SOPA Strike?

[Arthmoor]

That being said, a bill like this is simply going to threaten freedom on the internet needlessly while being completely meaningless to pirates.

They said the same about the DMCA too. The doomsday that was implied for free speech and free content never materialized. It simply became a tool for content creators to use to protect their work. That's all SOPA is. I will grant that there's probably a better way to implement the provisions, but none of this would be necessary in the first place if movie and music piracy wasn't rampant. Games aren't so much of an issue, but I'm sure they still factor in.

Not quite...

 

The problem with this bill isn't what it does so much as how broad it is, and what powers it grants. Under this bill, there is no due process, no way to petition for being cleared of charges, and pretty much allows anyone to shut down any site for any reason. Under this law, the internet would essentially go back to the state it was in back in the early 90s, with the only active sites being related to (government approved) education and information, or corporate sites... Which is in many ways worse than the content filters in some dictatorships.

 

I have no idea where you got that from, but it's completely untrue. First off, under copyright law, only the creator of a work or their authorized agent has standing to sue for anything. Read Section 102 of the bill. Notice that it's the Attorney General who is charged with filing the actual notice. While similar to how the DMCA works, this difference is important. It's a much higher due process standard. NOT something "just anyone" could do. Read on into Paragraph 5. Specifically: "On application of the Attorney General following the commencement of an action under this section, the court may issue a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, or an injunction, in accordance with rule 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure".

 

What should become painfully obvious after reading this is that there's a large enough barrier in place to prevent the kinds of speech ending doomsaying that everyone has been parroting for months. Nothing can be done against an infringing site without going through the courts first. So in some ways it has MORE protection against abuse than the DMCA does. Nobody is getting hauled off to jail. Nobody will be blacklisted without a trial. The internet isn't going to suddenly turn into a corporate wonderland of mass advertising.... er... wait... that already happened.

 

Oh, and unless I'm blind here, I don't see any companies named as being immune to SOPA as there were rumors of prior to the GoDaddy boycott.

Edited January 18, 2012 by Arthmoor

[nosisab]

What many don't know is these Acts aren't independent, they are all part of a much larger schema that can be traced down the origins (at the digital world) to Intel Pentium MMX and the implantation of the Serial number on the chip's entrails (to uniquely identify the machine online), is maturing in the TC and project Palladium (MS) and Sony's experimentation on hardware level content protection. I fear than now even the governments are being "tested". To each of these restrictive and controlling mechanisms which pass the legal barrier a new other, yet more abusive and controlling is on the way.

 

At some point the governments are no more, the corporations will dictate the rules they want. When (I don't believe anymore it is a case of "if") this time come will be too late for freedom and privacy.

 

PS: Remember IP in this context means intellectual property, you who can't see what is coming are losing or already lost the property of your intellect.

Edited January 18, 2012 by nosisab

[NorthWolf]

@nosisab:

 

Come on now. :confused: You already can be tracked online if you don't take precautions to prevent it, and if you are preventing it then often you're more than capable of circumventing the large number of already existing attempts to etch out who you are. You're being paranoid. Hardware-level content protection has been around for a while and it hasn't done anything.

 

Furthermore, to harp on a particular example, Sony's attempts to protect its copyright have been downright laughable in the past. Rootkits costing them millions and CDs that can be cracked with a felt pen? They're like the perfect example of why trying to stop piracy is a complete waste of money and just enrages/harms consumers. They also found out that harming consumers in the process was illegal.

 

Worst case scenario? Import your computer parts.

[nosisab]

I'm aware of it NorthWolf, but if I don't talk what I know and believe how can I expect someone else to do it for me?

 

Do you believe I should be silent at this moment I believe is a crossroad of the destiny of my sons and their sons? because I'm already old and have passed by a military dictatorship and know in the skin what means losing the freedom, privacy and to some... dignity.

 

Just to clarify a point: those hardware protection attempts are mostly ridiculous because people could go to the internet to find the "cracks" ... but I'm telling you is your own PC "now" (in such scenery) the controlled and controller one, if you understand me. But you must understand piracy is not my concern, I don't condone it.

Edited January 18, 2012 by nosisab

[TheCaptn]

I'm surprised and a little disappointed to see that Nexus -isn't- participating in the blackout. The Skyrim community has already been subjected to fraudulent DMCA takedown notices in the case of MMOxReview and the Skyrim Mods Weekly series. Something he now needs to challenge in a long-drawn-out "guilty until proven innocent" style fight if he ever hopes to apply for a YouTube partnership program.

As a content producer in Second Life I've twice had to fight groundless DMCA complaints that were powered by drama-bombs rather than any legitimate concerns over content. It was such a draining experience that I lost all my enthusiasm for that virtual world, even though the legislation and not the world itself were to blame.

 

DMCA is bad enough, throwing the burden of proof onto the very people who lack the resources put up a proper defense. SOPA/PIPA make things even worse by removing the Safe Harbor protection that ALL content hosts rely on. In practice that means a host, or a portal that links to a host, is no longer considered compliant if they act on DMCA complaints in a timely fashion. Any or all parts of such sites can be forcibly restricted immediately upon a complaint being made, without any part of the complaint first being validated, and with the burden of proof then placed on the blocked site rather than the entity making the complaint. And such conditions for unblocking having finally been met, the site still receives no protection against the exact same complaint being made again immediately upon its return.

 

And the real kick in the nuts is that, unanimously, the network architects responsible for creating this wonderful tool we're all using have made it clear that these laws won't do anything to prevent actual piracy and content theft.

 

In answer to the question "why should Nexus bother joining in", it would simply be to raise awareness. These laws will eventually effect us, regardless of where any of us are in the world. The existing laws already have, and we're still a community without a full set of mod tools (for Skyrim at least)... Only a small proportion of the 2.5 million members ever venture as far as the forums. Hell, it's really only this issue which brought me back for my third-ever post.

 

I would strongly urge the administrators of Nexus to participate. It's one day, in fact it's really only 18 hours left now, and it's a chance to spread the message to a community which may not be as aware of this issue as we should.

Edited January 18, 2012 by TheCaptn

[Lehcar]

Root for not living in the US. http://www.thenexusforums.com/public/style_emoticons/dark/thumbsup.gif

[Dark0ne]

I'm not involved because I don't have the time to go through the masses of propaganda and wild generalisations, on both sides of the argument, to come up with an honest, well-informed opinion on the matter. To block access to the Nexus without truly having formed my own opinion on the matter would be a knee-jerk action at best, and something I won't do.

 

I'm too busy going through my backlog of taxes, both personal and business, since moving home to be worried about SOPA right now. And those are things I can go to prison for much sooner than if SOPA came along.

 

I'll get around to it when I get around to it, and if I feel the need to let other people know my opinion on the matter I'll be sure to voice it.

 

PS. I'd be interested to know about this DMCA stuff with MMOxReview. If there's any info any where, please share the link.

[TheCaptn]

PS. I'd be interested to know about this DMCA stuff with MMOxReview. If there's any info any where, please share the link.

 

You can still contact him directly through the YouTube messaging system. He's quite approachable... Anyway he got a takedown notice on the

video. Zenimax apparently didn't want their product presented in that way, so they knowingly submitted a fraudulent copyright complaint despite the video clearly falling within the Fair Use guidelines.

Anyway he decided to fight it, and the video has since been restored. I think the process took about six weeks, but you'd have to ask him for the specifics.

 

He talks about the DMCA Takedown in a later video,

.

 

[Edit]

I'm not involved because I don't have the time to go through the masses of propaganda and wild generalisations, on both sides of the argument, to come up with an honest, well-informed opinion on the matter.

 

I do just want to address this, because it does strike me as a bit of a cop-out.

If you're convinced of the importance of an issue, even provisionally, there are alternatives to wading through stacks of peer-reviewed literature for the purpose of decision making. Find a strong source that you feel like you can rely on and read that (wikipedia is quite a good source in this case, since the article is so well vetted and still accessible)... If it's absolutely a time-critical problem, then find someone in your admin/moderator team whose impartiality you feel like you can rely on, and ask them to look into it for you and provide the Executive Summary version.

If you're honestly not convinced that this is an issue worth looking into then at least just say so without prevarication.

Edited January 18, 2012 by TheCaptn

[Fatalmasterpiece]

You can't simply throw a notice out there and have a site removed from the internet.

 

Unless you piss off the US government and are called Wikileaks. In which case you don't even need to formerly have charges filed against you to have your host forced to drop you and letters sent from the Pentagon to Vsia and Paypal to no longer handle your letigimate financial business.

[nosisab]

Now, to break the serious tone from my former posts: SOPA in Portuguese is the same as soup is in English and PIPA is the same as kite and to me their names are well placed; a soup of half truths and wish to fly high in the wind :)