Well if we're being accurate you singled me out as getting personal when you did as well. As to copywriter infringement, there are already laws enforcing that you just have to get a lawyer, it cost money but that's what it takes to be in business. No one makes anyone start a business if one can't handle it then get a safe desk job.
As I said, it's not going to pass as it's written. But... If it did, the industries that are supporting it would get whacked with it as well almost immediately. Cause guess what they also post to websites that have some infringement on them. I can see it now, all the movie, music and tv studios suing each other and getting injunctions to shut down each others websites and affiliates. Lol.
Well... it's not law yet, is it? Government isn't pretty, but I respect the process. (I think the bill won't pass as is either.) I think this is great that so many people are getting involved and are voicing their concern over Internet matters. That's how the process is supposed to work. That's what the United States is about... and I think this is beautiful.
...and if not for this thread, I probably wouldn't have worried about SOPA. I think it's political suicide to start shutting down websites that stay in compliance of the DMCA. That's probably when I'd start worrying... when I went to access one of my favorite websites and it wasn't there. That's when the sleeping dragon would be awakened. Most people don't even want to get involved with politics. They hate even to discuss it.
...also... I noticed another bug with the forum today. If you hit cancel, it still saves the changes.
Yeah, once all the negative publicity hit, I think politicians started realizing voting for and passing either bill would be political suicide and no amount of political contributions were worth the fallout. system is working just like it should.
At first I was like... whatever... who cares if piracy sites get blocked? Yet, that might lead the piracy websites to form a dark Internet. That could be even more trouble. It also makes trouble for those trying to run a legitimate site. Something like this forum might not exist if SOPA passed.
@dotsonj23 Yeah, once all the negative publicity hit, I think politicians started realizing voting for and passing either bill would be political suicide and no amount of political contributions were worth the fallout. system is working just like it should.
Yeah, I think it's great. I'm even surprised at what happened here. My opinion changed. Great discussion!
Just a quick update of who's shutting down: WIKIPEDIA English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Date: January 16, 2012
Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate — that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia. This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst: It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web. Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support. On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations. In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them. But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently, We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it. But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to. The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasn’t made by me; it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it. Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipedia’s public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipedia’s heart is in the right place. It’s not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful. That’s less true of other sites. Most are commercially motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire to make the world a better place — many do! — but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests. My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States — don’t advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA? The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone. Make your voice heard!
On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard. Sue Gardner, Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
I just spent a good part of my day rallying against SOPA and PIPA. Also just kicked VGVN (Video Game Voters Network) to the curb. I'm really pissed at them after all the support I gave them. After the supreme court ruled games as free speech, VGVN has been inactive. The ESA supports SOPA PIPA. VGVN are part of the ESA and they are not forwarding or addressing the SOPA PIPA concerns that members have been asking representation for (kinda obvious why). And they claim that they support and fight for the rights of gamers and the gaming industry (anti-censorship was a key focus). They have even been ignoring everyone on their facebook page and continued posting various non-related topics to avoid the matter. Hypocrisy. You should see the backlash this is having as many are calling it quits for VGVN and call to boycott the ESA and E3 2012.
Teachfaidh ár lá (Irish-English: Our day will come!) WE will win!! No more pipa & sopa A letter from wikipedia:
Thank you. The Wikipedia blackout is over — and you have spoken. More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. From all around the world your messages dominated social media and the news. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet. For us, this is not about money. It’s about knowledge. As a community of authors, editors, photographers, and programmers, we invite everyone to share and build upon our work. Our mission is to empower and engage people to document the sum of all human knowledge, and to make it available to all humanity, in perpetuity. We care passionately about the rights of authors, because we are authors. SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows. What’s happened in the last 24 hours, though, is extraordinary. The internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine, and as Wikipedia went dark, you've directed your energy to protecting it. We’re turning the lights back on. Help us keep them shining brightly.
SlickZeroHouston, TexasMember, Sous ChefPosts: 2,870
If we don't voluntarily give them what they want, then they will just take it.
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” - Frank Zappa
I actually misunderstood previous news about SOPA. It's not dead, though parts of it have been killed and it has been shelved so that there will be no voting on it in the near future. Many of the political supporters in the House of Representatives have flip-flopped and claim they don't support SOPA anymore after a vocal outcry from their constituents-- reelection pressures. PIPA is still a threat and now there is a new bill, my state reps inform me, named OPEN.
The Online Protection and ENforcement of Digital Trade act seems to do pretty much the same thing as PIPA, that is when it is determined that a website (foreign or domestic) is infringing on a copyright, measures are taken to force the site to cease conduct (not clear what that constitutes) and compel payment services and ad networks to close related accounts. It doesn't seem to compel search engines to block infringing websites however. The big difference is that a rights holder has to file a petition with the International Trade Commission (an U.S. federal agency) and the ITC determines whether the website is infringing. So at least there is a little thoughtful review before action is taken. But there is still no opportunity for a website to defend itself from accusation to the ITC. Also the act has some very ambiguous wording that leaves the options for punishing sites determined to infringe wide open. This seems like a much better start to an anti-piracy legislation, but we already have laws in the U.S. that cover everything these anti-piracy laws are trying to accomplish. The reason the entertainment industry wants new legislation is that they want the responsibility of stopping pirates to be moved from them to the government. It's too much expense and effort to sue pirates, and it makes them look bad.
The reason this type of legislation keeps cropping up is that the U.S. entertainment industries have lots of money (despite their claims that piracy is ruining their businesses) to lobby and fund election campaigns and they want to lock down any and all threats to their business models. They want a world where it's impossible to for anyone to steal from them ever. Stealing seems to include things like a song playing in the background of a baby video on youtube or singing the Happy Birthday song in a public place such as a restaurant. It's unfortunate to me that we have a government that can be bought yet it is encouraging that when the people make enough noise the government responds.
I spent part of the last two days petitioning with others spreading the word via websites, email and facebook. Yesterday the ESA dropped support of SOPA! One small step in the right direction. League For Gamers and Entertainment Consumers association have stepped in to cover the game industry politics, to pick up where VGVN fell flat.
Comments
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
...and if not for this thread, I probably wouldn't have worried about SOPA. I think it's political suicide to start shutting down websites that stay in compliance of the DMCA. That's probably when I'd start worrying... when I went to access one of my favorite websites and it wasn't there. That's when the sleeping dragon would be awakened. Most people don't even want to get involved with politics. They hate even to discuss it.
...also... I noticed another bug with the forum today. If you hit cancel, it still saves the changes.
The House of Representatives killed SOPA.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/01/16/1457237/house-kills-sopa
Yeah, once all the negative publicity hit, I think politicians started realizing voting for and passing either bill would be political suicide and no amount of political contributions were worth the fallout. system is working just like it should.
I'm not sure what's up with PIPA though...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act
...is it as bad as SOPA?
At first I was like... whatever... who cares if piracy sites get blocked? Yet, that might lead the piracy websites to form a dark Internet. That could be even more trouble. It also makes trouble for those trying to run a legitimate site. Something like this forum might not exist if SOPA passed. Yeah, I think it's great. I'm even surprised at what happened here. My opinion changed. Great discussion!
WIKIPEDIA
English Wikipedia anti-SOPA blackout
To: English Wikipedia Readers and Community
From: Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director
Date: January 16, 2012
Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate — that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.
This will be the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made. Here’s how it’s been described by the three Wikipedia administrators who formally facilitated the community’s discussion. From the public statement, signed by User:NuclearWarfare, User:Risker and User:Billinghurst:
It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a “blackout” of the English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
On careful review of this discussion, the closing administrators note the broad-based support for action from Wikipedians around the world, not just from within the United States. The primary objection to a global blackout came from those who preferred that the blackout be limited to readers from the United States, with the rest of the world seeing a simple banner notice instead. We also noted that roughly 55% of those supporting a blackout preferred that it be a global one, with many pointing to concerns about similar legislation in other nations.
In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That’s a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.
But although Wikipedia’s articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently,
We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.
But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.
The decision to shut down the English Wikipedia wasn’t made by me; it was made by editors, through a consensus decision-making process. But I support it.
Like Kat and the rest of the Wikimedia Foundation Board, I have increasingly begun to think of Wikipedia’s public voice, and the goodwill people have for Wikipedia, as a resource that wants to be used for the benefit of the public. Readers trust Wikipedia because they know that despite its faults, Wikipedia’s heart is in the right place. It’s not aiming to monetize their eyeballs or make them believe some particular thing, or sell them a product. Wikipedia has no hidden agenda: it just wants to be helpful.
That’s less true of other sites. Most are commercially motivated: their purpose is to make money. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a desire to make the world a better place — many do! — but it does mean that their positions and actions need to be understood in the context of conflicting interests.
My hope is that when Wikipedia shuts down on January 18, people will understand that we’re doing it for our readers. We support everyone’s right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. We think everyone should have access to educational material on a wide range of subjects, even if they can’t pay for it. We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States — don’t advance the interests of the general public. You can read a very good list of reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA here, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?
The reality is that we don’t think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.
Make your voice heard!
On January 18, we hope you’ll agree with us, and will do what you can to make your own voice heard.
Sue Gardner,
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Comment on this post!
David
WE will win!! No more pipa & sopa
A letter from wikipedia:
Thank you.
The Wikipedia blackout is over — and you have spoken.
More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. From all around the world your messages dominated social media and the news. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet.
For us, this is not about money. It’s about knowledge. As a community of authors, editors, photographers, and programmers, we invite everyone to share and build upon our work.
Our mission is to empower and engage people to document the sum of all human knowledge, and to make it available to all humanity, in perpetuity. We care passionately about the rights of authors, because we are authors.
SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows. What’s happened in the last 24 hours, though, is extraordinary. The internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine, and as Wikipedia went dark, you've directed your energy to protecting it.
We’re turning the lights back on. Help us keep them shining brightly.
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” - Frank Zappa
You're kidding, right?
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
hehe! :P well it stops copyright offenders...
ok.... i think there may be toxins in the air where I'm thinking! :P
The Online Protection and ENforcement of Digital Trade act seems to do pretty much the same thing as PIPA, that is when it is determined that a website (foreign or domestic) is infringing on a copyright, measures are taken to force the site to cease conduct (not clear what that constitutes) and compel payment services and ad networks to close related accounts. It doesn't seem to compel search engines to block infringing websites however. The big difference is that a rights holder has to file a petition with the International Trade Commission (an U.S. federal agency) and the ITC determines whether the website is infringing. So at least there is a little thoughtful review before action is taken. But there is still no opportunity for a website to defend itself from accusation to the ITC. Also the act has some very ambiguous wording that leaves the options for punishing sites determined to infringe wide open. This seems like a much better start to an anti-piracy legislation, but we already have laws in the U.S. that cover everything these anti-piracy laws are trying to accomplish. The reason the entertainment industry wants new legislation is that they want the responsibility of stopping pirates to be moved from them to the government. It's too much expense and effort to sue pirates, and it makes them look bad.
The reason this type of legislation keeps cropping up is that the U.S. entertainment industries have lots of money (despite their claims that piracy is ruining their businesses) to lobby and fund election campaigns and they want to lock down any and all threats to their business models. They want a world where it's impossible to for anyone to steal from them ever. Stealing seems to include things like a song playing in the background of a baby video on youtube or singing the Happy Birthday song in a public place such as a restaurant. It's unfortunate to me that we have a government that can be bought yet it is encouraging that when the people make enough noise the government responds.
glad they are not shutting off dropbox, I have my back up there...