Rackspace: SOPA "Is a Deeply Flawed Piece of Legislation" 213
hypnosec writes "Cloud-based hosting service provider Rackspace has joined the ever expanding list of companies that are opposed to the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In a blog post, Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier said that the controversial bill, which will get its final vote before the House Judiciary Committee, will do more harm than good, punishing innocent users in the process. 'The SOPA bill, as it stands, is a deeply flawed piece of legislation. It is bad for anyone who uses the Internet, including Rackspace, the more than 160,000 business customers that we serve, and the tens of millions of retail customers that they serve. It is bad for job creation and innovation,' Napier wrote."
PR opportunity (Score:1, Interesting)
I highly doubt Rackspace would have come out and said this if it wasn't for what GoDaddy is going through. If GoDaddy's public stance on supporting SOPA was supported by the IT/tech/informed community, I suspect Rackspace would be shouting, "hey, we support SOPA too!!!"
Maybe I'm a bit bias since I have had few positive experiences with Rackspace over the years?
Corporate support is crumbling (Score:5, Interesting)
“The dynamic is clear. Once SOPA — and its Senate counterpart, Protecting IP Act, or PIPA — became high-profile among the Internet community, the lazy endorsements from companies and various hangers-on became toxic. And now, those supporters are scrambling, hollowing out the actual support for the bill. Suddenly, a bill with ‘widespread’ corporate support doesn’t have much support at all,” Dayden said.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll also cast opposing votes against any representatives who vote for it, regardless of party affiliation.
Since both of the big parties are owned by the same people, I assume that you will only vote 3rd party from now on?
Voting D or R is throwing your vote away. The only valid way to vote is to vote for a 3rd party candidate. Or an "extremist" D or R... The only R I would currently consider voting for is Ron Paul and the only D I would consider voting for, if he runs for anything, is Feingold.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
What is wrong with kucinich?
I can't bring myself to vote for Ron Paul. I do not believe he can keep himself from forcing his religious views on others once he gains some power. While I know he did not write it, putting your name on racist newsletters does not speak to his good judgement either.
What Would Happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Serious question for consideration:
What would happen if the "big players", such as Level 3, Verizon, Google and the like came out and said, "If you pass this legislation, we are turning off all of our equipment. We will back up our servers, send our customers their data, rip out the equipment, sell it for scrap, leave the wires hanging, sell our buildings and retire to the Caribbean. If you pass this, we won't be able to do our jobs, so we will simply quit and leave you with nothing to legislate. Good luck suing us, because you'll be back to typewriters, pens and wired telephones."
Totally NOT going to happen, but as an exercise in thought, would it be possible?
Could a company as big and powerful as Google hold the world hostage with nothing more than a power switch?
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:4, Interesting)
Google could kill this dead if they wanted to play dirty. Imagine all Google-owned services (Search and Youtube in particular) being replaced for a day by an explanation of SOPA urging people to call their respective congresscritters and tell them to send this thing where the sun don't shine. If the politicians are convinced voting for this thing is absolute political suicide they won't care how much campaign donations the MPAA gives them.
Re:Doesn't matter, the fix is in (Score:5, Interesting)
But even Google is a relatively small fish in this money game.
Actually, Larry and Sergei could buy all of the movie and music studios with their personal money. I'm not even saying Google could buy them (which obviously, it could), but I'm saying Larry and Sergei could.
The entertainment industry is actually not that big, in terms of economic impact. They just have a huge soap box by virtue of what they do, so it appears they are bigger than they are.
Re:What Would Happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
Needless to say, clicking the link would return the normal links, and second set of ads providing move revenue for Google, so there's an incentive there and the resultant uproar would be... entertaining.
Re:PR opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, if you're on Google Plus, you'll have seen that the CEO of RackSpace have been fighting SOPA for quite some time now.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you can go by his actual record. Where he has intentionally attempted to subvert the us constitution and remove the oversight of the supreme court over religious based state laws. If it had passed, states would have been free to violate individual civil liberties by endorsing specific state religions.
Yes. Ron Paul is an anti-constitutionalist, anti-libertarian (he only cares that the federal government is neutered, he loves the idea of the individual states violating peoples rights), a hypocrite, a liar, a theocrat and anti-American traitor.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't bring myself to vote for Ron Paul. I do not believe he can keep himself from forcing his religious views on others once he gains some power.
1) Wouldn't being a congressman for 30+ years qualify as "some power?" That said, you would think if he was going to abuse it he would have done so by now.
2) Paul is the only candidate who rabidly (or seemingly at all, for that matter) adheres to the concept that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land; in that, the Constitution guarantees religious freedom. Paul also abhors the concept of "executive privilege," i.e. the practice of letting the President do whatever he wants and civil liberties be damned, so it therefore stands to reason that Ron Paul would honor the Constitution and thus not impose his ideals of religion on the masses.
3) There are more people involved in the American legislative process than just the President; contrary to modern belief, there exists a system of checks and balances [wikipedia.org] that, when honored and followed, prevent unconstitutional legislation from becoming law. I know it's pretty passe these days to talk about responsible governance in accordance with the Constitution, but that is exactly the ideology Paul embraces.
As for the accusations regarding RP and the "racist newsletter," I say meh; I didn't get sucked into the whole "Jeremiah Wright hates America So That Means Obama Does Too" non-story, and I intend on patently ignoring this one as well.
Cheers!
Re:What Would Happen... (Score:5, Interesting)
That would not happen, but it would be possible to delist supporters of SOPA from search engines, and refuse them hosting, network connections, etc. If they are trying to destroy your business, there is no rule that says you have to do business with them.
Re:Ugh (Score:5, Interesting)
Religious people want censorship. The internet's free flow of information is anathema to their shackled minds and irrational fear of truth.
Stereotype much? Yes, there are "religious" people who do -- and have done -- some pretty crappy things throughout history. There are "religious nutcases" who are certainly the "shackled minds" that you mention above. There are also those who claim religious affiliation (for more than purposes of securing a position in a will) who don't fit that mold -- those who are vocal Libertarians, who love science and technology and who abhor censorship. I am one. So are a number of my friends. Kindly refrain from confusing us with those who truly are as bad as you claim, 'kay? Thanks.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me about it! My Congressman is Spencer Bachus, one of the biggest crooks and liars in Washington. We're probably going to vote him out next year
Well, he's only won 10 times in a row, maybe the 11th is the charm. He received 75% of the vote in the primary in 2010 and hasn't been challenged in the general election the last 4 times. Good luck.
Morons. (Score:4, Interesting)
If you had had started lobbying as the datacenter/hosting industry back then, none of these would have happened. But this industry is not the only one to blame. There are search industries, device manufacturers, google, microsoft. Granted, some of the latter did some stuff about acta. But totally insufficient. Instead, everyone sat in their pretty and secure silicon valley bubbles, and behaved as if internet was untouchable. At least it seemed totally stupid to break it, and to the detriment of everyone. But hey ! here is something to break it totally for the benefit of a VERY small minority - so much that a few hands could count the number of those who will primarily benefit in the ultimate end.
Now, what are you going to do ?
The jack-boots they are a tromping (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is going to get voted down by offended Americans, but...
After 9/11, the US government began dismantling support for Constitutional rights in favour of anti-terrorist security theatre. They invested billions in surveillance, security, police, staff, and computer systems. Yet despite that huge investment, they couldn't stop the domestic terrorism of the fellow in Texas who recently took out a half dozen people.
They claim to have stopped a few terrorists over the years, but when they've presented the "evidence" against those who were planning attacks, it turned out that the attackers were using ineffective techniques that were unlikely to kill anyone (e.g. The underwear bomber.)
Now they've stepped it up and officially denied the Constitutional rights of anyone the government deems a "terrorist", without having the nasty hassle of proving it to a judge and/or jury. They can just "hold" someone for years without charges or court cases while they "investigate".
SOPA is just the next step of that change in American policy. Instead of championing the legal system, they want to be the arbitrary judge and jury over the world.
Sorry, but the American government does not deserve that level of trust from the world when they can't even follow their own rules for governing a country.
And don't get me started about the persecution of medical cannabis users south of the border and the denial by the US government that cannabis has any medical use.
And yet some people can't understand why so many in the world hate the US and what it's done to their nations in the defense of "freedom" and "democracy." You can't go around invading people, ignoring their laws, ignoring your own laws, and expect to receive any measure of respect on the international stage.
But I bet not ONE of the Congressmen who support SOPA have ever even thought about how this bad legislation is going to be received by the rest of the world.
Re:Nearly all laws are (Score:4, Interesting)
Lesser evil does not make evil good. If it bears any resemblance to SOPA it's just as evil.
Stopping piracy is not evil. But the methods to do so can be.
Re:PR opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking as someone who works at RS, you have no idea what you're talking about.
We employees have been running calling campaigns and such for months against SOPA, and there has been extensive discussion internally all the way up and down the org chart regarding what a terrible price this will exact on the Internet. I'm surprised it took Lanham this long to go public with what has been a long running sentiment here, expressed directly to our senators and representatives, rather than in press releases.
Amusingly that very reluctance to make grandiose announcements has lead you to accuse Lanham of the same, but if you knew anything about him (look up some YouTube videos or something) you'll see he's one of the most earnest, no-BS people you'll ever meet. He's been campaigning against SOPA on a personal level for months.