SOPA and PIPA So Far 273
Since their inception SOPA and PIPA have raised concerns about blacklisting from online freedom advocates, and tech industry giants. Law professors worry that they could stifle growth and innovation. Other's have warned that the legislation would hurt scientific debate and open discourse on the internet. SOPA and PIPA are not without support however. In fact a wide variety of companies have backed the proposed laws, bringing together an eclectic group. After months of debate, the removal of one of the more controversial provisions, and The White House expressing its own concerns over the law in its current form, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced that he was shelving SOPA. PIPA however remains, and it is likely that a re-worked version of the House bill will be brought up soon.
About fucking time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About fucking time (Score:5, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly, I came in here a couple of hours ago expecting some SOPA/PIPA acknowledgement, was truly puzzled by the chirping crickets.
Also but less shocking, the lack of a banner on the issue raises the question: Is Slashdot management neutral, apolitical, or something a little more insidious?
I'm guessing apolitical, by which I mean, management keeping their opinions to themselves and allowing the users to fire the cannons from all sides, with no interference.
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"SOPA and PIPA so far" was posted around 6 hours after midnight PST, which is nine hours after the first websites went black, assuming it all started at EST.
Re:About fucking time (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent is obviously referring to the blackout in progress. Today is a day of civil action.
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It'll be interesting to see if the soap box approach actually works.
And what consequences that will have on the next cause/election/idiot in office.
Re:About fucking time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About fucking time (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to get really cynical, there is another bill up for discussion in a few months or so, PCIP (Protect Children from Internet Pornographers), whatever doesnt pass in SOPA/PIPA can just get tacked onto PCIP, and anyone who dare oppose that bill will get called a pedophile and a child porn supporter.
Good luck with that land of the free thing guys
For the children (Score:4, Insightful)
It is unfortunate how outright irrational people get when the topic of child protection comes up. It is like the intelligent thinking part of their brain just completely shuts down, and they lose the ability to think anything through.
Protecting children is good, we all agree. Blocking adult access to cartoon or digitally-created images of children does nothing to protect them. In fact, it harms them worse on two counts: 1) They are forced to grow up in a liberty-stricken police state, 2) It deprives deviants of other outlets, meaning the *only* stimulation they can get is from actual children.
The evidence at hand is that pedophilia stems from brain malformation, meaning it doesn't heal up over time. Stoic self-denial doesn't make the desires go away. Therefore, making the images go away doesn't make the pedophiles go away. It just leaves YOUR kids as their *only* outlet. You think that makes your kids safer?
Want to protect the children? Allow adults easy access to cartoon images (no real children harmed in producing them) and also dolls like the ones you can get in Japan. Give them a harmless outlet, and continue to punish anyone who harms actual children.
Now watch as people call ME a pedophile for failing to demand permanent taxpayer-funded incarceration for anyone who has an inappropriate desire whether they channel it harmlessly or not.
People are so stupid.
Re:For the children (Score:5, Funny)
You're a pedophile because you won't support capital punishment for it.
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Protect Children from Ignorant Politicians?
Not exactly.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're joking right? There's been a SOPA story on Slashdot atleast twice a week for the last few months..
Yeah, and I believe all from the readers. Slashdot has editors, paid staffers who ultimately decide what's posted (regardless of what the firehose says is the topmost story); there's no good reason they can't write an actual editorial or stage a protest when situations call for it.
Slashdot didn't participate in the blackout, and after multiple comments and submissions, including mine, criticizing them for being spineless punks...we get a massive pile of links spelling out a bald summary of the story so far. No opinion, no support for a cause in which they have a vested constitutional interest, nothing.
Either users submit the content and run the site, or the editor's actually have a purpose and they should show some balls. This awkward middle-ground where they never have an opinion and almost never come up with content - yet still hold final control over what stories go up and reword or cut down the summaries as they see fit - sometimes looks pretty pathetic. This is one of those times.
Re:Not exactly.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot doesn't need to participate in the blackout. The purpose of the blackout is to inform people about SOPA. The majority of Slashdot readers are already well informed about it so the only purpose of a blackout on Slashdot is to create a nuisance for the readers.
Missing the point AND arrogant. Nice twofer. (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the damn protests is to point out how inconvenient and destructive it would be for your favorite sites to disappear without notice thanks to the instant, warrantless takedowns that SOPA would enable. Leaving a major tech news site on-line, where all of their users can bitch and speculate about the protests rather than experience being cut off, actually kinda blunts the effectiveness.
Just because we get it in theory doesn't mean there's no value in solidarity or that it wouldn't be good for us to experience it firsthand for a frickin day as further impetus to prevent a future where we could experience it for a lifetime.
And ultimately, slashdot isn't that important.
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It's not about informing. It's about awareness. Most of the public just doesn't know nor care what PIPA or SOPA is. And the general public is more likely to be
Re:Not exactly.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What would blacking out slashdot actually do? /. wouldn't have that effect, and since it's a Tech News Aggregator it's a good place to read roundups like the one posted in this fucking article. Yes it would be affected by SOPA/PIPA tremendously, but, like Twitter, I can see it doing much more in spreading the word by remaining open and reporting on others actions, than blacking out themselves.
Closing Wikipedia and Google actually affects the normal person, and indeed, Wikipedia is the most cited example in the news. This is pretty much the first and only time BBC News has actually picked up on SOPA since it's inception, and same with murdoch-owned Sky News.
Blacking out
Re:Not exactly.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What would blacking out slashdot actually do?
It might demonstrate the future for Slashdot if the legislation passes. Only just yesterday someone posted the full text to some MLK speech which was supposedly under copyright. I don't know if it was or not, only that it could have been and SOPA could have been used to shut the site down until it was removed. Imagine the hassle for mods, editors of dealing with trolls deliberately cutting and pasting links or text from various copyright sources because now Slashdot has a legal responsibility to clean itself up.
Sites like Slashdot really should be in the front lines because its in their own self interest that this law does not pass in its current form.
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What would blacking out slashdot actually do?
Improve the comment quality?
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In your defence, it is mere minutes between the posting of that story and your comment, so you could be forgiven for writing this while
Re:Not exactly.... (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot didn't participate in the blackout
Sure they are! I just don't know if "Error 503 Service Unavailable" is sending the right message exactly.
SOPA not dead (Score:5, Informative)
Re:SOPA not dead (Score:5, Interesting)
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They were also pandering to the Christian base that supports Resurrection ... and a certain zombie.
Re:SOPA not dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it was. The initial "shelving" of the bill was a last ditch attempt to stop January 18th, so it could continue to be passed quietly. When tech giants of the internet decided to run their message anyway... well, no point in keeping up illusions anymore, might as well actively pass it.
Whoo! Ten Points! (Score:5, Insightful)
Eric Cantor is Speaker of the House, and he's the one who 'tabled' SOPA yesterday, according to the stories we've been reading. The Speaker controls the House by controlling the schedule. He decides what gets floor time, and if he refuses to schedule something for a vote it can't become law.
No bill is actually dead, however, until the legislative year is over. If a bill "died in committee", the committee could consider a new draft or change their minds outright; if it died because the Speaker wouldn't schedule it, he could come into work the very next day and say: "Hey, that thing I said we wouldn't vote on until my mother-in-law gave me a blowjob in the back seat of my Mercedes? Well, granny puckered up last night and it was reeaal nice, so everyone pick up your clickers and put in the old yay-or-nay on this bill!"
So when he supposedly shelved SOPA yesterday Cantor wasn't making some sort of vow or invoking a rule that destroyed the bill: congresspeople could still talk about it, continue to work on it, and continue rounding up votes for or against it. Apparently they did. He was still free to change his mind, and apparently he did. So at the moment it's been re-scheduled yet again for markup.
If you don't like a bit of legislation, do not rest until the session is over. That's the only time you can be sure that particular bill won't go through.
And when I say that particular bill I mean it specifically: it happens frequently that the same proposed law, sometimes word-for-word, comes up year after year after year, in bill after bill, until it finally gets through. It happened when North Carolina effectively banned municipal broadband this year; that was the third try for that one. There could be a second, third, fourth and fifth try for SOPA until Hollywood gets what they want. Pay attention and be vigilant. Their lawyers don't sleep, and neither can you if you want a free internet.
Re:Whoo! Ten Points! (Score:5, Informative)
Eric Cantor is Speaker of the House, and he's the one who 'tabled' SOPA yesterday, according to the stories we've been reading. The Speaker controls the House by controlling the schedule. He decides what gets floor time, and if he refuses to schedule something for a vote it can't become law.
Small correction, Eric Cantor is House Majority Leader. The current speaker of the house is John Boehner.
Re:Whoo! Ten Points! (Score:5, Interesting)
Well stated.
I was all happy with Mr. Cantor the other day, and now this. Apparently he didn't get the message hard enough.
Mr. Marco Rubio (R, Florida) DOES seem to have gotten the message though. he was one of the SPONSORS of PIPA and he has withdrawn his support from the bill and asked Speaker Reid to withdraw the bill entirely. [hotair.com]
So keep the pressure on people! It's working!
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Screenshots (Score:5, Interesting)
I am collecting screenshots of blacked-out sites today so we can have them all in one place. If you know of any other sites, please email them to me.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117902136861919925087/albums/5698963233208682849 [google.com]
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www.palemoon.org
http://www.humblebundle.com/ [humblebundle.com]
http://ps3history.consolehistories.net/ [consolehistories.net]
http://psvitahistory.consolehistories.net/ [consolehistories.net]
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Interesting)
Anon because I've been modding.
Re:Screenshots (Score:4, Informative)
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Ubersoft.net is blacked out as well, although theirs isn't actually black.
Incidentally, while Geekculture.com and Joy of Tech are blacked out, the After-Y2K [geekculture.com] page (some of us still dream) isn't.
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www.canonrumors.com [canonrumors.com]
Re:Screenshots (Score:5, Funny)
Oh and http://thedailywtf.com/ [thedailywtf.com] although it's not technically a BLACK out, but it's amusing as long as you get sarcasm.
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Check out Google's own page!
Big evil bar across their logo.
Pfft...blacked out? (Score:3, Insightful)
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http://www.bluesnews.com/ [bluesnews.com]
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http://wattsupwiththat.com/ [wattsupwiththat.com]
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Schlock Mercenary [schlockmercenary.com]
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Here are some blacked-out webcomics:
Incidentally, half of these I hadn't even heard of before today; I only know of them now because they chose to protest SOPA! Also, Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] isn't blacked out but has an anti-SOPA banner, and XKCD [xkcd.com] hasn't updated yet.
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Fox Trot [foxtrot.com]
(IMHO one of the earliest "nerdy" comics).
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QuestionableContent.net and SomethingPositive.net have announcements, but no blackouts. SMBC-Comics.com has a blackout.
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XBMC [xbmc.org] is blacked out in a unique way.
Why isn't slashdot blacking out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why isn't slashdot blacking out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't Slashdot blacking out? It is one of those sites that could be greatly effected by this bill. Besides I need to be more productive today. And most of the sites I visit are blacked out too.
I'm willing to bet that the majority of those that would be affected by a Slashdot blackout are already against SOPA/PIPA, and already are vocal about it.
Not so with sites like Wikipedia, Google, etc.
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Re:Why isn't slashdot blacking out? (Score:5, Informative)
If you aren't using script blockers, any page on English Wikipedia will come up and then immediately be replaced by a blacked-out page explaining the protest.
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Doesn't do it at all if you come from outside the US, it seems. France at least. (tested via proxy)
Re:Why isn't slashdot blacking out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personal Opinion: for sites like Slashdot, the FSF, the EEF, etc, it makes more sense to dedicate a lot of space to discussing the issue on their front pages than to black-out. Most, if not all, people going to these sites are aware of the issue. The blackouts are an awareness raiser, for sites where everyone is already aware, news and information are a more effective form of protest.
Re:Why isn't slashdot blacking out? (Score:5, Insightful)
Twitter too (Score:2, Informative)
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The nice thing is that Facebook allows you to join in the protest. Steps required:
In your favorite image editor, create an all-black JPEG image.
Change your Facebook profile picture to that image.
Upload the all-black photo to Facebook to post on your wall. In the description, type the following (or similar):
If SOPA/PIPA pass, the Internet will look like this. Write your congresspeople. https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/ [google.com]
(This post has been censored due to copyright claim.)
That's it. Now you'v
Don't forget, SOPA was *not* shelved in the end. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Shelved (Score:2)
Heh - "Shelved" - that's an awesome word.
"Look! It's on a shelf! Look again! We took it OFF the shelf!"
What were we thinking, that they threw it in a pit of flames and burned all the copies?
Can you really trust congress to do what's right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Can you really trust congress to do what's righ (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a real reason why congress is less popular than things like Paris Hilton and Nixon.
Could've fooled me. I mean, with a 95% reelection rate, I would say they're a pretty popular bunch
Re:Can you really trust congress to do what's righ (Score:5, Insightful)
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No one else to vote in. They come in based on default.
The problem is our system determines the winner based on the most votes. If you got 1 vote and everyone else got 0, you win! Still doesn't mean the majority wants you in.
No. When was last time you could? (Score:2)
And this isn't just a problem with US congress. All democratic countries are going to hell fast, and have been since corporations & lobbying & mass media. Greed wins.
--Coder
Revolution (Score:5, Interesting)
"Every 200 years there needs to be a revolution" - Thomas Jefferson
Came to mind when reading this...
If SOPA/PIPA dies... (Score:5, Insightful)
If SOPA/PIPA dies in Congress, it is not because the people rose up to oppose the terrible legislation. It will die because enough corporations spoke up opposing it to outnumber the supporters.
The White House isn't "expressing" shit (Score:5, Informative)
The Hollywood studios behind these bills are some of Obama's biggest contributors. His "expression of concern" is just a pathetic attempt to play both sides of the fence. He would as soon deliver a State of the Union speech in the nude than to veto one of these bills (or anything similar).
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If this thing passes, you just watch your hero not veto it.
2nd Amendment (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the 2nd Amendment issue of our age, and like the NRA we need to be eternally vigilant against never-ending attempts to restrict our rights.
Personally, I support the EFF as the equivalent of my NRA.
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As a New Jerseyan, I'd like to say that the 2nd amendment is still very much the 2nd amendment of our age. New and oppressive laws that suppress or otherwise impede our right to keep and bear arms crop up every day, especially in nanny states like NJ and CA.
Until every state has Shall Issue [wikipedia.org] [1] and Castle Doctrine [wikipedia.org] [2] laws, the fight is nowhere near over.
.
.
.
(Considering the Wikipedia is blacked out today, I'll add footnotes for these terms - doin' it old school!. The links are mainly for after the blackout
Re:2nd Amendment (Score:5, Informative)
As a Brazilian, I'm disgusted at how some (maybe most) Americans value and money property over life.
You may be misunderstanding the situation to a degree, so I will expand on it a bit.
Let's use a real-life example. A friend of mine was robbed while walking home from a party at about 2:00AM in my city. Four men jumped out of a car and held him at gunpoint. (Heading this argument off at the pass, but it just as easily could have been knives or improvised weapons such as pipes or baseball bats.) They took his wallet and his cell phone.
Usually you'll be told to "just cooperate". You'll lose some money, maybe, but you'll be alive so long as you don't resist.
Except my very good friend followed this advice exactly. He gave the thieves his money and phone, and they shot him in the leg for fun.
What if they had killed him? What's to stop them? You have to understand that someone who is willing to break many laws (robbery, armed robbery, assault, etc.) would just as likely have no problem killing you if you felt like it. This is why all humans have a fundamental right to defend themselves. (Whether or not your government supports it is another thing.)
The threat of violence acts as a deterrent when it comes to persons wishing to steal, cause harm, and/or invade your home. I think it would be overkill to just kill someone because they broke into your home (unless you are so in fear for your life that you cannot think straight), but I have absolutely zero problem harming somebody or killing them in order to defend my home and my property.
You also forget that sometimes home invasion has nothing to do with robbery. What if someone is invading your home but they don't want to rob you?
Britain, for example, is rife with examples of people being jailed for defending themselves. There's Munir Hussain [telegraph.co.uk] who was jailed for beating home invaders with a Cricket Bat [wikimedia.org]. They were not there to rob them but rather to injure or kill Mr. Hussain and his family because they are Muslim. Granted, he chased a man down and beat him, but I would honestly do the same if someone had threatened my family or friends with harm or death.
So it's not about going Rambo on somebody and shooting them as soon as they step into your doorway - it's about using reasonable force. The problem is that if someone is in your house to rape your daughter/wife/etc., or they're crazy, or they're out to kill you, etc. the only reasonable response is lethal force. Kill or be killed. The other problem is that you can't really know what an intruder's intent is. The reasonable thing to do in my opinion is announce that you're armed and try to hold them for the police. If they run, let them go (depending on the situation). If they come at you, then kill them.
In addition, I really don't get how a mostly Christian country likes death penalty and wars so much.
Despite my strong stance on self defense, I am very serious about preservation of life. I think the death penalty can never work right - there is always a chance an innocent person can be convicted. It troubles me greatly that we as a country have yet to entirely abolish it. Thankfully, it seems to be disappearing by and large - one of the (few) points of pride about my state is that we haven't executed anyone since 1963 [wikipedia.org].
"Mostly Christian" doesn't count for shit when it comes to violence as I'll explain below.
"Thou shalt not kill." doesn't have exceptions I know of.
Sure it does.
Romans 1:32 - Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but hav
Abolish all copyrights and patents. (Score:2)
I think this topic is so much more than just SOPA and PIPA, it's much more broad, it goes to the very question what is government for? [slashdot.org]
One cannot be pro-copyright and pro-patent and simultaneously be anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA without a serious case of hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.
It will not die (Score:2, Interesting)
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It will only happen if we let it happen. Defeatist attitudes and a feeling of powerlessness (which the mainstream media, government, and businesses love to cultivate in us at every opportunity save election years) serve no one but the people in power.
I wrote my senators and representative today - typed and printed out letters and signed them with my name. Should any of them vote for SOPA or PIPA I'll be spending a great amount of my time campaigning against them come next election and I want them to know th
Do something. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sent to Robert P. Casey, JR, Senator (D) from Pennsylvania:
"Big media may pay your bills, but your constituents elect you, sir. SOPA/PIPA does EVERYTHING for them and NOTHING for us. You should be ashamed of yourself for co-sponsoring PIPA. Please withdraw your support, immediately, and publicly."
SOPA will not die even if defeated in congress (Score:5, Insightful)
SOPA Comic (Score:2)
I guess I'll post it in here too. A SOPA comic [upup-downdown.com] for your enjoyment.
Fair Use and Public Domain (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wiki gives me a black SOPA page(people are saying noscript fixes this) and Reddit serves 2bil+ pages per month. ./ is only 40mil/month
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Umm, no.
I was surprised to see this, so I did a quick test. Googled "Walt Whitman", first option offered was wikipedia.
Clicked on the link, saw Walt Whitman entry for a second or three, then it was replaced with wikipeida's blackout page, which bitches about SOPA and offers you a lookup for your congresscritter, in case you feel the urge to contact him/her/
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So you made $1000 and 50000 people went to some effort to play for free. You say "just 1 dollar", but in many, if not most, parts of the world, a dollar is still a lot of money. If SOPA were in effect and effective, I guess you would have made $1200 (and I'm not clear how SOPA would have helped you).
Imagine you priced your game at 10 cents, and there was an easy and frictionless way to pay. I suspect at least half the freeloaders would rather pay than pirate, and you would have made $2500.
The underlying
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Nice way to skirt around the issue.
Slashdot readers overwhelmingly don't want to discuss this issue; they just want to protest and protect their own interests. And oh, posters here are ingenious at constructing defensive commentaries and expostulating semantic arguments in their favor.
How is that any different from the big baddies in the movie and music industry?
Re:Why people want to KILL SOPA? (Score:5, Insightful)
We already have absurdly long copyright terms, the censorship of software that can be used to subvert DRM (and court-ordered censorship of magazines that dare to publish links to copies of that software), and a department of "homeland security" that hijacks DNS entries in the name of protecting copyrights and trademarks. All of that is not enough? If all that is not enough, then the system needs to be fundamentally redesigned. Copyrights/trademarks/patents/trade secrets are of much lower priority than the protection of American rights and freedoms.
Re:Why people want to KILL SOPA? (Score:5, Insightful)
You should accept the following as true:
1. Piracy is bad.
2. Attempts to stop piracy will be mostly useless.
3. These attempts will cause more harm than the piracy that is prevented.
Look, I am sorry for someone whose work has been ripped off, but the hard reality is that the old paradigms no longer obtain.
See http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/01/18/0452238/cloud-computing-democratizes-digital-animation [slashdot.org] for a good example.
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I can go with those three points - they make sense. I'd go with a 3a or a 4, as well - no matter what happens, something of value will be lost. And that relates directly back to point #1.
Look, I am sorry for someone whose work has been ripped off
At least you have some sense of moral outrage. The vast majority of posters seem not realize that there's anyone behind the work being pirated; it's much more convenient to ascribe everything to the faceless corporations.
Re:Why people want to KILL SOPA? (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to update their business models to cope with new technologies, plain and simple. It is absurd to expect a typical person to know or care about copyright law, and it is insane to introduce a censorship apparatus in America just to protect an old business model. If your business depends on people not using their own computers to do certain things then your business is basically doomed.
I guess I am expected to feel bad for the guy who spent late nights debugging his software only to see people download it without paying. Unfortunately for him, he made a risky business decision (basing his business on people not downloading software when software piracy has been a reality since the beginning of the PC age) which was practically guaranteed to backfire. Sometimes businesses just do not work -- why should we feel more sympathy for some classes of business than for others?
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The problem with this argument is that the examples you give are of technologies that were superceded by improved and new technologies. That's not the case here; the problem is business models that are failing because it's too easy to break the law.
I do feel sympathy for people whose role becomes an anachronism, but that's human empathy, and at a broader level I don't maintain that we should halt all progress. A more accurate analogy would be to ask if I feel sympathy for stage coach drivers who lost their
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Piracy is a real problem
[citation needed]
I find it interesting that people want to kill PIPA and SOPA, and not change it to allow protection against piracy while still allowing people freedom to use the web
We have already given copyright, patent, and trademark owners tremendous power to fight those who violate copyrights/etc. I think the better answer is to ask whether or not the current system is actually benefiting the American public. It may be time to develop a completely new system for improving the public's access to creative works.
I have a game on the Android market. It has sold around 1000 copies... (it cost just 1 dollar so it's not a matter of cost). Some russian guy cracked my game and by looking on download counters I can tell the game was already illegaly downloaded more than 50000 times.
No offense, but you need to find a better business model. Take a look at a security engineering text (I recommend Andersen's) for more information o
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Piracy is a real problem
[citation needed]
Slashdot. No, I'm not trying to be funny. Read the articles and the extraordinary amount of self-justification and bragging from people who proudly proclaim their rationales.
No offense, but you need to find a better business model. Take a look at a security engineering text (I recommend Andersen's) for more information on why DRM will always fail you in the end. There is no such thing as a secure device in an insecure environment, and software DRM is even more vulnerable.
You will find no sympathy from me. If DRM+absurdly long copyrights+the DMCA+DHS hijacking DNS records+all the other things we are doing are not enough to keep your revenue stream flowing, then you need to find a different way to make money.
Better business model may eventually equate to a different way of making money may eventually equate to people just giving up and not producing. Pirates/downloaders will sneer and say one of two things: I'm exaggerating, or those who we lose won't matter. And yet look at how many utilities or applications come from tiny little companies
Re:Why people want to KILL SOPA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better business model may eventually equate to a different way of making money may eventually equate to people just giving up and not producing.
I doubt that anyone will give up. At one time there were no copyrights on music, yet people still sang songs and created music instruments. At one time there were no copyrights on written works, but people still wrote books, to the point where huge libraries could be filled. Immensely complex and useful software is released under the terms of the GPL and other free software licenses, which encourage people to make copies with or without payment.
It is not a question of whether or not people will do creative work, it is a question of whether or not we have a system that ensures the public has access to creative works (which means more than simply ensuring that creative work is done -- what use is a painting that remains locked in a cellar somewhere?).
And yet look at how many utilities or applications come from tiny little companies
Look at how many software utilities are being given away at no cost, and look at how this company has made its way to the S&P 500 list by monetizing GPL'd software:
http://www.redhat.com/ [redhat.com]
People here will never get it,
No, we "get it" just fine -- people like you want to make money by forbidding other people from using their computers / tape recorders / etc. in certain ways. At one time, that was nothing more than a regulation on industry, because nobody could make good copies of creative works without industrial equipment. Now everyone has the necessary equipment in their homes, but there is no way that an average American is going to take the time to ask whether or not they are violating a copyright or engaging in fair use, and it is absurd to think that a typical American will have the resources needed to dispute such things in court.
The point of SOPA is to attack, head-on, one of the greatest steps forward in communication in the history of the human race. Computers and the Internet are as important as writing and the printing press were. The Internet threatens the current distribution model and regulations, much in the same way that the printing press and the ability to write did, and just as happened then, people whose incomes depended on the previous distribution model found themselves facing the loss of their jobs.
At one time, laws, entertainment, and history were not written down, but passed down orally. Communities would have people whose job was to remember things and pass that knowledge on to future generations. One day, a new technology emerged: writing. Suddenly, instead of relying on people to remember laws and stories, societies were wage to record things. The old profession died, and new professions emerged: scribes and scholars. Had you been around back then, you would have been pushing for a law that restricted writing in order to protect your job as a storyteller, and you would have insisted that all the people who said that writing should not be restricted did not "get it."
Centuries after scribes established themselves as one of the most important classes in society, a new technology emerged that threatened their profession: printing presses. The same pattern emerged: scribes lost their jobs, and new professions developed. Had you lived back then, you would have demanded a law that restricted printing presses so that you could keep your job as a scribe.
So here we are, in the 21st century, and we see the same pattern once again. Centuries after the press became fundamental to society and we built laws and businesses around it, a new technology has emerged: computer networks. Now people do not need to wait for industrial printers to produce copies of books, they can just have a copy sent to them over a computer network. You do, in fact, live in this age, and you are pushing for la
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SOPA would have many unintended consequences.
Worse still, many of those consequences will not be felt for years after the bill (hypothetically) passes, but which point it will be too late to do anything.
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Too bad you didn't provide links directly to those websites, because then if SOPA/PIPA were enacted and the domains were declared by the DoJ to be dedicated to infringing copyrights, Slashdot itself could be censored until your post was removed.
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"SOPA is about sites like......"
In the UK, counter-terrorism legislation introduced after the London tube bombings has been used by local councils to spy on householders recycling behaviour or usage of school catchment areas ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7922427/Councils-warned-over-unlawful-spying-using-anti-terror-legislation.html [telegraph.co.uk] ).
Just cos it is introduced for one purpose does not mean it wont be used for another.
"That's Slashdot's moderated democracy."
Then adjust your viewing threshold. Its your choice to view them all if you want, no-one's stopping you.