SOPA and Protect IP

[Pyro]

Would have been believable if you know the vote wasn't till next week along with that RCF has taught me to hover over links first so thanks for that.

And... if this article didn't come out today.

Acknowledging Blackout, Politicians Ditch SOPA

 

[TJ Detweiler]

Why the heck would anyone vote in favor of this ...

 

[Apathy]

Why the heck would anyone vote in favor of this ...

Greed.

 

[Maximus]

Why the heck would anyone vote in favor of this ...

Put on the hat of a film company, for example. You spend $100M and years of time producing a movie. A few days before it gets realeased, some websites start showing it on-line.
It's only getting worse too. Music artists, movie stars, whoever, they are all getting screwed out of money. I'm not in favor of this law passing. But, something needs to be done in my opinion. Some of you sound 100% pro-piracy. I find that really shocking. Online piracy is costing us millions of jobs and 100's of billions of dollars.
I'm guessing many of you would change your tune if it was your property being stolen and distributed against your will....and that wouldn't make you "greedy".

 

[cavman]

 

[Man Called X]

Put on the hat of a film company, for example. You spend $100M and years of time producing a movie. A few days before it gets realeased, some websites start showing it on-line.
It's only getting worse too. Music artists, movie stars, whoever, they are all getting screwed out of money. I'm not in favor of this law passing. But, something needs to be done in my opinion. Some of you sound 100% pro-piracy. I find that really shocking. Online piracy is costing us millions of jobs and 100's of billions of dollars.
I'm guessing many of you would change your tune if it was your property being stolen and distributed against your will....and that wouldn't make you "greedy".

Except that online piracy has went down in numbers for years. Everyone pirated music through Napster, it goes down. iTunes happens. And suddenly, music piracy drops dramatically, and people have a reasonable way to purchase their music digitally.

This bill had absolutely nothing to do with stopping online piracy. It was all about appeasing big business. Had this law been passed 10 years ago, Facebook, Youtube, and numerous other sites that have become GIGANTIC wouldn't even exist.

Look, there's always going to be people that steal shit. That's a given and has been happening long before the internet. Look at the fucking uproar the At Home Cassette Recorder created. SAME FUCKING ARGUMENTS SAID THEN. It's going to kill the music industry, etc etc.

No, what you see here is a bunch of people clinging to an archaic business model and refusing to adapt.

 

[gourimoko]

Here's the problem and you know it Gour. OpenDNS is based in San Francisco, so it wouldn't do you any good. Same thing goes for Google's Public DNS servers. They're all based in America, so moving out the country doesn't help you when every DNS has blocked that website.

Indeed, but OpenDNS can easily migrate outside of U.S. jurisdiction and I would suspect if SOPA passes that's exactly what would happen. To that end, eventually we'll move towards P2P DNS resolution with trusted key pairs to prevent governments from doing this kind of shit. Either that or we'll all be using onion routing.

 

[gourimoko]

Except that online piracy has went down in numbers for years. Everyone pirated music through Napster, it goes down. iTunes happens. And suddenly, music piracy drops dramatically, and people have a reasonable way to purchase their music digitally.

This bill had absolutely nothing to do with stopping online piracy. It was all about appeasing big business. Had this law been passed 10 years ago, Facebook, Youtube, and numerous other sites that have become GIGANTIC wouldn't even exist.

Look, there's always going to be people that steal shit. That's a given and has been happening long before the internet. Look at the fucking uproar the At Home Cassette Recorder created. SAME FUCKING ARGUMENTS SAID THEN. It's going to kill the music industry, etc etc.

No, what you see here is a bunch of people clinging to an archaic business model and refusing to adapt.

This. I really couldn't have said it better..

Business models need to change. For non-interactive media, like movies and music, it's impossible to prevent piracy, but iTunes and Netflix have gone a long way to bring people back into the fold. For software like games, or whatever, piracy can be curbed with smart and innovate anti-piracy measures including code obfuscation and product activation. In the case of games, offering online content is one of the primary ways to keep games from being pirated...

It's all about offering services that pirating cannot provide, to make content more desirable to pay for. The thinking that we can pass Orwellian legislation so that software and media companies can make a buck is ridiculous!

 

[KB]

A lot of the problem with video piracy is that there is no digital distribution system for videos that is similar to iTunes (Netflix doesn't count because you don't "own" the right to the file)

The companies that are backing this legislation have spent 250 Million $ lobbying for SOPA/PIPA. With that kind of money these companies could have banded together and started a digital distribution system that would have put iTunes and Netflix to shame while splitting the profits in the process.

There are plenty of people that would pay 30-40$ monthly fee for a service similar to Netflix that allowed limited time access to a small number of new releases each month (for arguments sake let us say it’s 2 new releases per month available for the same weekend it opens in the box offices then it is removed from the service) if it was combined with a larger library than currently being offered by Netflix.

Also there are plenty of people that would use an iTunes like digital distribution system for video that would charge anywhere from 4$-10$ for each video (price would depend on how old the video was, quality of media, critical acclaim) then they would be able to “own” the digital file, similar to iTunes

It has a lot to do with business not adapting to the changing market place and wanting to stick with an antiquated business model

Keep in mind that SOPA/PIPA are re-writes of legislation, Senate Bill 1284 (National Information Infrastructure Copyright Act) that was introduced in 1996 which was 3 years after a 1993 Clinton Administration committee (Information Infrastructure Task Force) submitted a report called “The White Paper”.. It was introduced into the Senate by Leahy and Hatch who are the same people that submitted some of this current legislation (It’s kind of funny to me that the legislation from 1996 and SOPA/PIPA were all submitted by Democrats which often gets overlooked.. Also here is a link to the some of the above information that outlines the White Paper and Senate Bill 1284 indtroduced in 1996 https://www.msu.edu/user/kimyong2/copy.htm )

Max, I understand where you are coming from about protecting their property, I do happen to agree that companies should be able to protect their products, we have to keep in mind that these are the same companies that assemble the majority of their physical products in China, who has no respect for Patents or Copyright Laws so it would seem logical to me that they deal with the China aspect first.

Also this is a lot like the war on drugs... Pirates are going to pirate media no matter what the law states, it may stop the average Joe but the people that are the actual problem will not be affected by this in any way. The only people this law is going to hurt are going to be average user.

Also the vote on SOPA/PIPA wasn't completely shelved it was pushed back

 

[polska2211]

This. I really couldn't have said it better..

Business models need to change. For non-interactive media, like movies and music, it's impossible to prevent piracy, but iTunes and Netflix have gone a long way to bring people back into the fold. For software like games, or whatever, piracy can be curbed with smart and innovate anti-piracy measures including code obfuscation and product activation. In the case of games, offering online content is one of the primary ways to keep games from being pirated...

It's all about offering services that pirating cannot provide, to make content more desirable to pay for. The thinking that we can pass Orwellian legislation so that software and media companies can make a buck is ridiculous!

i just wrote a 30 page research paper last semester on the music industry and the piracy issue last semester, and every academic article that i read said that all of the physical revenues lost to the labels are made up for in other ways and more. the exposure that artists get from the internet is absolutely ridiculous, and it is easier than ever before for an artist to "blow up" and make it big. hell, look at MGK. you think he was ever on any labels radar? if this was the 1980's, that dude would be working in a mcdonalds somewhere, but because of the internet, he blew up. Also, these labels make an absolute shit ton of money from merch sales and concerts. it all evens out. this SOPA shit is all about greed and nothing more. i dont understand how it is the peoples fault that the record labels are RETARDED and refuse to alter their business models with the changes in technology that have come with the 21st century. the internet is one humongous marketing machine, and without it the labels would lose MASSIVE exposure.

 

[Huber.]

https://twitter.com/#!/herpderpedia


.....Its honestly a little surprising that people can be this stupid, some of these tweets are entertaining to read though.

It also amazes me that people can't figure out just to stop the page from loading before the SOPA splash page loads.

 

[Mdog1]

This won't effect Canada right? Cuz if not then GO CANADA!!! If so, then fuck the USA.

 

[KB]

This won't effect Canada right? Cuz if not then GO CANADA!!! If so, then fuck the USA.

If you are in Canada you should look up ACTA and NAFTA as those are the ones that effect Canada the most

 

[Mdog1]

If you are in Canada you should look up ACTA and NAFTA as those are the ones that effect Canada the most

I will when I get more time, thanks. Quick question though are they already in effect, or are they being voted on? I literally have never heard of those.

 

[KB]

I will when I get more time, thanks. Quick question though are they already in effect, or are they being voted on? I literally have never heard of those.

NAFTA has been in effect since 94, not as much of a problem as the other (links below are just base descriptions from US webistes)

http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/north-american-free-trade-agreement-nafta

http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/Policy/NAFTA/nafta.asp

ACTA is the one you should read up on the most as it stands for Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (was introduced in 2007)

ACTA states at the border they can take your laptop, smartphone, ipod, tablet and search it to see if you have any copyrighted material (one of the many things it allows when crossing borders)

https://www.eff.org/issues/acta

from the above link

Why You Should Care About It
ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce and for developing countries’ ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities and level of economic development.

ACTA is being negotiated by a select group of industrialized countries outside of existing international multilateral venues for creating new IP norms such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and (since TRIPs) the World Trade Organization. Both civil society and developing countries are intentionally being excluded from these negotiations. While the existing international fora provide (at least to some extent) room for a range of views to be heard and addressed no such checks and balances will influence the outcome of the ACTA negotiations.

The Fact Sheet published by the USTR together with the USTR's 2008 "Special 301" report make it clear that the goal is to create a new standard of intellectual property enforcement above the current internationally-agreed standards in the TRIPs Agreement and increased international cooperation including sharing of information between signatory countries’ law enforcement agencies. The last 10 bilateral free trade agreements entered into by the United States have required trading partners to adopt intellectual property enforcement obligations that are above those in TRIPs. Even though developing countries are not party to the ACTA negotiations it is likely that accession to and implementation of ACTA by developing countries will be a condition imposed in future free trade agreements and the subject of evaluation in content industry submissions to the annual Section 301 process and USTR report.

While little information has been made available by the governments negotiating ACTA a document recently leaked to the public entitled "Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement" from an unknown source gives an indication of what content industry rightsholder groups appear to be asking for – including new legal regimes to "encourage ISPs to cooperate with right holders in the removal of infringing material" criminal measures and increased border search powers. The Discussion Paper leaves open how Internet Service Providers should be encouraged to identify and remove allegedly infringing material from the Internet. However the same industry rightsholder groups that support the creation of ACTA have also called for mandatory network-level filtering by Internet Service Providers and for Internet Service Providers to terminate citizens' Internet connection on repeat allegation of copyright infringement (the "Three Strikes" /Graduated Response) so there is reason to believe that ACTA will seek to increase intermediary liability and require these things of Internet Service Providers. While mandating copyright filtering by ISPs will not be technologically effective because it can be defeated by use of encryption efforts to introduce network level filtering will likely involve deep packet inspection of citizens' Internet communications. This raises considerable concerns for citizens' civil liberties and privacy rights and the future of Internet innovation.