullshit on the internet. It's fucking bullshit that I pop in a blu-ray movie and have to sit through 15 commercials for shitty movies I don't want to see. These are all reasons piracy is rampant. The suits brought this fate on themselves...and I hope the tech world is smart enough to keep progressing to win this war.

I'm done supporting shitty service. I buy a lot of things, and I support developers who respect their customers. I buy games that are DRM-free, I buy Apps on my phone, I even have purchased Windows because I like the OS. I support bands too as often as I can. I feel like most people are in my camp.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

I mean I don't want to say it isn't possible and then...it becomes possible.

But there has to be so much shit on those megaupload servers that no human could possibly sort through it in a reasonable amount of time. And an IP Address is not clear evidence of downloading. Think of the thousands of appeals that the RIAA would have to deal with...I don't think they would actually target 25% of the population. They are probably going to target single individuals on a per case basis. But even that is futile, because who has a million dollars? These lawsuits are frivolous which is why they've been stopped.

The end game is finally controlling the Internet and the distribution of data. Moving forward, if they can control how you obtain your digital media, you will be forced to pay what they ask for. It will be no different than Cable TV.

I think it's deeper than that. The "end game" here isn't just controling the internet, it's controling people.

No, they're not going to arrest 25% of people who use the internet. But if a person becomes an issue via the internet or other means, they will use that information to build a case against them and silence them for good. The fact that they now have this in their pocket is the issue, similar to the guantanamo bay and the NDAA issues but less obvious in it's attempt to be able to pick and choose who they lock up.

[GiMpY-wAnNaBe]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the RIAA already get a certain amount of money for every single CD sold?

Also, the last video TheGame posted blew my mind....At this rate investing in jail building operations seems like an excellent decision.

[Seth]

Regulating this in the form of 'anti piracy' laws that pursue jail time and ludicrous fines will only result in further loss of productivity in the larger society. Both national and global. Production will slow as well because the internet won't have the same traffic numbers which directly infuse marketing's reach.
They somehow think that people who are pirating creative media have expendable income that is being horded or fed into a 'black market'. This isn't the reality. Canada is a debt society and is only increasing in debt.
Archaic business models that don't represent the floundering economy is the problem, and the redirection of their own production ability away from supporting artists, towards lobbying and regulation which hurt the consumer.

The contradiction of logic tends to lend support to the notion that this is more about information control and less about copyright infringement in and of itself.

Congress and constitution are no longer protective if this is ratified, or left unchecked with preventative laws:

Update: An earlier version of this post claimed the act required Senate ratification. Reports are conflicting, but it appears this is not the case. ACTA has been signed as a sole executive agreement, meaning the president’s signature on this is all it takes for it to become law, though Sen. Ron Wyden has questioned the constitutionality of that move on the part of the administration.

Cory Doctorow describes the agreement as “a secretly negotiated copyright treaty that obliges its signatories to take on many of the worst features of SOPA and PIPA. The EU is nearing ratification of it. ACTA was instigated by US trade reps under the Bush Administration, who devised and enforced its unique secrecy regime, but the Obama administration enthusiastically pursued it.”

While this may be the case, it is much more difficult to assess the actual impact of the bill on US law. It may end up having a negligible affect on US IP law and internet freedom. It may have a slow impact that creeps up over the years. The lack of transparency has made it very difficult to assess, especially given the numerous governments involved. Whether or not it represents as great a threat as its critics claim, it is always worrisome when these sorts of agreements are worked out without public input.

From the EFF update on developments in ACTA in 2011:

While Internet blacklist bills exploded into the domestic U.S. Congressional scene this year, foreboding international forces are also posing new threats to the Internet around the world. The most prominent of these is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), signed by the U.S. in 2011, which would strengthen intellectual property enforcement norms between signatory countries, handing overbroad powers to the content industry to preserve their antiquated business model. ACTA was widely criticized for being negotiated in secret, bypassing national parliaments and the checks and balances in existing international organizations. One of the most disheartening features of this plurilateral agreement [1] is that it creates a new global IP enforcement institution to oversee its implementation.

Eight[2] of the 11 ACTA participating countries have signed the agreement and the battle now mainly lies in the European Union. This week, the Council of the European Union—one of the European Union’s two legislative bodies, composed of executives from the 27 EU member states—adopted ACTA during a completely unrelated meeting on agriculture and fisheries. It is now up to the European Parliament, the EU’s other legislative body, to give consent on ACTA in the coming year. The European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee has discussed the agreement on December 20th, and released its very guarded opinion, summarily stating: “It appears that the agreement per se does not impose any obligation on the Union that is manifestly incompatible with fundamental rights.” This opinion is not surprising, given how the Committee newsletter [doc] published a few days prior spoke highly of ACTA, hinting strongly that it is supportive of its signature.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...you-meet-acta/