Sopa is terrible, but yeah. If only we could keep this momentum rolling into something even more productive afterwards. 
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. - John Kenneth Galbraith
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
On the other hand, if the interwebs hadn't been hijacked by a bunch self-righteous thieves, well-meaning but poorly executed attempts to stop the stealing wouldn't be an issue. Right there's a great argument against anonymity.
Wait, I'm confused. Who're the thieves in this example?
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Quoth Delphi Aegis:
Wait, I'm confused. Who're the thieves in this example?
Read much? This whole thing is designed to protect intellectual property.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
It also seem like bad business over all.
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Bloodsage's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
Read much? This whole thing is designed to protect intellectual property.
You mean it's the latest push by the MPAA/RIAA/BSA to justify things that just aren't quite true.
If you lobby your "facts" hard enough, they eventually become "true".
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Bent over the coffee table, Random Insanity Generator squealed:
You mean it's the latest push by the MPAA/RIAA/BSA to justify things that just aren't quite true.If you lobby your "facts" hard enough, they eventually become "true".
Bloodsage fucked around with this message on 01-19-2012 at 07:05 AM.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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If Bloodsage was a glacier, they'd be a fast one:
On the other hand, if the interwebs hadn't been hijacked by a bunch self-righteous thieves, well-meaning but poorly executed attempts to stop the stealing wouldn't be an issue. Right there's a great argument against anonymity.
The anger over this is simply because of the incredible incompetence with which this legislation was drafted when paired with the swiftness with which congress was trying to pass it. I don't think anyone with exception to your self righteous thieves are angry at big content for trying to stop piracy.
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Verily, the chocolate bunny rabbits doth run and play while Blindy. gently hums:
The anger over this is simply because of the incredible incompetence with which this legislation was drafted when paired with the swiftness with which congress was trying to pass it. I don't think anyone with exception to your self righteous thieves are angry at big content for trying to stop piracy.
Really? Seems like every other article I read in various news sources has a section where some random "online privacy/freedom" organization argues that all information should be free, or puts forward the tired, entitled notion that, "If it was only priced fairly, people wouldn't steal it!"
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage had this to say about John Romero:
Really? Seems like every other article I read in various news sources has a section where some random "online privacy/freedom" organization argues that all information should be free, or puts forward the tired, entitled notion that, "If it was only priced fairly, people wouldn't steal it!"
I'm not sure if you are joking or not.
The internet is an international beast. This means that there are massive logistical issues when trying to combat a foreign entities that host content which violates American law outside of American soil. SOPA aims to mitigate these issues.
The contention does not lie in the above, but the below.
SOPA not only fails to achieve its objective, but creates massive collateral damage as well. Even on the fringe cases that SOPA reaches its intent, the poroposed punishments are disproportional to the crimes involved.
Major concerns.
- The biggest tool SOPA uses is the removal of violating sites from DNS and search engines. The pirating community already circumvented this issue and the bill has not even passed. Since DNS is a major component in trusted security and the workarounds to circumvent this will most likely trend to be popular, various forms of cyber-cons will become more prevalent and harder to track. Online financial transactions will be less secure. Hell, when I had a recent dinner conversation talk about SOPA the opposition didn't talk like a 14 year old child, he talked about how he lost millions in funding for his security startup because VCs don't want to risk investment in an unstable medium until the future of SOPA is shown - internet security.
- As stated before, this is having a massive impact on the entrepreneurial community, angels, and vcs. The laws are poorly written and their ambiguity makes internet startups look like a much riskier venture.
- SOPA's laws are so strict even whitheouse.gov can be taken down for having this petition on it. Why? Any suspected violation anywhere on a site is justification to take down an entire roman.
- SOPA circumvents due process. Corporations would have the ability to take down a site without going through legal process. The corporations that would be given this already have shown a history of trying to use existing laws to take down their political opponents and competition, even when said opponents haven't actually violated the law.
- As for the severity of the punishment, I'm going to steal an example from Felecia Day's blog. "Under SOPA, you could get 5 years in prison for uploading a Michael Jackson song, one year more than the doctor who killed him."
- SOPA creates massive security issues. For example, under SOPA should the US declare war on a nation that has SOPA taketown power, that nation could cripple the US infrastructure and economy via SOPA takedown requests (hospitals that rely on HL7, schools, airports, etc). Any attempts to circumvent this would have massive security vulnerabilities.
Ghost of Forums Past fucked around with this message on 01-19-2012 at 07:59 AM.
Entrepreneurs, financial institutions, tech experts, and lawyers don't care what happens to foriegn pirates. They care what happens to the future of the industry, about the safety of the american people, the rights their citizens, and the ability of this nation to compete in a glowingly competitive tech market. These are the voices against it. If 14 year olds follow their lead and make stupid comments, fine - but don't use these quotes form 14 year olds as representation for the opposition.
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Bloodsage probably says this to all the girls:
Really? Seems like every other article I read in various news sources has a section where some random "online privacy/freedom" organization argues that all information should be free, or puts forward the tired, entitled notion that, "If it was only priced fairly, people wouldn't steal it!"
Multiple artists have pointed out that their ability to do what they do would be crippled or destroyed. Anyone who spends a few minutes looking at it can see the abusive nature with which it can be employed. And you seriously think that it wouldn't be used in that manner? Hell, Apple has tried for quite a while now to block or disable multiple rivals to their iPhone and iPad devices. Microsoft has attempted similar things against Android in general. Cisco? They'll never have to buy out a competitor again with this option available, they can just crush them outright.
It's a crap piece of legislation that's been railroaded through the system by people with deep pockets. The "piracy is killing us" crap that's being used in favor of it has been the RIAA/MPAA/BSA's main battle cry for what... over a decade now? Piracy being a bad thing? Not gonna argue that. The inflated BS stats used to justify this "overwhelming retaliatory strike" of legislation? That's just a ton of shit. You can't sit there and tell me that there were "Fair Hearings" about this when it was stacked 5 to 1+ on the Pro side... Oh, wait.. did any of the Opposing arguments get to make the floor during discussion? So you have the lobbyists stacking the evidence to lead a bunch of people who don't know their ass from their iPhones, technologically speaking, down the decision trail they want to have as "the truth".
Come up with a piece of legislation that actually has things in it that "We Americans" believe in (you know, like Due Process? Innocence before Guilt?) and odds are you'll still have the pro-pirate people up in arms, but you won't have anywhere NEAR the problem from anyone else.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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From the book of Bloodsage, chapter 3, verse 16:
For those who haven't been reading carefully, I haven't, anywhere, endorsed SOPA. I've merely done what most refuse to do, and acknowledge the problem it's supposed to fight. Hence my use of terms such as "misguided."
".. and now they've come for me."
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Quoth Random Insanity Generator:
".. and now they've come for me."
That's just dumb. [OBTW, if you're a thief, they should come for you. Just like if you rob the local 7/11.] Bloodsage fucked around with this message on 01-19-2012 at 03:37 PM.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Bloodsage probably says this to all the girls:
Really? Seems like every other article I read in various news sources has a section where some random "online privacy/freedom" organization argues that all information should be free, or puts forward the tired, entitled notion that, "If it was only priced fairly, people wouldn't steal it!"
Yeah, there's no examples of DRM free content making actual money and being well received. If you treat your customers like criminals repeatedly (By iTunes nuking your entire legitimately owned music library repeatedly, rootkits installed along to play a CD on your computer "just to make sure", etc), then your consumer base is going to act like criminals.
There will always be people who pirate a product, whatever it is. I'm not saying that these people are in the right, or should be defended. But treating me like that person when I have done nothing to show that I am a pirate is encouraging me to become one. And shoving legislation down my throat that doesn't even do what it is supposed to doesn't exactly increase my trust-level here.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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How.... Delphi Aegis.... uughhhhhh:
But treating me like that person when I have done nothing to show that I am a pirate is encouraging me to become one. And shoving legislation down my throat that doesn't even do what it is supposed to doesn't exactly increase my trust-level here.
Well I guess that's a convenient way to rationalize your way into getting free shit.
Sooner or later, it seems inevitable that something like SOPA will pass, and the people bragging about how they've got 4TB of pirated movies will have nobody to blame but themselves.
ps: I'm against SOPA.
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Bloodsage had this to say about Pirotess:
For those who haven't been reading carefully, I haven't, anywhere, endorsed SOPA. I've merely done what most refuse to do, and acknowledge the problem it's supposed to fight. Hence my use of terms such as "misguided."
It's probably true that many of the loudest people out there are "information should be free, maaaan" types. You know, the kind that will gladly engage in a multi-page forum argument about how copyright infringement isn't technically "theft" under current US law.
As you might expect, the loudest voices are rarely the most reasonable. There are plenty of anti-SOPA/PIPA types out there that would appreciate and even benefit from copyright enforcement with some more teeth. I get your skepticism about the extent of the outcry, but I prefer that these bills be fully vetted in committee (and in the mythical public forum) than later in the courts through the inevitable EFF lawsuit.
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There was much rejoicing when Bloodsage said this:
Really? Seems like every other article I read in various news sources has a section where some random "online privacy/freedom" organization argues that all information should be free, or puts forward the tired, entitled notion that, "If it was only priced fairly, people wouldn't steal it!"
This is a common argument that's pretty dumb, yeah. I'd venture that most people that pirate things do it because they can. Some content creators would venture that piracy is a service problem, but I agree with you that it's hardly the whole picture. People will continue to pirate it as long as it's possible, even if the paid alternative is cheap and easy.
That said, there may be something to the point that if you make the services cheap and easy enough to access, the increased volume make take your sales to the point that you can't say piracy is hurting your bottom line. There are probably those dedicated enough to piracy that they'd rather pay someone to FedEx them a pirated Blu-ray than pay for (cheaper) original disc. You'll never reach those people. I'm not sure that it's worth further crowding our justice system and creepy private jails with, either, but that's not really up to me.
It's a difficult problem, though, and it's one that I certainly don't have the answer to. Ars Technica put out a bunch of interesting articles about the whole ordeal yesterday, but of course they're a "tech blog with a long history of challenging efforts to curb content theft."
why did I write all this? fuck
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Bloodsage was naked while typing this:
That's just dumb. [OBTW, if you're a thief, they should come for you. Just like if you rob the local 7/11.]
We've criticized other governments for abuse of power in censoring what their citizens can see and read. So here's the start of it for us. We (meaning a corp entity) don't like something, so we're going to have it erased. How long do you think it will be until the limited amount of due process these bills require gets stepped around by "I have a friend" phone calls?
Your assumption that "this will only touch the criminals" is as laughable as the "information wants to be free" crowd. Similar but opposite end of the spectrum.
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Taeldian wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
Well I guess that's a convenient way to rationalize your way into getting free shit.Sooner or later, it seems inevitable that something like SOPA will pass, and the people bragging about how they've got 4TB of pirated movies will have nobody to blame but themselves.
ps: I'm against SOPA.
Didn't the piracy rate hold pretty steady when Canada put a "piracy tax" on blank media? Which given that content increased means that piracy would have had to increase at the same rate....
I can't say I'm following your "logic."
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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Random Insanity Generator got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Didn't the piracy rate hold pretty steady when Canada put a "piracy tax" on blank media? Which given that content increased means that piracy would have had to increase at the same rate....
You're going to have to spell out your point more clearly.
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From the book of Khyron, chapter 3, verse 16:
SOPA seems like a much worse version of this :
Yeah, I guess seeing a couple FBI warnings and skipping the previews (which I never ever have a problem skipping) is a good justification for stealing.
It's not even voting with your wallet because voting with your wallet would mean not seeing the movie. Claiming you're "voting with your wallet" when you steal the movie is completely disingenuous.
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Taeldian had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
Yeah, I guess seeing a couple FBI warnings and skipping the previews (which I never ever have a problem skipping) is a good justification for stealing.It's not even voting with your wallet because voting with your wallet would mean not seeing the movie. Claiming you're "voting with your wallet" when you steal the movie is completely disingenuous.
Yeah but i liked that image so i wanted to post it and this thread was the most appropriate place to do so.
I just wonder whether or not there will EVER be a legitimate 'fix' for piracy that either A) is not ridiculously easy to circumvent by the pirates, or B) doesn't do more damage than the problem it's trying to fix. Khyron fucked around with this message on 01-19-2012 at 11:32 PM.
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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Bloodsage said:
What? So you're saying that arresting people who rob the 7/11 indicates incipient marshal law? Shutting down a store that resells stolen goods is now somehow prelude to the collapse of all legitimate trade?I can't say I'm following your "logic."
You're claiming that this can only be put against "a store that resells stolen goods". You think that it's only going to "be used for good".
Given that there are provisions in the bill for "Oh, you fucked up? We'll let it slide" in terms of wrongful accusation and seizure, I don't see why a company WOULDN'T go overboard. It would take months, if possible at all, to reverse the damage done which gives the company that invoked it time to do whatever they want/need. Bringing a product to market that's going to be better than Product X? The company making Product X can delay you getting to market or getting the funding without any repercussions under this set of laws, or just destroy you because they invoked it. They *think* that you might be "stealing" their work and you're gone. Apple vs Samsung. Apple vs HTC. Samsung vs Apple. Microsoft vs Any Android-based Project.
Here's another nasty example:
Let's go with Time Warner. They look around and think "Hey, this person is putting out videos based on our IP". They call down their food chain and speak with someone at TimeWarner Cable. "Hey, we need to invoke SOPA on site XXXX". And the answer of "Yes Boss" is echo'ed back. Now, the "infringing content" in this case is someone's machinima videos from a game tied to a movie. Being sold? Nope. Causing damage to the property? For sake of argument, we assume "No". Getting tons of views? We'll assume "Yes" otherwise the first part probably wouldn't have happened.
So, without any investigation, process or anything else a Company comes down on and kills a site. If it was someone's site, "problem solved", only one person effected. Oh, but wait... this wasn't a Person's site, this was a "Community Site". Others have now been impacted. People putting out educational videos via this site. Or others who have just been making video blogs. Or others who have been documenting a foreign regime's abuse of their citizens. Obviously YouTube would be the default assumption of the site, but there are others that are not YouTube who do similar things.
You now have a "Content Provider" being Judge, Jury, Executioner. Initially it would effect TWC customers getting to said site, but that SOPA induced order would eventually filter across the board. Worse yet, the site was actually a foreign site completely. Not hosted in the US, not domain registered in the US. Remember the educational videos? Videos that individuals in other countries could load up and use for classroom instruction, or others could use for Self Study courses. You've now gone from "bad" to "vile". Yes, I'm throwing "worst case scenarios" out, but in this case all that would happen is a long legal battle to restore services "legitimately" (gee, I register a new domain and life goes on "illegitimately") and Time Warner doesn't even have to say "Oops, our bad."
Make the bill have actual balances in it. Make it adhere to reasonable due process. Since we've already "fucked up" and allowed Content Creators to control Content Providers and Content Delivery make it address "loopholes" like this. Shit, why not actually sit down with OTHER COUNTRIES and try to design an international law that would actually be properly enforceable within other jurisdictions, not just enforcing what we see fit?
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Khyron had this to say about Duck Tales:
Yeah but i liked that image so i wanted to post it and this thread was the most appropriate place to do so.I just wonder whether or not there will EVER be a legitimate 'fix' for piracy that either A) is not ridiculously easy to circumvent by the pirates, or B) doesn't do more damage than the problem it's trying to fix.
I don't think there ever will be. The frustrating thing is that even though there may not be a "good" solution, this is going to keep popping up again and again.
The only way to prevent that is for people to decide to stop stealing stuff.
That's not going to happen. It's (virtually) risk-free thievery, and people can come up with dozens of excuses for why it's ok to do.
Chances are, one of these awful bills (either these or new ones down the road) is eventually going to get passed, and it's going to ruin the Internet for everyone.
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The logic train ran off the tracks when Random Insanity Generator said:
You're claiming that this can only be put against "a store that resells stolen goods". You think that it's only going to "be used for good".
He never claimed that at all.
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Bent over the coffee table, Random Insanity Generator squealed:
You're claiming that this can only be put against "a store that resells stolen goods". You think that it's only going to "be used for good".Given that there are provisions in the bill for "Oh, you fucked up? We'll let it slide" in terms of wrongful accusation and seizure, I don't see why a company WOULDN'T go overboard. It would take months, if possible at all, to reverse the damage done which gives the company that invoked it time to do whatever they want/need. Bringing a product to market that's going to be better than Product X? The company making Product X can delay you getting to market or getting the funding without any repercussions under this set of laws, or just destroy you because they invoked it. They *think* that you might be "stealing" their work and you're gone. Apple vs Samsung. Apple vs HTC. Samsung vs Apple. Microsoft vs Any Android-based Project.
Here's another nasty example:
Let's go with Time Warner. They look around and think "Hey, this person is putting out videos based on our IP". They call down their food chain and speak with someone at TimeWarner Cable. "Hey, we need to invoke SOPA on site XXXX". And the answer of "Yes Boss" is echo'ed back. Now, the "infringing content" in this case is someone's machinima videos from a game tied to a movie. Being sold? Nope. Causing damage to the property? For sake of argument, we assume "No". Getting tons of views? We'll assume "Yes" otherwise the first part probably wouldn't have happened.
So, without any investigation, process or anything else a Company comes down on and kills a site. If it was someone's site, "problem solved", only one person effected. Oh, but wait... this wasn't a Person's site, this was a "Community Site". Others have now been impacted. People putting out educational videos via this site. Or others who have just been making video blogs. Or others who have been documenting a foreign regime's abuse of their citizens. Obviously YouTube would be the default assumption of the site, but there are others that are not YouTube who do similar things.
You now have a "Content Provider" being Judge, Jury, Executioner. Initially it would effect TWC customers getting to said site, but that SOPA induced order would eventually filter across the board. Worse yet, the site was actually a foreign site completely. Not hosted in the US, not domain registered in the US. Remember the educational videos? Videos that individuals in other countries could load up and use for classroom instruction, or others could use for Self Study courses. You've now gone from "bad" to "vile". Yes, I'm throwing "worst case scenarios" out, but in this case all that would happen is a long legal battle to restore services "legitimately" (gee, I register a new domain and life goes on "illegitimately") and Time Warner doesn't even have to say "Oops, our bad."
Make the bill have actual balances in it. Make it adhere to reasonable due process. Since we've already "fucked up" and allowed Content Creators to control Content Providers and Content Delivery make it address "loopholes" like this. Shit, why not actually sit down with OTHER COUNTRIES and try to design an international law that would actually be properly enforceable within other jurisdictions, not just enforcing what we see fit?
First, where did you get the idea I support SOPA? You should read better.
Second, where do you get the idea there's no process involved in shutting down a site other than, "Time Warner wants to?" At least according to an article yesterday in the Washington Post, only the Justice Department can invoke that penalty, and it must be reviewed by a federal court.
Third, why do you think it's okay to make something available to pirate as long as it's free? "I bought it, and all I'm doing is giving free copies to all my friends, and, hell, the entire world via the internet, so what's the problem?" is exactly the problem. It's illegal.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
