SOPA Strike?

[stabbykitteh]

That being said, I still think that SOPA would end up shredded in the supreme court before it became a serious threat to free internet for Americans. :unsure:

 

The US Supreme Court? The same court that thought the Citizen's United decision was sound? :whistling: Don't have much faith in most of the current justices to protect the interests of the average citizen at the moment. They have supplied some great material for Stephen Colbert though...

 

 

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 Visa and Paypal to no longer handle your legitimate financial business.

 

Oh that never happened. Wait, yes it did. I suppose the counter-argument there would be National Security. Though the RIAA does claim music piracy is a National Security issue :wallbash:

 

I don't think SOPA/PIPA are going to be passed at this point. Alternative, less broad legislation has been suggested and the right wing here seems to be hopping on the stop SOPA bandwagon, more than likely to appeal to independent/libertarian voters in the upcoming election (not thru the goodness of their hearts). I don't like the bills so that makes me happy - but at the same time something does need to be done to protect creators..

[Vagrant0]

Regardless of a protest, if the broader sense of this bill gets passed in any way that allows sites to be blacklisted because of user-submitted content, it will just mean that this site will stop being and Dark0ne can just move to the Philippines and live out the rest of his days in luxury... Well, just the first part really.

[Fatalmasterpiece]

If you really want to do something about laws like this, Vote those idiots out of office. Quit voting for the same lying politicians over and over. Every one of them claims 'It's not my fault, it was the other party that did it. So don't blame me, I tried to stop it.' - if nearly as many actually did try to stop these laws as they claim, they would not pass.

 

In politics, the way it works is, If you look the other way while I get my silly law passed so I can collect from the corporate backers, then I'll look the other way for your silly law so you can collect from the corporate supporters of that law. But if you fight my silly law, even if you think it is wrong and bad for the country, then I will fight every law you support, even if I think it is right or good for the country. :facepalm: AKA Partisan Politics - This is the way things work here, and if you rock the boat, you won't get any of the party money or party support to get reelected.

 

One of the favorite ways to look the other way is to be out of town campaigning for reelection on the day that silly law is up for a vote.

 

It happened on their watch, they are to blame. Forget about which political party they belong to whichever it is vote for the other guy. Throw the bums out. :thumbsup:

 

I admire your positive thinking but I have to disagree. The majority of citizens in the US don't even know where Afghanistan is let alone the dangers of a law like this which is veiled in "protecting them from thieves". If we ever want anything to change we have to get rid of the 2 party system which has paralyzed our nation, something which isn't probably going to happen in my life time because it requires extreme voting reform.

 

If SOPA endangered people's ability to watch the Super Bowl, then voting might solve something, but since it neither involves sports, Bud Light, or Justin Beiber, the majority of people won't care and won't do anything to stop it. And... it takes a majority to make voting matter.

[Arthmoor]

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.

Trafficking in stolen classified documents will eventually catch up to you, as it did with Assange. SOPA-style legislation doesn't need to exist for that to cause problems. You already have much more effective laws on the books to deal with this.

 

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

 

Or I can just get around to it when I get around to it and not be told I'm "copping out" because I've delayed looking in to it until I actually have the time. Seriously. Remove stick from arse.

Seriously, I wish MORE of these places engaged in all the knee-jerk reactions over this issue had taken the same approach. The legislation is there for all to read, and none of the doomsday provisions are in it.

 

If you really want to do something about laws like this, Vote those idiots out of office. Quit voting for the same lying politicians over and over.

And we have a winner! This is the only effective means to send a message to Washington. Short of threatening to vote them out, they DO NOT CARE what a bunch of website operators think of it. Until they actually hear from people through the channels they expect to hear from them, they're going to act on representing who they were elected to represent. Like it or not, the Hollywood corporations behind this bill are part of that bloc of people to be represented.

[Fonger]

Regardless of a protest, if the broader sense of this bill gets passed in any way that allows sites to be blacklisted because of user-submitted content, it will just mean that this site will stop being and Dark0ne can just move to the Philippines and live out the rest of his days in luxury... Well, just the first part really.

maybe Croydon instead

[TheCaptn]

Seriously, I wish MORE of these places engaged in all the knee-jerk reactions over this issue had taken the same approach. The legislation is there for all to read, and none of the doomsday provisions are in it.

 

Really? And you're arguing this based on a careful reading of the full text, backed by a long academic career as a respected legal expert?

I'll be honest, I did my best to read the bills, and while I'm no stranger to long-winded and esoteric academic texts, I found them to be completely impenetrable.

 

That's why, when it comes to making up my mind on something this complex, I'm happy to defer to independent experts. Who, incidentally, strongly disagree with you...

 

On the legal issues:

Mark Lemley (Stanford Law School), David Levine (Elon University School of Law), David Post (Beasley School of Law)

Laurence Tribe - Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University Law School

Marvin Ammori - Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Jason Mazzone - Gerald Baylin Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School

Lateef Mtima - Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice, Howard University School of Law

 

And on the technical issues:

 

Steve Crocker (CEO, Shinkuro Inc), Danny McPherson (Chief Security Officer, Verisign), Dan Kaminsky (Chief Scientist, DKH), Dr. David Dagon (Georgia Tech, School of Computer Science), Paul Vixie (Chairman and Chief Scientist, Internet Systems Consortium)

Dr. Leonard Napolitano - Director, Center for Computer Sciences & Information Technologies, Sandia National Laboratories

[dazzerfong]

TheCaptn:

 

Providing a one-sided argument does not help your argument, nor do lawyers who have barely any knowledge based on the feasibility of the act compared to actual technical experts, who then lack the knowledge of legal matters.

 

However, the main problem isn't the obvious 'shock-and-awe' representation of the bill: it's the ambiguity and lack of execution in the acts which is most disturbing. If it was very specific, then that wouldn't be a major problem, but it isn't right now.

[Arthmoor]

That's why, when it comes to making up my mind on something this complex, I'm happy to defer to independent experts. Who, incidentally, strongly disagree with you...

And I'm pretty sure if I cared to invest that kind of time I could dig up just as many equally qualified lawyers who have analyzed the bill and who agree with my reading of the actual text itself.

 

It's much the same as trusting "independent" experts on history to tell you the truth only to have referring back to the original sources contradict EVERYTHING they've taught you over the years.

 

Also, tech people are wholly unqualified to give legal opinions, so they can be against it all they want, but dig deeper. You'll find they issued that opinion based on what their lawyers told them. Lawyers who have a somewhat biased interest in being against such legislation to begin with.

 

So yeah. I'll refer back to the bill itself. Yes, its dry reading. Yes, it can be a headache to figure out. But what I am reading from that text does not jive with the slagheap of propaganda out there on the net about what people THINK it might do.

[keastkannegaard]

So the bill wont shut down websites with copyright violations, like AMVs on youtube? You do know you can download the videos, illegal, from Youtube by using different tools, aswell?

It wont force companies like PayPal to stop transactions to websites that have copyright violations on the site or is linking to sites that violate a copyright? Or in Wikileak's case, because it might hurt the interest of the country on a political level...

Or block a site like Nexus that deal in mods, where a lot are based on copyrights?

It wont force seach engines like Google or Yahoo remove sites that have copyright violations on the site?

Edited January 19, 2012 by Keast Kannegaard

[TheCaptn]

Providing a one-sided argument does not help your argument, nor do lawyers who have barely any knowledge based on the feasibility of the act compared to actual technical experts, who then lack the knowledge of legal matters.

Yes, it does help my argument. That's how an argument works, one person sets sets out their case, then the other person either discredits that case or presents a more compelling one... It's not my job to perform both sides in a debate when I'm only convinced by one of them.

And you're suggesting that legal experts don't know the law, so they should leave that up to technical experts? So then presumably we can put the lawyers to better use building our internet infrastructure?

 

 

And I'm pretty sure if I cared to invest that kind of time I could dig up just as many equally qualified lawyers who have analyzed the bill and who agree with my reading of the actual text itself.

Please do, I'll wait. When I looked I could only find snippits, apparently from the MPAA's legal team, but without any full-sentence quotes let alone a full text reference.

I'd actually really appreciate it if you'd present a well researched challenge. I'm open to the possibility that I've got this all wrong, but when I tried to falsify my own position I couldn't find any credible sources that were against it.

 

 

It's much the same as trusting "independent" experts on history to tell you the truth only to have referring back to the original sources contradict EVERYTHING they've taught you over the years.

It's not really the same at all. History only has one objective truth, but it's largely obscured. As historians we're forced to constantly debate standards of evidence and the merits of social history versus recorded history, etc... The law is a series of subjective truths founded on (what some argue are objective, but I tend to disagree) fundamentals. It changes frequently in interpretation and application and demands a completely different skill set to stay informed.

 

 

Also, tech people are wholly unqualified to give legal opinions, so they can be against it all they want, but dig deeper. You'll find they issued that opinion based on what their lawyers told them. Lawyers who have a somewhat biased interest in being against such legislation to begin with.

I made a very clear delineation between legal experts giving legal opinions, and technical experts giving expert technical advice. How did you miss that?

 

 

So yeah. I'll refer back to the bill itself. Yes, its dry reading. Yes, it can be a headache to figure out. But what I am reading from that text does not jive with the slagheap of propaganda out there on the net about what people THINK it might do.

You're not actually referring to the bill, you're just waving it like a flag. A reference would be, say a quote from Section 103 a (1.B.ii), hopefully accompanied by your explanation for why that -doesn't- create an unreasonable demand for a site like YouTube (or Nexus) to constantly police every piece of content for copyright infringement simply to avoid being labeled a 'Dedicated Thief'... Y'know, for example.

 

And if you're going to go ahead and do that, since you've already stated that your position is based on a reading of the bill and not independent, qualified analysis; then I'd like a little more information on your qualifications vis à vis interpretation and practice.

Edited January 19, 2012 by TheCaptn