The SOPA Hearings

X

Xem

Guest
Anyone following? I've just more recently started paying closer attention and the whole thing seems to leave little hope for humanity.

Here's an excerpt from an article that can help catch you up,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/the-nightmarish--hearings/2011/12/15/gIQA47RUwO_blog.html said:
SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a bill that, in the name of preventing online piracy of copyrighted work, creates a horrifyingly large censorship authority for the Internet. Among other things, it requiresservice providers (which have come out opposing the bill) to block access to entire sites if a user on the site is accused of copyright infringement.

There are dozens of reasons this is wrong. The biggest and most pressing is that not only does the bill not do what it sets out to do, it also creates a horrifyingly blunt instrument to censor the Internet.

One of the underlying assumptions of our system of government has always been that even though people mean well now, that doesn’t mean you give them the authority to do terrible things later. The attorney general now may use SOPA in only the most narrowly tailored of cases. But as the Founders knew, it is unwise to give people more powers than you would like them to use.

There ought to be a law, I think, that in order to regulate something you have to have some understanding of it. And when people are saying things like, “This is just the rogue foreign Web sites” and “This only targets the bad actors” and “So you want universities to host illegal pirated versions of copyrighted content?,” it’s enough to make you claw out large fistfuls of your hair. No! No! Nobody is hosting anything. This bill would require service providers to cut off access to entire Web sites where users are deemed to be engaging in copyright infringement, not take down stolen content they posted themselves. That’s already against the law. But no one seemed to be able to express this.

When you have a signed letter from the engineers responsible for creating the Internet pointing out that this bill would jeopardize our cybersecurity, balkanize the Internet and create a climate of uncertainty that would stifle innovation, it seems odd to ignore it. As a general rule, when the people saying that this will have a horrible, chilling impact on something are the ones who created that thing in the first place, and the people who are saying, “Oh, no, it’ll be fine, it only targets the bad actors” are members of the Motion Picture Association of America, it seems obvious whose opinion you should heed.

~ Washington Post Article
 

nomad

"Bring the light of day"
There's 4 things I don't talk about with people in person: Religion, politics, hookers and the internet. That being said, no matter how "humane" the right for internet "freedom" as they call it, has always been a double edged sword. I'm sure all of us can come up with the long list of how beneficial it is to us even in daily basis. But it has come to the point where most of us have given them reason to even bring up the case.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Deci said:
the whole thing seems to leave little hope for humanity

Yeah, humanity has little hope left of getting FREE DIVX at the upmost convenience. This truly is the onset of an unprecedented age of darkness for mankind.
 
X

Xem

Guest
I download 0% of my media without previously owning it and with direct consent from the author ~ even then I almost always buy it anyway. I usually even go out of my way to buy from small business.

The problem is the people passing this bill have no idea what the fuck they're doing. The problem is this is censorship. The problem is closed-minded idiots without any foresight not seeing the future repercussions of handing over the biggest venue for free speech that has ever existed.

The problem is also people not having any idea what the fuck they're talking about yet feeling the need to comment on articles anyway. Agreeing with intelligent authoritarian figures because you're a brown-nosing goose-stepping knuckle-dragging idiot who thinks stripping away basic freedoms is a good idea.
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Deci said:
I download 0% of my media without previously owning it and with direct consent from the author ~ even then I almost always buy it anyway.
I don't know you personally and I have no idea what you take from people, so whether or not you get the direct consent from the author (provide some real examples of this if you want) doesn't really matter what you're trying to claim to us.

I usually even go out of my way to buy from small business.
This is like the most subtle way to say you steal. Just come out and say you steal the stuff because it comes from big business.

The problem is the people passing this bill have no idea what the fuck they're doing.
Law makers are trying to enforce copyright laws.

The problem is this is censorship.
Censoring the enablers of property theft. Anyways provide some non-biased sources that agree with this statement.

The problem is closed-minded idiots without any foresight not seeing the future repercussions of handing over the biggest venue for free speech that has ever existed.
The reversed can be said about 'closed-minded idiots' that want to continue breaking copyright laws so they can get 'date' for free.

The problem is also people not having any idea what the fuck they're talking about yet feeling the need to comment on articles anyway.
Much like your self? As you said you "just started paying closer attention" to this issue, which I'm sure has more than one opinion about it.

Agreeing with intelligent authoritarian figures because you're a brown-nosing goose-stepping knuckle-dragging idiot who thinks stripping away basic freedoms is a good idea.
Yet stripping away the rights that a person has on their intellectual property is alright? But yeah continue not thinking critically about the people you're choosing to believe, just assume they are being 100% honest. :schierke:

Instead of getting defensive, make an argument that supports what you're trying to say, convincing us that you're right, and that we should change our minds because of evidence, I'm sure, you'll provide us.

Edit: I added some bolding and italics to some parts of Deci's post.
 

nomad

"Bring the light of day"
Deci, I'm not going to start striping every sentence you just said, but the reality is that the internet in itself is a luxury, and not a necessity in the personal use. I don't like the idea of being monitored to all the things I do in the internet, but everything that has been going on in the past 5-10 years, we're really not in the position to argue. Even if you are an angel and never download anything illegal in your life, the sad reality is that you would be in the minority compared to those who do. And the lovely excuses that follow some of these reasons is comical beyond biblical proportions. I am sure if your financial situation would depend on sales, and you end up getting a 80% value in losses while 2 million people and counting are downloading your material, you'd be saying the complete opposite. Even if it is a material that is overpriced, scammed or squirted out of a pigs ass, the fact is the law is being broken. And it's getting worse and worse. People should know the consequences of their actions for ones and apply that to whatever lovely letter or message they intend to send. Otherwise, they would be just as bad as the evil "corporation" or politicians they claim to be.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Oh SHIT it's Y2K! :magni:

The skynet is falling? :serpico:

As you can tell, in my ignorant opinion this is totally overblown. It's not going to do anything to stop piracy and it's not going to block the Internet, everyone's just being hysterical or bullshitting about it for the sake of their ulterior motives; stealing or the appearance of control, respectively. Though, out of pure cynicism I agree with Deci that, far more likely than actually achieving the purported goal of the bill, it'll fuck up the Internet by the law of unintended consequences. The only thing more likely than that? Nothing much will happen at all. Of course, the "free" Internet as we know it is doomed anyway, so I myself look forward to the era of the corporate cable TV Internet Empire versus pirate radio-style Internet rebels.

"The rebels have jacked into the system!" :mozgus:
"FREEDOM!" :troll:


Or so every bittorrent thieves guild dreams.
 

SaiyajinNoOuji

I'm still better than you
Well one of the big stinks about this is that they are planning on doing all this by controlling the DNS. The really stinky part about this is that a lot of other countries websites go through the DNS servers in the states so.... the US can just cut those sites off from the majority of people for what ever fucking reason they want and yea. Thats one of the big things people are rabble rousing about. :puck:
 

nomad

"Bring the light of day"
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/everybody-pirates-riaa-homeland-security-caught-downloading-torrents/65670

Now... If someone can pull out the possible millions that politicians spend in hookers, I will die a very happy man.
 
Last week, one Russian website, YouHaveDownloaded, opened its doors as it claimed to track around 20 percent of all public torrent downloads. You can check your IP address — as well as others — against the database to see if you or prominent others are found illegally downloading copyrighted material.
Don't log in into their site, it may be harmfull to your Computer. It seemed fishy to me from the start, at some point they ask you for facebook access. I don't think it's possible for someone to monitor all the billions of data that is going through Bit torrent.

Just read all the comments on this site where it was originally posted http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/internet-bittorrent-spies/1743?tag=content;siu-container
 
X

Xem

Guest
Vampire_Hunter_Bob said:
I don't know you personally and I have no idea what you take from people, so whether or not you get the direct consent from the author (provide some real examples of this if you want) doesn't really matter what you're trying to claim to us.

Here's a good example. Back in the summer I started playing the now Free-To-Play game League of Legends. I enjoyed the game so much I bought some skins and champions from them to show appreciation.

I have every cable channel, all of On Demand, streaming Netflix + 2 's a month yet I still buy DVDs. :isidro: Recently bought Sin City for the third time since I let some friends have the others, but I don't mind since I love the movie.

This is like the most subtle way to say you steal. Just come out and say you steal the stuff because it comes from big business.

Stop projecting your bullshit onto me. Most of the stuff I like tends to come from small business. I went out of my way to buy all of my Berserk volumes + Young Animals from local small comic stores instead of Amazon and the like. Also most of my taste lays in counter-culture communities, so I'll buy CDs sometimes directly from the band themselves. Lots of Punk. Going to see a band on New Years Eve and buy another T-Shirt from one of my favorite bands at the show. Tickets at the door.

Law makers are trying to enforce copyright laws.

They clearly do not understand the medium they're working within. If the people that created the thing your trying to enforce laws upon disagree with you strongly then you're probably an idiot.

Here's another link for you: http://lifehacker.com/5860205/all-about-sopa-the-bill-thats-going-to-cripple-your-internet
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Well, the contact your congressmen stuff always sounds hollow to me because most congressmen probably just feel contempt for their constituencies on principle, if they haven't already been bought outright by the MPAA and RIAA anyway. What they do respond to is money and big stupid dog and pony shows. So, are person of the year Mark Zuckerberg and the leadership from Google, Twitter, et al going to show up to testify before Congress about how this won't stop piracy but actually only hurt AMERICAN BUSINESS! Better yet, they should bear the fruit of that business and buy back those congressmen; Zuckerberg knows about that. Then again, facebook's probably not really worried about this actually applying to them.
 

Viral Harvest

Every Knee Bent Too Shall Break
The RIAA is really hurting for money, my bleeding heart goes out to all of these struggling pop-culture icons. Lord knows Lady Gaga has been forced to pick her meals out of garbage cans as of late. :schierke:

The inner-nihilist in me thinks SOPA is hysterical. There will always be ways around and through, zero fucks given.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
To continue shitting on last week's "beware SOPA, the issue of our time" meme I'd like to point out that people should probably be more upset about the potential real world implications of the NDAA.

Or, ya know, whatever; as long as I get uninhibited Internet at the detention center!
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Watched the first 30 seconds and it sounded like the guy was full of shit. Now, because of the annoying way he speaks I might not have understood his point properly, but is he really saying the same people distributing pirated goods (movies, music, software) and profiting from it (so, "pirates") are the ones suing those who download said pirated goods?
 
Aazealh said:
Now, because of the annoying way he speaks I might not have understood his point properly, but is he really saying the same people distributing pirated goods (movies, music, software) and profiting from it (so, "pirates") are the ones suing those who download said pirated goods?
Exactly, he is basically saying that the Cnet was the main distributor for programs like Kazaa and Limewire for a while. They then gave it to sites like AoL, NBC and Disney Go.com (with a requirement that they would advertise cnet on their site). They also had something like a "Top 10 downloads of the day chart" that advertised the most downloaded song,program of the day etc. Disney also had their own search engine and file sharing program and now they spend millions of dolars supporting SOPA.
Basically it's exactly as you described Aazealh, he says that the same people who distributed these file sharing programs and made it easy for people to download, now support SOPA. I have not the necessary knowledge about this stuff to say if he is telling the truth, but still it's interesting.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Joe Chip said:
Exactly, he is basically saying that the Cnet was the main distributor for programs like Kazaa and Limewire for a while. They then gave it to sites like AoL, NBC and Disney Go.com (with a requirement that they would advertise cnet on their site).

Hahaha what a load of shit. This is bad faith at its best. Kazaa was a free program and it was featured everywhere at the time. That means it was probably on some websites owned by CNET but really, that doesn't mean they made any particular money from it. It's a ridiculous argument.
 
Top Bottom