1005: "SOPA"

[bigjeff5]

A more fitting analogy is to think of SOPA in terms of the H1N1 scare: it became very interesting and profitable to go "you're gonna ALL DIE!" instead of displaying all the facts. It's a scare tactic: you frighten the hell out of people to justify overpriced medicine and all that. SOPA is all about the piracy scare tactic: you try to convince people that "piracy" is the biggest evil in the galaxy to justify, well, any crap you want to do. Some people buy it.

That's how they tried to sell it, yeah, but I meant the Viagra analogy to illustrate the huge difference between what SOPA was intended to do and what it would actually do.

Really though, scare tactics are how we responded and got SOPA shelved, so it's a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black. Of course, the SOPA pot was painted black with cheap paint, while the censorship kettle is naturally black.

I think I may have fallen into an analogy black hole, or something.

[ackan]

Look, the biggest issue I have with SOPA arguments is that people always spit out what the Web Giants told them.

Today, people think Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, Amazon, Ebay, (and some groups that just like frivolous lawsuits) are all "The Good Guys" and that other big corporations are the bad guys. When they say something people give them unquestioning belief... yet you do have to wonder... where was our blackout over the NDAA? The whole "Kidnap American citizens without due justice" sounds a lot more threatening. Could one not conceive that it is plausible that these "Good Guys" actually had something to GAIN by getting SOPA repealed?

Why did they attack the bill so soon? Several Amendments proposed changes that would counter some of the initial protests (though arguments were not updated to reflect this). The Bill would have to go back and forth between senate and house tallying on changes and amendments before finally landing on the president's desk... yet the attack started before the bill even left committee... before it was even "refined" with amendments... before the rewrite... in fact, the house was technically just DISCUSSING the IDEA of such a bill... it was no where near "the end of all days"

Why the Urgency? Why did the Web Giants feel that they needed to kill the proposal as fast as possible?



DMCA says "copyright owners are responsible for finding all infringements of their copyrights"
SOPA says (and denies saying) "Website Owners should monitor the incoming content for infringements"

But instead of go all hypothetical (or in depth as to other issues), realize that this is what google and wikipedia were fighting against. The removal of the "blind eye" protections.


Of course, there are other issues... such as what the hell IS copyright? No one on YouTube knows the answer to that, or some might but don't really care (and protest when their videos are pulled)... but if copyright owners don't treat all violations the same then they create public unrest (Remember, no one knows what copyright is, only that some no name bozo pulled their totally awesome video.) So if someone decides to rip an entire movie, change a few sounds, and only gets "this video cannot be played in a play list" and the final video is pulled... well, it's an obvious copyright violation... and sure you may sell a few more videos because of "public awareness"... but this DOES create a slippery slope. People protest over the removal of the last vid, say things like it was a dick move, but don't understand that they could have removed ALL the videos.

Copyright holders are absurdly fickle. Could I LEGALLY pirate a movie that cutoff 10 min before it ended? Does that mean the ending is Taboo to touch... or could someone ELSE create "everything except the first 10 min"? If you aren't going to press against chipmunking... can I distribute an entire movie "chipmunked" (let's even say that I didn't actually remove every other frame... but sped-up the rate the frames were processed... so that no quality would be lost if dropped back down). Could 30 people each upload a different portion of a movie without the intent of doing so?

Either it's piracy, or it is not... make up your blasted minds.



But the thing is... the majority of what gets issued DMCA notices should have been removed beforehand.
Sure, you can have smart people not naming it "Stolen Music off my HD" but "Boring Lecture Notes", but how difficult is it to google your own links? See that the sites linking to whatever file was uploaded tend to define it as "Stolen Music off my HD"?
"But we get millions of files uploaded daily"
Then have a COMPUTER do the majority of the work... your service isn't ENTIRELY used to support piracy right? Almost all of those files uploaded should be legit... RIGHT?


If anything, people shouldn't be protesting to repeal GOOD IDEAS... they should be protesting AMENDMENTS to said ideas... if we're all afraid of some bozo taking down a webpage then it should be a felony to do so, and should any ties be found to a company let's charge the president of that company as well, how about the whole board of directors! Punishment for false claims removes a number of complaints. Don't quite understand why having our own DNS servers would break the web, but if our servers aren't directly connected to any "out of country" servers, and new information is added via median... what is the issue? Can it not be fixed? Bills like this do NEED to be broad (if it is too specific, people can easily get around it, at least judicial presidents can rule how "interpretations" of a broad bill may rule)... but it was STILL IN COMMITTEE and specifics weren't yet decided.

So why the repeal instead of fixing the problems?


Honestly... no one really CARES about copyrights... and there really isn't any way to ENFORCE copyright protection without "infringing" upon the first amendment. If you don't remove it people will still use it... the only changes will be the process... and trying to restrict others from finding out the new way to "break the US Firewall"

[ackan]

I don't know why I really bother with this anymore...

But it is rather infuriating that 3 million people signed Google's petition while only 50k signed the official whitehouse versions.
A petition asking President Obama to veto the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) got 51,689 signatures, while 52,096 people signed the “Stop the E-PARSITE Act” petition. (google asks for the same information that Whitehouse.gov asks for)

That means that those signatures were done solely on the information that Google feed to them (or even those who actually googled it, would only be confronted with websites that protest what google told them to protest... and a few people between those who speak their minds in support... or propose amendments, or have some UNIQUE reason as to why the bill is bad.)

To have the TRUST of 3 million users to blindly sign a petition... in less than a day...
It's... unfathomable really.

[Randomizer]

Reddit is promoting a full mass media boycott for the month of March.

yet you do have to wonder... where was our blackout over the NDAA? The whole "Kidnap American citizens without due justice" sounds a lot more threatening.

It's a Party in the CIA, all right. :p

You're fucking right, stopping SOPA is not enough, we need to do some shit about the NDAA, too. We need to push back against this police state bullshit we've come under. the Ronpaul's got a bill brewing, HR 3785, to repeal section 1021 of the NDAA, the part that allows indefinite detainment. Here's a video of Paul speaking about it. I'm going to write into my congressmen telling them to support the Ronpaul's bill.

But it is rather infuriating that 3 million people signed Google's petition while only 50k signed the official whitehouse versions.

More people use Google than use the Whitehouse petition site. And a lot of people who found the Whitehouse site found it -by using Google-.

To have the TRUST of 3 million users to blindly sign a petition... in less than a day...

You make a lot of assumptions to say that the people signing these petitions are "blind".

[hanksey]

1st time poster and 1st time reader. I was scrolling back in time and caught this comic.

It may have been brought up already but isn't ACTA at least as bad as SOPA/PIPA (maybe much worse) and not in any danger of dying (yet)?

Also, I love games, but most of my favorite manufacturers are way on the wrong side of this issue, vis-a-vis involvement in the ESA. Yes the ESA dropped support for SOPA/PIPA at the last possible second, but look who they are trying to hire: http://www.theesa.com/careers/esaemployment.asp

Here's what I'm curious about right now and it relates to the humorous hidden message in the comic. On Penny Arcade Forums (aka: "Troll Kingdom") people are saying that Anonymous is actually working on a decentralized backup internet right now. I don't know about you all, but that sounds like both an entertaining project and a damn good idea. Realistically, (and I'm sure you geeks are aware) all that is needed to create an Internet is 2 networks that can communicate, it's just that the physical infrastructure for the current internet is really well entrenched. I would consider this an extremely doable technical challenge, since our own military managed to make themselves a "secret Internet", it's only tricky because money. What do you fellow-geeks think?

[Randomizer]

There's a thread about ACTA and other threats here: New (old) anti-piracy threats -- ACTA etc.

A backup/uncensorable internet sounds like a good idea, definitely. There's something called serval, which is designed to help people in poor countries where there isn't adequate infrastructure, or in the case of disasters, to connect to each other directly via cell phones. I think this would be useful for preventing censorship as well, as you wouldn't need an ISP to connect, but I don't think it would work as a "worldwide" connection system (though I could be wrong). Still, it could be one of many useful tools. Here's their website: http://www.servalproject.org/

Reddit has a section relating to "darknets" and getting around censorship here: http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/

[drstilldc]

I am glad that we stood against it here. It drove me nuts that I couldn't see the image on my screen. I have a 1080p tv for my screen 120 hz. Guess it isn't good enough to show the deep blacks

[Randomizer]

Well guys, get ready for round two! The RIAA wants to go ahead with getting the ISPs to police copyright even without SOPA! RIAA chief: ISPs to start policing copyright by July 1

Last July, Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other bandwidth providers announced that they had agreed to adopt policies designed to discourage customers from illegally downloading music, movies and software. Since then, the ISPs have been very quiet about their antipiracy measures.

But during a panel discussion before a gathering of U.S. publishers here today, Cary Sherman, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, said most of the participating ISPs are on track to begin implementing the program by July 1.

The program, commonly referred to as "graduated response," requires that ISPs send out one or two educational notices to those customers who are accused of downloading copyrighted content illegally. If the customer doesn't stop, the ISP is then asked to send out "confirmation notices" asking that they confirm they have received notice.

At that time, the accused customers will also be informed of the risks they incur if they don't stop pirating material. If the customer is flagged for pirating again, the ISP can then ratchet up the pressure. Participating ISPs can choose from a list of penalties, or what the RIAA calls "mitigation measures," which include throttling down the customer's connection speed and suspending Web access until the subscriber agrees to stop pirating.

The ISPs can waive the mitigation measure if they choose and not one of the service providers has agreed to permanently terminate service.

Ok, everyone, time to call your internet service providers and tell them you disapprove!

Also, there's an "Internet Whiteout" planned for April 20th:

(reddit thread here)

[ycc1988]

If anyone doubts how damaging SOPA could be for the infrastructure of the net, just look at the Megaupload situation occuring right now.

This is a Hong Kong based server run by New Zealanders, and the US has shut it down without a trial even occurring. Sure, I am certain that it had material that infringed copyright on it, but people used it for legitimate uploading and distribution too. Anyone who did so has now lost access to their legitimately owned material. And, note, this is occurring without even recourse to SOPA itself but only its predecessors.

(snip)

Actually Megaupload had servers in the US (Virgina IIRC) which is why the DOJ could shut them down. I don't know of them owning anything in Hong Kong other than a mail address. In fact, Megaupload was blocked in HK long before the US got involved. I believe they self-blocked to avoid any legal trouble in their place of incorporation.