Agronis

I'm finding people all over that I come across have yet to hear about the Protect-IP & SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) Acts.



Instead of me rambling on and on about how your freedoms and liberties are at stake I'll just lay out a handful of links and let you figure it out for yourself.



Now, in all honesty - I'm a total media pirate in the "sense".. if there is movie that I think has great entertainment potential I WILL go see it at the movies. However, I'm 25, working full time & going to school full time - I don't have this giant budget to spend on all the media I'd truly want - so in short, yes, I just download it. I do understand how I'm apart of the pool that these acts were originally "designed" for but they go so much further then to stop little me. In the big picture - I'm an organism floating on top of the pond. These acts go so far as to shut down/sue any website owner that isn't doing their job of "filtering" content. So by me just posting these links, had these bills already been passed, HyundaiAftermarket.org would be sued out the wazoo.. and I'd be put in jail. And if I tried to appeal it - the US could hold me indefinitely due to the JDAA (I think..) act that was past earlier this year on behalf of the media conglomerates. That means startup social media websites wouldn't have a chance and ones like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. would be crippled. Protect-IP will go to congress floor in January. SOPA had Judiciary hearings recently but due to the negative response of the public, along with heads from Wikipedia, Google, Facebook and a few guys from silicon valley (creating engineers of the internet) the hearing was delayed to later this month.



Please, take the time to watch this video and at the bottom I will have a link to the petition on the whitehouse.gov website for you to sign, but you can always contact your senator/representative as well. Thanks for reading!!






When the petition was created, in under two days it received 25,000 signatures.. where's yours?



Here is the link to the actual petition.



And for reference purposes:



Wiki of Protect-IP Act

Wiki of SOPA Act

Don't Break the Internet - Stanford Law Review

SOPA and PROTECT-IP will censor the web, says top tech CEOs.

An Open Letter written to Congress from these CEOs

^ Signed by Netscape, Mozilla, Google, Twitter, Square, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, YouTube, PayPal, craigslist, eBay, Wikipedia and more.

Stanford Law Review: SOPA Unconstitutional, Would Break The Internet



Once again - thank you. Its not my ass you're covering, its your own.

Random

So you admit to pirating moving (and I'm assuming music and software)....and you're pissed they passed a law that will make it harder for you to do that...and to punish the people who are providing the illegal content to you. And you feel this is bad because you are poor and 'entitled' to download other peoples Property (movies, music, software) without paying, cuz well. you're you, and you deserve it and its a victim-less crime...you're not hurting anyone.



I've got news for you. If you walked onto a car lot and just drove off in a new car without paying for it...that's theft, it's a crime.

If you walked over to your friends house...and drove a car HE had stolen....that's receiving stolen property, it's a crime.



People get paid to make those movies (script writers, actors, directors, set people, stunt people, editors, camera guys, lighting guys...etc). People get paid to make that music (Singer, songwriter, arranger, backing musicians, backing singers..editors..the guys who make the CD's...). It hurts THEM. It's NOT a "victim-less" crime.



You come across as just a selfish jerk who's pissed you cant get what you want for free anymore, without risking jail.

Sorry, I'm not going to shed a tear.

Agronis

I completely understand your viewpoint - I obviously have no objections against them nor do I argue the "reason" for this bill being PROPOSED.. no laws have been passed.



My point to openly admitting it is that it goes beyond piracy.. WELL beyond it. If the our government gives media companies this kind of power, we can only hope they use it properly.. but who's to say other countries won't follow in their foot steps in varying forms?



Instead of jumping down my throat for what I choose to do, why not maybe just watch the video? Or read any blurb leading execs from major web based companies have written based on how, AS IT STANDS, these bills are endangering mine, yours and all of our rights to free speech and fundamentally messing with the mechanics of the internet leading it to be much less secure.



Here, since you're obviously so close minded I thought I'd procure a few tidbits of information for you:



SOPA and PROTECT-IP will censor the web, says top tech CEOs.

An Open Letter written to Congress from these CEOs

^ Signed by Netscape, Mozilla, Google, Twitter, Square, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, YouTube, PayPal, craigslist, eBay, Wikipedia and more.

Stanford Law Review: SOPA Unconstitutional, Would Break The Internet



I'll just start you there. If you think this has anything to do with me and my illegalities then you should be smacked. This is about open discussion, freedom of speech, movement of innovation and anti-censorship. These bills go well beyond the efforts to stop piracy.



Did you know earlier this year, a single mother was brought to court over posting a video of her baby dancing to a song? That song was their ammo, because it was copyrighted, she didn't have the right to display the video publicly as she lacked the rights.



This isn't about anti-piracy, this is about censorship. If you want someone controlling what you can and can't SEE or SAY on the internet - then I suggest you contact your senator and show your support for this bill. Go ahead and thank the other admins of this website that you've participated in for so long for the time they've provided you because from the point the bill passes, if it does, they will have to monitor every link, video and image that is posted - and in a means to cover their ass they will drop the mod/ban hammer on your ass just because you posted a picture that wasn't created by you.



Get over yourself - this isn't about you or me. This is about your children!

HellBilly

It hurts no one. The losses they suffer is based on the fact that there is nothing original anymore, everyone is spewing out poorly written code, regurgitated movies, and shitty pop music. There are exceptions but in general the industry is suffering for lack of quality, and plus the country is in the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.



Piracy has nothing to do with it, it is all a lie fed to the sheeple to get them to sign off allowing the Internet to be monitored, controlled, and basically only feed us what they want us to see.



Read between the lines Random, there is more to it than just Piracy.

Agronis

I didn't even mention.. that the Media revenue that is generated because of the internet isn't even 1/1000th of the profits that the internet generates. It is just a ploy to gain control and be able to censor as they choose.

Random

I hate to burst your bubbles folks, but this is no grand conspiracy. This is no grassy Knoll in Dallas.

You don't have the right to free speech on the internet. You think you do, but you're mistaken. Not in any country in the world.

Look what happened to Wikileaks. The can and will do everything to shut you down/track you down if/when they want to. They can do it without this new proposed law, and they have.



Hell, Youtube does it now. If you post a video with a song/video clip...and the copyright owner complains, it will get yanked. No court. No due process. They even have systems in place to examine what you upload against a database of known copyright protected material, if it matches...it never gets posted.



All this law does is FORMALIZE the ad-hock processes used by many companies(Google/youtube/yahoo, etc) already. They've cherry picked the ones they wanted, and invented a few more. It all boils down to...don't use copyrighted material if you don't have the rights to it. If you do, they will track you down and haul you to court. If the site you posted the material on doesn't remove the material, they also get hauled to court and fined, and they have the power to take that site off the internet. It doesn't mean they will, but they CAN. They won't use a sledgehammer on a gnat. But if there's a site out there that refuses to take down copyrighted material (pirate site), and have refused multiple notices for removal, or a large amount of content. They will be shut down, one way or another.



Somehow you think this is an attack on your free speech rights? How? If you say "Obama sucks"...the men in black aren't going to haul you away never to be seen again. they aren't going to disconnect you from the interwebz. They are talking about going after people who ILLEGALLY post COPYRIGHTED CONTENT. You bet Google/Yahoo and other internet companies are against this. They get REVENUE from people using their search engines, web sites, etc. If you knew Google was really giving all your search info to the US Government, and you were searching for illegal content...you'd pick a different search engine. If you knew every company in the USA did this...you'd use a search engine elsewhere in the world. They don't want to loose the traffic/customers, so of course they are against it. They will also rack up serious manpower costs in tracking down user activity...removing posts/content. Serious cost in new software to track all that sh*t and report it in a "government approved" format. If I ran one of those companies, I'd be against it too, it's gonna be expensive!



In the end...if you don't do anything illegal, don't post anything illegal, don't download anything illegal, you have got nothing to worry about. If you're google/yahoo, etc, you've got the profitability of your company to worry about. Shareholders, board of directors..etc.



This is basically another government attack on the internet a la Napster. Not a conspiracy to stop you from posting lolcats images, unless those are copyrighted :-)

187sks

It isn't a piracy issue, it's a due process issue. Piracy is already illegal. This does not allow for due process.

HyundaiKitCoupe

I think Visionz posted this a while ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpCADfZD-eg

Stocker

If a copyright owner alleges violation, the entire WEBSITE gets pulled down. Not just the offending content, and not after review. After the allegation, YANK!



THAT's the problem most people have with SOPA.



edit: that's the quality of people YOU people keep electing to Congress. MY congresscritter is fine . . . oh wait, here's a sign for everybody seeking re-election:

Agronis

Awesome video HKC.. I'd never seen that one.



Well earlier today my state senator Lindsey Graham called me.. well his office did shortly before he got on the phone. I sent a looong letter expressing my concerns on the issue and I've posted across various websites, as well. It got his attention..



I contacted Engadget.com to ask why they hadn't written anything.. blam! they put a blurb up three hours later from PC World..



I like that you stand your ground Random, because thats half the fun of this. When I started this thread, the petition was at 25k.. It's now at 31k. Three days and 31k signatures.. you think they are all pirates?