SOPA and Protect IP

[OptimusPrime]

Is the "scum" the piraters that are stealing and selling other people's products, intellectual property, etc and selling it for profit? Or are the piraters the good guys?

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty—power is ever stealing from the many to the few…. The hand entrusted with power becomes … the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.

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[Maximus]

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um...ok.

 

[JDeezy]

So like... I don't steal music from the deep dark asshole of the internet, I just want to keep all my favorite sites up (RCF, youtube, etc).

 

[MattyFos.]

gour, I always thought that green dot was a good idea to rip off Redbox... Never followed through with it.

 

[Ohdang]

giganews.com is doing free trials.. its expensive though. astraweb is supposed to be good.

Astraweb was offering their normal $15 unlimited package for $11 so I decided to give it a try this month. A week in and I'm thrilled. I'm downloading a DVD right now at 2.2MB/s and the highest I've seen previously was about 1.9.

i somehow fucked up my config of sabnzbd, it never downloads shit. actually none of the things i downloaded are useful at all except for Mimo which comes with giganews.

Its a little daunting at first until you play with it a bit. But if you don't like it try Binreader. Its not bad and much easier to figure out.

It cost me $7 two years ago.. The cost of a double-quarter pounder w/cheese, add leaf lettuce and tomato, a large fries, and a drink.. It's a one-time fee.. I use the site several times a week.

I took the plunge. It was 7 pounds for a 10 year subscription, which ended up being around $11.50. Little over a buck a year, I can dig it. Already paid for itself in the shit I've downloaded just in the past hour

 

[gourimoko]

Disclaimer: I am opposed to SOPA.

Question - We have rules and laws in place in the real world when it comes to stealing, reselling or damaging other people's property. Should we not have any rules in place in the cyberworld? Or is it anything goes? If I can't protect my products, am i fair game and my products can be stolen without repercussions? It's going to happen, we can't stop it, so dont make any rules to stop it??? That seems to be what some here are saying. I'm not sure where I stand on how to police the internet. Just trying to get a feel for what some of you are saying.

I hate to answer your question with another one, but please indulge me: How would we go about stopping internet piracy? Given that piracy is so prevelant online that most users don't even consider it criminal to download an episode of "Walking Dead," rather than watching it on AMC, how does a government body - unilaterally - step in and prevent this from happening?

You see to me, policing the internet boils down to one thing: censorship and packet sniffing. The United States government does not have, in my view, any authority whatsoever over the internet; and should not have any authority. The internet, by it's construction is a free network of servers that provide content at their own discretion. Any blocking, control of that, requires the government to start regulating and thereby controlling something that was once free. It's a paradigm shift I'm not willing to accept, and I don't think it would work.

To that end, this seems like the kinds of regulations that Republicans hate because it stifles new businesses. I know if I had any type of user-driven content oriented site, I wouldn't even establish my company in the United States, let alone house my data there. It's bad for the people, it's bad for business, and it's bad for innovation. Tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Sun/Oracle and by proxy IBM have known this was going to be the case since the inception of .NET as a competitor to the Java platform. Applications would need to transition towards service designs, rather than suites residing on the client machine. Sell a service to a customer and you cannot pirate that; sell them you're program and you'll likely be pirated.

Lastly, there are some applications that are extremely difficult to crack (MonoTouch for instance), not worth cracking (Old Republic MMO, again services), or cheap enough to simply buy (most iPhone/Android applications). These companies either put the time into protecting their intellectual property by developing countermeasures (watermarking/crippling final compilations, for example), or designed their application from the ground-up to avoid piracy (MMOs). They've figured it out.

So it's not the consumer or the pirate that are scum. Sell them a product they are willing to buy and no one will sit down and spend days reverse engineering it to avoid paying for it. The scum is the company that saids "I can't compete so change the rules, censor the internet, so I can make money." These guys need to get into a new business if they can't figure it out.

 

[KB]

http://business.financialpost.com/2...-warns/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

SOPA-like Internet piracy laws could be coming to Canada, expert warns
Jameson Berkow Jan 24, 2012 – 12:26 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 24, 2012 2:31 PM ET

There is a behind-the-scenes campaign underway to bring laws such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the United States northward, warns a noted Canadian digital policy expert.

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and Canada Research Chair for Internet and E-Commerce, said in a post to his personal blog that Ottawa’s reintroduction of copyright reform legislation makes the country “a prime target for SOPA style rules.”

The U.S. Congress’ proposed SOPA legislation and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), its Senate equivalent, would make it possible for American copyright holders to have any Website anywhere in the world blocked in the United States without a court order if they are alleged to be infringing on those copyrights. Both bills were halted in Washington last week following a widespread online protest, though are expected to be revived as early as February.

In the meantime, with Bill C-11 — which would update the Copyright Act for the digital age — set to once again come before the House of Commons in the coming weeks, Mr. Geist expressed what he argues is cause for Canadians to be concerned.

“Lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export SOPA-like rules to other countries,” he said.

“In fact, a close review of the unpublished submissions to the Bill C-32 legislative committee reveals that several groups have laid the groundwork to add SOPA-like rules into Bill C-11.”

Chief among his concerns is efforts to expand the “enabler provision” of the bill. Groups such as the Canadian Independent Music Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada have been advocating for Ottawa to expand the provision to allow them to go after not just sites containing copyright-infringing content, but also those “enabling” acts of infringement as well.

“There is no indication in the music industry document of due process or even proof of infringement [being required],” Mr. Geist said.

Other critics such as Google Inc. have argued SOPA-style rules, had they been in place when YouTube was first created in 2004, would have likely made it impossible for the world’s largest online video service to exist. Proponents of the bill, which largely include major music labels and Hollywood film studios, argue a lack of effective anti-piracy legislation is putting millions of industry jobs at risk.

Mr. Geist has raised the alarm over the potential Canadian implications of SOPA before, though Barry Sookman, a partner in the Toronto office of McCarthy Tétrault LLP and former co-chair of the firm’s technology practice, said the arguments raised by his colleague are “without foundation.”

“Even if Bill C-11 is amended to cover sites that are primarily designed, operated or used to enable infringement or which induce infringement it would still be inconceivable that the section could be used ‘to shut down mainstream sites such as YouTube’ as he claims,” Mr. Sookman said.

“Michael Geist’s blog post fails to point out that Section 27(2.4) of Bill C-11 has six factors that a court must consider before it can conclude that a site is liable for enablement. It is not remotely possible that mainstream sites such as YouTube could be caught.”

While last week’s high profile takedown of Megaupload.com suggests to some that current laws are enough to stem the tide of digital piracy, others argue a more innovative approach is needed to protect the legal rights of content creators without stifling the free and open nature of the Internet.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidth...the-real-reason-why-megaupload-was-shut-down/

Is This The Real Reason Why MegaUpload Was Shut Down?
Dave Thier, Contributor

The internet is up in arms over the federal crackdown of file-sharing website Megaupload, from irate blog posts to coordinated digital attacks on secure government servers. The move appeared to be a sort of governmental muscle flexing in the wake of the successful internet protest of SOPA and PIPA. But was there another reason? In the weeks before the crackdown, Megaupload was planning on launching a new music sharing website called Megabox that looked like it had the potential to completely transform music distribution, and even find a way to pay musicians in the process.

From TorrentFreak, via Digital Music News:
““UMG [Universal Music Group] knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings,” said MegaUpload founder Kim dotcom.

“We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free,” Dotcom said. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works.”

This smacks a little of conspiracy theory, but there may be some truth to the timing. MegaUpload no doubt looked like a good target for FBI attention even before this new development, considering it was prime hacker territory and and its founder was living like a Colombian drug lord in New Zealand. But the timing seems a little serendipitous, especially since MegaUpload had even begun to acquire legitimate partners in the form of 7digital, Gracenote, Rovi and Amazon.

 

[Green Demon]

 

[KB]

http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/soap...m=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Mashable+(Mashable)

Soapy: Can This Plug-In Kill SOPA?
January 12, 2012 by Zachary Sniderman

“Like crispy bacon, I crave censorship circumvention,” reads the website for Soapy, a Firefox plug-in that will allow users to visit websites blocked by the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) if it is passed.

SOPA, intended to punish copyright infringement on the web, has caused quite a stir in the Internet community. Thousands of people, including tech giants such as Facebook and Google , have opposed the bill, saying it would effectively censor the web and place unfair demands on content providers — who would be responsible for all copyright infringements on their site, even if those infringements were user-submitted.

This would be a nightmare for sites like YouTube or Reddit, which could be shut down if SOPA passes.

Not so, says Soapy. The plug-in claims it will allow users to get to these sites even if the government drops the hammer. The process is relatively fool proof, according to Soapy’s creator Griffin Boyce

Soapy works by automatically redirecting users to the website’s server directly. It replaces the DNS system entirely for these blocked websites.

Domain Name Servers match domains like Google.com to their server’s IP address (in this case http://74.125.224.72/ ). This process is usually invisible to the user, but you can access Google’s site by using their IP address as well

Most blocked sites are blocked through those Domain Name Servers. So in basic terms: Soapy let’s you access these blocked websites by directly searching for and linking you to a website’s IP address. Soapy acts like a rolodex of IP addresses, effectively circumventing SOPA blockades.

There is a clear message behind the plug-in: If anyone can access blocked websites anyways, what’s the point of SOPA?

Boyce is pre-empting his own site being shut down by putting his code up on Github as an open source download. There’s not much use for Soapy right now, but Boyce’s idea is that coders, hackers and informed consumers will download the plug-in and turn it active should SOPA get passed.

The plug-in is only available for Firefox, but Boyce is working on a Chrome version and a stand-alone app version for both Windows and Mac OSX. Right now, the plug-in will only get around DNS-style blocking and users are reporting some issues, though fixes are constantly being rolled out.

Will the Internet always be one step ahead of legislation? Is Soapy a SOPA-killer?

 

[gourimoko]

gour, I always thought that green dot was a good idea to rip off Redbox... Never followed through with it.

Green dot is a great way to rip off tons of shit.. You know what's better than Green Dot? Fucking Bitcoin VISA cards.. But I won't get too much deeper into that.. Just know, Bitcoin is live..

 

[Man Called X]

Hate to revive this thread, but ANON just took down cia.gov around 3:30 today. So going on 3 hours it's been down.

Fuck, they're just pretty much going at everything right now.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399909,00.asp
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399942,00.asp
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400140,00.asp

 

[KB]

Hate to revive this thread, but ANON just took down cia.gov around 3:30 today. So going on 3 hours it's been down.

With the RIAA/MPAA crying foul about people protesting the legislation. Then the head of the RIAA, Dodds, going on national TV and threatening to pull all donations to politicians that don't vote in favor of this kind of legislation

Also these two articles (there are many other like these out there as well)

BitTorrent Piracy Doesn’t Affect US Box Office Returns, Study Finds

https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-piracy-doesnt-affect-us-box-office-returns-study-finds-120210/

Megaupload shutdown did nothing to slow piracy, study finds

http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/09/megaupload-shutdown-did-nothing-to-slow-piracy-study-finds/

 

[Maximus]

I'm seriously going to start prepping. Technology and the internets is going to be the end of us. We can't control it anymore. ANON or 15 year olds in China are going to trigger events that can't be reacted to or controlled....it will trigger an awful series of events. One night our power will just go out and wont come back on for a very long time.

(((Power goes out....hackers emerge from basement)))
Hacker 1: "YEAH!!!! WE FUCKING DID IT! FUCK THE GOV'T! FUCK THE BANKS!!!
Hacker 2: "FUCK THE CIA!!! FUCK THE MAN!!!"
Hacker 1: "Fuck the rich!!!!"
Hacker 2: "Yeah!!!!"
Hacker 1: "Yeah..."
Hacker 2: "What do you want to do now?"
Hacker 1: "Let's go hack some other motherfuckers!!!!"
Hacker 2: "Ummm...there's no power...our computers dont work."
Hacker 1: "Oh yeah. Well, let's just go play Xbox."
Hacker 2: "Cant do that either..."
Hacker 1: "Uhhh. Let's go to gas station and get some Mountain Dew"
Hacker 2: "The gas station is on fire..."
Hacker 1: "What the hell are we going to do for food?"
Hacker 2: "I dont know how to hunt...do you?"
Hacker 1: "I'll go google it...oh wait, forget it."
Hacker 2: "Want to throw the football around to try and keep warm?"
Hacker 1: "I dont know how..."
Hacker 2: "I'm cold..."
Hacker 1: "I'm hungry..."
Hacker 2: "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."
Hacker 1: "Now you tell me..."

 

[Chardon]

+

=ANON. Anon is nothing more then 18 year old virgins living in moms basement who wear those stupid guy faukes masks. I want to punch every single one of them.

 

[gourimoko]

Why does what they look like mean anything? And most members of Anonymous are adults, many of whom are security analysts, IT networking specialists, or programmers like myself and several other members of the board like KIMVP and McOhio (IIRC).

Just because someone is technically savvy and simultaneously politically/ideologically inclined doesn't mean that they chill in their mom's basement. And quite frankly, who gives a fuck where they live.