SOPA & ACTA

[XEL]

Youtube "vlogger" posted this video today and I just think it really get's the point across to those still ignorant. Such a short video but such a powerful message.

Click here :)

 

[-ty-]

Thanks to Wikipedia and its army of internet freedom fighters, SOPA and PIPA are going to fail, and in the fairly near future they will introduce them again under a new name and different rhetoric. It's unfortunate that this congress is wasting so much time on this impertinent bill when the economy is in such rough shape. People who understand how the internet works, will understand that this bill does nothing but hurt the economy.

 

[Mr. X]

Part of the reason why it's stalled in congress is because of all the protests against it.

And in theory this bill is good for the economy as it would make it harder for people to steal products which denies companies money. If a person can't steal it easily, then he has to purchase it new at whatever the company believes to be a fair price, or purchase it used from another person. While the companies fair price might not be 'fair' according to the average person, we are in a capitalist society and you have to accept that under it the person selling the item gets to decide the price.

Republican 'trickle down' economics says that the wealth will trickle down from the large companies. Therfor, under republican ideals, applying trickle down to SOPA/PIPA, it would be beneficial to the economy. (Although, the majority of the benefit would be offset be expenditures to enforce the law, but overall it would be a slight positive gain.)

And before you slam me for supporting this bill, I don't. I just see the reasoning behind it, and can see why congress/senate thinks this bill is a good idea. Two things that the majority of you ignore. You have a understanding of the bill and what effects it will have (Although most of you are ignoring the benefits and only focusing on the cons.) but you are ignoring the reasons for this bills creation and what most supporters consider secondary benefits.

As for focusing on other economic issues, not possiable. Republicans refuse to work with Democrats, and Democrats refuse to work with Republicans. Nothing gets done, but this is Democracy at its finest and worst. (People fighting for ideals that they believe in and being able to do so, and that fighting preventing progress.) If you support this form of government, then you will just have to accept that under it events like this can happen.

Edit - Instead of all these groups protesting against this bill, why don't they get together and create a bill that would prevent piracy and keep all this bad stuff that they say SOPA/PIPA will cause, and then have a politican put it foward in congress/senate? With the mass of groups that are against this, its easy to assume that some of them would have a politician or two in their back pockets.

 

[jpp8]

In short, the reason this crap is going on is because Hollywood ain't making as much money as before and they are crying to Washington to make us pay for watching TV shows on Youtube. It's not about losing jobs and everything else that SOPA is claiming is happening.

It's all about the money. And they are greedy bastards who want it since we don't want to pay for it anymore.

Am I against it? Yes. We claim to be a nation where people can be free and cry foul on other countries who restrict the freedoms of their people, but if this passes, we'll end up with something worse than what China has and America will once again make an ass out of ourselves in front of the world.[/SIZE]

This pretty much. It's not about piracy; it's been said several times that these bills would not stop piracy in the slightest. This bill wouldn't directly target the people who actually rip the products and start the distribution; they would target anyone and anybody for even a tiny bit of even unintentional copyright infringement so they get back their "lost profit". Big Entertainment and Content industries weren't making as much money off the Internet as they could since anybody could become an internet celebrity without contract or record deals, so now they just want complete control over it like they already with most physical and broadcast media. We can't trust control of the great stream of creativity and information known as the Internet to these people. Prime example:

For those of you who do think that SOPA will not be abused, let me share a story. Last year near November I believe the popular site Megaupload was taken down for a day. For those who don't know Megaupload is a site where users can upload any kind of document, video, and whatever else you want to share with the world. When it was taken down singers such as P. Diddy, Kanye West, and Chris Brown branded together and created a song called the Mega Song and can be viewed here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0Wvn-9BXVc.

Universal Music Group pulled the video claiming that the singers were violating their copyright contracts. They didn't. YouTube later reposted the video and UMG said that they could take down videos from YouTube because of some agreements they had made a few years together.

With even stricter laws on internet censorships what could other corporations do? What could movie and music corporations do if you upload something that they disagree with? You can find a link on the youtube page for more on the story.

Also Trickle Down argument? That crap didn't work in our economy. The rich got wealthier and the poor got poorer. And that's what's going to happen if you apply your "Trickle Down" to SOPA/PIPA: Big Entertainment stays on top and gets even more money while it becomes much harder for startups to make it big. So unless that's your idea of a "slight positive gain"...

 

[Mr. X]

I said theory, which is what the supporters are following, not in practice. In theory TD economics work, in practice they don't.

 

[Netto Azure]

Megaupload was just shut down.

I am pissed, just seriously pissed. This is a serious punch in the face right after the Internet-wide protests agains SOPA/PIPA yesterday...Ugh.

But whatever, I find it ironic how how all the other file lockers like Rapidshare was not taken down too.

 

[Mr. X]

What the story doesn't mention is that the entire Mega network was shutdown, not just Megaupload.

What it also doesn't mention is that the people arrested were indited on the 5th. So really, this wasn't a spur of the moment thing. It's been in the works for two weeks. Bad timing yes, but still, not a response to the Internet protests.

And it also fails to mention that everyone as ISP Cogent Communication Headquarters (In DC) are being detained due to a search warrant against them which is related to this.

Interesting story. But it's leaving a lot of important information out.

Edit - Willing to bet that they are working on shutting down other cyberlocker sites with servers in the US as well. MU has just been at the forefront recently so of course they are the first to go.

Edit - Unrelated to Mega****storm but,

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...ve-giant-middle-finger-to-public-domain.shtml

Edit 2 - I'm not releasing my sources for this, but I've heard that anonymous might go on a ddos'ing spree because of this. Nothing 'official' yet, just a mention here and a whisper their but its probable that anon will do something.

 

[Mario The World Champion]

Damn! I was at Megaupload a few days ago! Sure, the DOJ took the entire Mega network down, but there are other file sharing sites left and even if they were to get shut down, new ones will pop up.

The DOJ took an action. How will the Internet react? And will this only give more ammo for the Anti-SOPA brigade to use?

 

[Mr. X]

https://rt.com/usa/news/anonymous-doj-universal-sopa-235/

Haha, called it.

 

[Nick]

I knew that would happen. My immediate thought after hearing the news, after worrying that Mediafire will follow, was that anonymous would retaliate. Love them.

 

[jpp8]

INTERNET FIGHT. Keep fighting the good fight Anonymous.

Also, I'm a person who feels that the solution to stopping piracy is not to SHUT DOWN piracy, but to PREVENT it from happening in the first place. This blog post summed up my feelings perfectly:

-Make your show / movie / whatever accessible online.
-Put ads on it so you can make money off of it, or sell a subscription to a competitive streaming service like netflix.
-Make it available
--Everywhere, meaning the country of origin and everywhere else
--As soon as it airs (tv shows) / becomes legally available to purchase (films &cet). not a week and a half later, not three days later, not the next morning. as soon as. people who are savvy about internet downloading and things are generally going to be the sort of people who hang out online and want to talk about their favorite shows as soon as they happen with their friends who are in that timezone/country. you'll cut down on a shitton of downloading if you just make things available legally faster.
-Square yourselves with the idea that in this age of high definition and internet streaming that seeing a film in a cinema is a premium service and should not be relied upon as a primary method of distribution.

Because the internet does not fit your business model does not mean that you are entitled to control it.

 

[Gothitelle.]

Megaupload was shut down. It's not because of SOPA, it's because people are uploading pirated movies/music/etc and people are downloaded them. Same reason why Limewire was shut down and they were shut down even before SOPA came in to the light.

Might as well because companies are artists are loosing out because people don't want to pay up to 5 bucks for a movie or 99 cents for a song.

 

[-ty-]

Part of the reason why it's stalled in congress is because of all the protests against it.

And in theory this bill is good for the economy as it would make it harder for people to steal products which denies companies money. If a person can't steal it easily, then he has to purchase it new at whatever the company believes to be a fair price, or purchase it used from another person. While the companies fair price might not be 'fair' according to the average person, we are in a capitalist society and you have to accept that under it the person selling the item gets to decide the price.

Just because someone uses information for free, it does not mean that the person was going to pay for it in the first place. Information is non-tangible; it's not the same as stealing a flat-screen television. So when the product is "stolen" there is not always profit lost. It's like a free song download on iTunes, if some unknown artist places a song on the site for free, there will be thousands of more downloads on the song than there would have been if there was a cost. Another example would be the download of roms; I am not going to buy a Pokemon Crystal cartridge if it is banned from being downloaded online; I simply will not have it.

More importantly, when a country places so many regulations on information and copyrights, potential companies are not going to extend their business to our country. This destroys the growth of new businesses, especially since internet/networking jobs are booming. Can you imagine if Youtube and Google, just to mention a few, were not able to provide the services they are able to right now? This bill would absolutely sabotage the United States economy.

 

[Mercurybro]

hmm

If SOPA was going to be approved and passed through Congress, it would be virtually impossible to enforce this over the internet based on what you're claiming. Companies would go bankrupt just trying to keep their copyrights safe. Unless by using SOPA they are going to keep themselves afloat through all the judgments they win in court.

I must be the devil's advocate or something. I don't see any way to side with what seems to be the rest of the internet on this one.. It just seems downright insane for the checks and balances of the government to enforce SOPA and/or PIPA. Then again, they have failed in the past with the prohibition of alcohol..

 

[Nick]

-Make your show / movie / whatever accessible online.
-Put ads on it so you can make money off of it, or sell a subscription to a competitive streaming service like netflix.
-Make it available
--Everywhere, meaning the country of origin and everywhere else
--As soon as it airs (tv shows) / becomes legally available to purchase (films &cet). not a week and a half later, not three days later, not the next morning. as soon as. people who are savvy about internet downloading and things are generally going to be the sort of people who hang out online and want to talk about their favorite shows as soon as they happen with their friends who are in that timezone/country. you'll cut down on a shitton of downloading if you just make things available legally faster.
-Square yourselves with the idea that in this age of high definition and internet streaming that seeing a film in a cinema is a premium service and should not be relied upon as a primary method of distribution.

That actually seems like the most appropriate form of action in this day and age! That also got me thinking that they should start something online where you can watch movies in the movie theater for a fee. That'd be really interesting if something like that were to happen. It would certainly be more evolving.

 

[CapricornPsyche]

Originally Posted by oldstarnewshine @ tumblr
-Make your show / movie / whatever accessible online.
-Put ads on it so you can make money off of it, or sell a subscription to a competitive streaming service like netflix.
-Make it available
--Everywhere, meaning the country of origin and everywhere else
--As soon as it airs (tv shows) / becomes legally available to purchase (films &cet). not a week and a half later, not three days later, not the next morning. as soon as. people who are savvy about internet downloading and things are generally going to be the sort of people who hang out online and want to talk about their favorite shows as soon as they happen with their friends who are in that timezone/country. you'll cut down on a shitton of downloading if you just make things available legally faster.
-Square yourselves with the idea that in this age of high definition and internet streaming that seeing a film in a cinema is a premium service and should not be relied upon as a primary method of distribution.

That doesn't seem to bad of an idea to combat piracy! :O problem is, why haven't media companies thought of something like this before?! ><;;

 

[Mr. X]

Because the pirates that are causing the issues are the ones who will pirate something no matter what the price of it is.

The problem causing pirates justification?

High prices - Can't afford it, gonna pirate it.
Low prices - Cheap and not worth buying. Gonna pirate it anyway.

 

[wumbology]

That doesn't seem to bad of an idea to combat piracy! :O problem is, why haven't media companies thought of something like this before?! ><;;

Because downgrading everything else is easier than upgrading your business model, I guess? However that works

 

[jpp8]

Because the pirates that are causing the issues are the ones who will pirate something no matter what the price of it is.

The problem causing pirates justification?

High prices - Can't afford it, gonna pirate it.
Low prices - Cheap and not worth buying. Gonna pirate it anyway.

When you have to wait for pirates to pirate it in the first place when you could just get it RIGHT AWAY FOR FREE JUST WITH ADS, I think people are just going to get it RIGHT AWAY FOR FREE JUST WITH ADS. Pirates gonna pirate, but having a readily available product is going to cut down a drastic number of them.

This kind of product distribution has been working out for thing like steam just fine.

 

[CapricornPsyche]

When you have to wait for pirates to pirate it in the first place when you could just get it RIGHT AWAY FOR FREE JUST WITH ADS, I think people are just going to get it RIGHT AWAY FOR FREE JUST WITH ADS. Pirates gonna pirate, but having a readily available product is going to cut down a drastic number of them.

Once again, I agree!

making it available for free in the first place, THEN selling it in stores could definitely cut down on it and prevent it from happening in the first place!