SOPA and PROTECT-IP

[Concept]

Just had to pop in here to say that Deoxys, I will be using that gif in future.

[Selena]

Originally Posted by deoxys

I honestly don't know how what is basically a form of theft can essentially be legal, but I approve wholeheartedly.

Because it would be kinda shitty to give kids 20.000 euro fines for downloading a music song.

Well I'm lying here, even if this would be illegal the music coorperation would only be able to claim as much as they can prove that they've lost due to that download. Which makes about 10 cents per song or something, not your silly 2000 dollar/euros per song rate.

However in addition you would have to pay a fine, which can either be placed under theft (highly unlikely) which would result in atmost a 14.000 dollar fine (I calculated to dollars for you), paid to the COURT, not the RIAA, or atmost 4 years in jail. Please note that this is for the whole lot, not per song. Also this does not apply to children (those under 1.

Holy smoke, it's still above $10.000 for downloading a song you might think, it's not. These fines are reserved for people who looted rich peoples homes or for the stealing part of robbing a bank. Downloading songs, again if illegal, would most likely be handled like shoplifting, unless the theif is a repeated offender, the fine for shoplifting is usually $280 (to court) + minor compensation for the shopowner (around $100), but because this compensation is for holding said shoplifter untill the police arrives, it wouldn't apply to illegal downloading. So the RIAA would still only get around 10 cents per download.

In short if the music coorperations would want to sue, they can only get back what they've lost. Nothing more, highly likely less as they have to prove that they've actually lost that amount of money from said act. Let alone that they would have to sue every downloader individually. Furthermore, since there still is something like privacy here (the police have no bussiness in your computer unless they have a court order, which means they would have to suspect something in the first place), it is nigh impossible to actually find and fine those who download without the music peeps pressing charges.

Uploading copywrighted material however is illegal.

EDIT: So yeah, making a profit and sharing outside of the household is, formaly, illegal. But if the sharing is minor it suffers from the same problems as catching downloaders, you won't get caught. It's the downloading viewing, and burning it on a CD/USB-stick that's legal, selling it or giving it to friends outside your own house is not. Then again pointing out the link where you can download the song is legal so...

[deoxys]

http://keepthewebopen.com/sopa

House is discussing it now and you can watch it here.

Here's a tl;dr of what you've missed so far:
"I don't understand the internet"

"Me either, but The Pirate Bay is evil and sites like it are evil and if you vote against this bill, then you're evil."

"Let's make TWO INTERNETS!"

"You're all stupid and this is a bad idea."

"Getting the government involved in everything always solves the problem am I right guys /sarcasm"

"This is censorship."

"^^what he said"

"You're all idiots and piracy is bad and you're supporting it by not supporting this"

[deoxys]

"I'm not a nerd but we need to pass this"

"Experts disagree with you, and you just said you don't know any better, this would RUIN our cybersecurity, they've proven it..."

"I disagree with them... and that's because..."

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?

edits in real time:
SOPA drinking game: take a shot anytime you hear the word "nerd", you may be blackout drunk in an hour. How unprofessional of them

3:49 - Lofgren: Why would we listen to people who have been paid to tell us the wrong thing? FUCK YES THIS WOMAN GETS IT

4:04 - Maxine Waters: Quit wasting our time debating this and move it forward. --- FUCK YOU BITCH, 4th person bought and paid for.

4:10 -



Right now, Ms. Jackson is actually making sense and they're trying to shut her up. Now they want her words recorded and written down where she called something someone said "offensive". This is BULLSHIT.

4:21 - from twitter (SteveKingIA) "We are debating the Stop Online Piracy Act and Shiela Jackson has so bored me that I'm killing time by surfing the Internet." FUCK YOU

4:30 - The internet is apparently "akin to a crackhouse"

[Copygoo]

I'm finally actually getting pissed the fuck off by all of this bullshit they are saying and pulling. I was concerned but not really angry before, but this is just pants on head retarded.

[deoxys]

The votes to add amendments are consistently being struck down 22-12. The people voting against them are doing so because they weren't paid off by the MPAA to vote yes on any. Fuck them. Fuck ALL of them.


I'm not happy. This bill actually looks like it could have a chance. I'm really worried.

Edit; Doing another vote now. Let's see if I'm right about this one, too

edit 2: Voted down, 24-10 I'm right again.

[Talon87]

You may be overreacting and/or misunderstanding the situation. May be, I dunno, you tell me. According to this CBS News article published today, what the House is doing right now is not voting on the bill but rather voting on whether the bill ought even to be voted on or not in its current form. Quote:

Originally Posted by CBS News

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee is meeting today to determine if a slightly, though still controversial, version of SOPA will move onto the House for a vote.

So, you have to consider this:

• if there are elements in the bill which would kill it for most congressmen, it's in the bill's supporters' best interests to get those things fixed before this is allowed to move on for a vote
• vice versa, if there are poisonous elements in the bill and you want to see the bill die and never come back, the best thing to do would be to go ahead and vote "Yes" to the question "Should we open the floor to voting on this bill?" so that you can then get people to vote "NO!" to the bill and kill it

I'm not saying that everyone who's voted "Yes" is in favor of seeing the bill die a horrible death on the open floor vote nor is everyone who's voted "No" in favor of seeing the bill be successfully amended so that it may be passed. I'm sure there are some double "Yes"es and some double "No"s in that mix. But I'm just saying, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of today's "Yes" voters plan to vote "No" when the bill comes up for its actual vote and, vice versa, if some of the people who have voted "No" today will be voting "Yes" when the bill is up for the floor vote.

It simply is not possible for this bill to pass in its current form. Youtube would be taken offline over night. Google would have to shut down its search engine service and Microsoft and Yahoo and all the others would have to follow suit. Some services would be able to keep on running, like Wikipedia (despite what Jimmy Wales has curiously threatened) or Amazon, but most importantly the ISPs themselves -- Time-Warner, Comcast, the whole schebang -- would have to close up shop if this passed. It's too expensive to comply with the law and too expensive to brazenly not comply with it and then get fined. It's a lose-lose situation and so it'd be game over for all the ISPs. The senators can't be that stupid to not understand this. (And if they are, then fine: they'll find out come the bill's first day as an enacted law and will then perform an emergency vote to repeal the law faster than you can say "flipflop"! ) I think the fact that it's getting so many "Yes" votes right now is not because "OH NOES THEY'VE ALL BEEN BOUGHT OFF!" but instead because you have a lot of senators who are saying, "I've already heard everything on this matter, nothing new is likely to come forth and persuade me to change my mind one way or the other, so let's just vote on whether we're going to put this up for a vote or not." That's why you're getting so many yeses: there's no reason to not put this up for a vote. From a legal perspective, it can be put up for a vote even in its current state and:
(1) they can then vote it dead with a cascade of "No"s or else
(2) the courts can say, "Um, no " and rule it null and void and tell Congress to try again next year
And since they know this -- since they know that either they're going to vote "No" or else the courts are -- they're eager to move on to voting on this bill.

If I'm reading it wrong? If this is the actual House vote and not just the House committee vote? Then I'll take back pretty much everything I wrote here since in that case it would be alarmingly clear that the House members are stupidly voting in favor of unsustainable legislature because the MPAA and RIAA stupidly bade them to do so.

[deoxys]

You're correct, this is all for the amendments to the bill. It's god and bad; bad that the people voting no consistently sponsored and supported this bill, and the people saying yes are against it.

If no amendments go through, the bill stays in its current form which makes it look HORRIBLE, and is more likely to be struck down. However, it also means that it may look horrible but still get voted through.

And no, these people really have all been bought off. A lot of these people are doing so because they've been told to vote for the bill in its current form and not for any amendments. I've been tracking the names and watching this debate for the past two and a half hours, everyone who says no is on the list of those who support the bill.

It's not just speculation, it's full on truth, as pointed out by Ms. Jackson and Ms. Lofgren, who makes a good point here.

But yes, you're correct for the most part. If no amendments are passed it makes the bill stay what it is and looks horrid, but it still goes to show that the people consistently voting no are horrible people.

[Tyranidos]

Some guy wants to recite "The Internet is for Porn." Looks like I tuned in at the right time.

[deoxys]

Originally Posted by Tyranidos

Some guy wants to recite "The Internet is for Porn." Looks like I tuned in at the right time.

I was just about to say.

wtfamiwatching.jpg

The guy who brought it up is smart, but this is almost... I mean, do they even care at this point?


EDIT: 6:42 - ALL IN FAVOR OF HAVING 4 TYPES OF PIZZA FOR DINNER INSTEAD OF 3 SAY AYE

[Talon87]

An interesting, easy-to-follow video which explains (in very basic terms) how things started circa May 2010 and and have led to where we are today, 1½ years later.

EDIT: Okay, maybe not interesting (I WAS LIED TO! XD), but it's pretty easy to follow. Probably of more use to our friends overseas than to any Americans who've already been following the story. Though this is the first I've heard of OPEN. So now we have three bills to worry about?

[Concept]

I once thought stupidity amongst politicians was fairly uniform between countries. Apparently I was wrong.

[Tyranidos]

Committee has adjourned until next year. Pirate all the stuff you can, quick!

[deoxys]

In case they take down sites, we can still access them through IP addresses. UPNetwork's is 70.38.64.23 (I think).

Here's a handy list of sites by IP with instructions on how to use it. DO NOT USE UNLESS SOPA IS IMPLEMENTED OR YOUR INTERNET COULD BREAK.

http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA/comment...mergency_list/

[Doppleganger]

Wasn't sure where to post this, dissect it as thou will.

[Talon87]

Disappointed. Capcom makes or has made some of my favorite games, including but not limited to:

• the Street Fighter II series
• the Mega Man, Mega Man X, Mega Man Zero series, and other Mega Man properties
• the Phoenix Wright series

Not to mention some other fan favorites like:

• Okami (as publisher)
• Resident Evil
• Marvel vs. Capcom

That doesn't mean that the corporate management is always the best or brightest or that companies don't change over time. It's unfortunate to see Capcom supporting this legislation. While it's no excuse, one can only hope that they're blindly supporting this because it's purportedly anti-piracy and they want to curb the piracy of their own properties and not because they actually did read the fine print and they still liked what they saw.

Anyway, not sure how much this'll really matter in the grand scheme of things. Capcom is not on the same scale as Nintendo or Sony. And these companies in turn are not on the same scale as Microsoft or Google. If the heavyweights are saying "FUCK NO " and the bill still passes, I hardly think we ought to blame the likes of Capcom for the bill's passage.

[deoxys]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Capcom is not on the same scale as Nintendo or Sony. And these companies in turn are not on the same scale as Microsoft or Google. If the heavyweights are saying "FUCK NO " and the bill still passes, I hardly think we ought to blame the likes of Capcom for the bill's passage.

Then prepare to be disappointed even further...

[Talon87]

I don't think you understood what I meant. I'm saying Google and Microsoft are the heavyweights, not Nintendo or Sony. My entire point was that even if the entire video game consortium comes out in favor of SOPA, a single Google or a single Microsoft completely eclipses them in all senses: revenue, profits, lobbying power, the whole shebang.

You'll disappoint me further when you tell me that Google and/or Microsoft have changed their tune and come out in favor of SOPA.

[deoxys]

Okay, I thought you were listing Nintendo and Sony right along side Google and MS. My bad.

I'm hearing rumor that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, are all considering a 'nuclear option' black out in protest of SOPA. Honestly, if facebook does a blackout with a short message about what SOPA is, the bill would be fucked. That's all it would take. A bunch of complacent users being told that facebook was going to be ruined would actually *gasp* do something about it.

At the end of the day, I doubt they'll actually do it though.

[Rangeet]

Originally Posted by deoxys

Honestly, if facebook does a blackout with a short message about what SOPA is, the bill would be fucked. That's all it would take. A bunch of complacent users being told that facebook was going to be ruined would actually *gasp* do something about it.

At the end of the day, I doubt they'll actually do it though.

Erm...if Google put "SOPA is evil, Stop SOPA" on the main page...yeah. The fact of the matter it this needs publicity. The sites, while annoying, are right, the more people know about this, the less chance it has.

[Rangeet]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/2818...l-crushing.htm

yay!

[Muyotwo]

If this does stick a fork in those two bills...



But it's too early for that now.

[Lonely Cubone]

Originally Posted by deoxys

I'm hearing rumor that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, are all considering a 'nuclear option' black out in protest of SOPA. Honestly, if facebook does a blackout with a short message about what SOPA is, the bill would be fucked. That's all it would take. A bunch of complacent users being told that facebook was going to be ruined would actually *gasp* do something about it.

Wikipedia are blackouting all English pages tomorrow. Shit just got real, sort it out America, we're being shafted for sharing a language with you lot here!

Reddit also going, if one of Google/Facebook joins (and I'd be stunned if either did) then that's a serious message. Twitter have already ruled it out.

[Concept]

Goddamit America stop shitting on the rest of the world.

[Talon87]

CNN interview with Jimmy Wales about the English-language Wikipedia going offline for the next 24 hours come midnight tonight.