Are you familiar with SOPA?

[Hans3T]

Today a lot of websites, including large ones like Mozilla, Wikipedia, Reddit, etc. are protesting the SOPA Bill introduced to Congress. Lawmakers believe this bill will put a stop to piracy of copyrighted information online, because it would allow ISP's to block websites suspected of such activities; others view it as a crippling blow to the First Amendment as well as unnecessary internet censorship.

The only article not blocked on Wikipedia today is the page referencing SOPA. Take a read and think about what, if anything, SOPA means to you.

Passing SOPA could be be a step towards protecting copyrighted music, photos, and other works, or, a slippery slope to censoring more and more content on the internet.

 

[Nacho]

It is a big step towards web censorship.

sent from my Leapfrog Leappad using Tapatalk

 

[netrogue]

Websites are just one of many methods for people to transfer data pirated or otherwise. By allowing ISP's to police traffic on their network is a terrible idea. How will a questionable site be submitted? Who will have the final say? How would you be able to remove yourself from the "list"?

Will just the tier 1 providers (AT&T, Verizon) be the ones blocking or will they allow tier 3 providers (local telephone/tv companies) also block? Most of the data that would be questionable would already be encrypted as it passed through the tier 1 provider. The only people this will "stop" are the idiots that don't know what they are doing.

The people that put this thing together must still be rocking it on AOL.

 

[Steve #1]

I thought they stopped piracy by killing Napster?

The entertainment industry is so out of touch they shouldn't even be zipping their own zippers, and the only grasp on reality that the law makers have is who is giving them the cash.

Perfectly executed, SOPA could put a dent in online piracy, but it won't hurt the big time pirates. They already know the techniques to get around the constraingts that SOPA would put in place which are very similar to what countries such as China, Iran, Syria are using today (yes, that should make you want to vomit). It will hurt everyone else in the US, and the rest of the world, who uses the internet.


[video=youtube_share;elUwRb4DroU]http://youtu.be/elUwRb4DroU[/video]

 

[Portager]

I don't believe we have any censorship issues in :USA:, I can say whatever the **** I want and nobody is going to **** **** me! I can say President **** Obama is a **** **** **** and the first lady is a **** **** **** if I want. I can also say the entire **** party is a bunch of **** **** and they can **** **** me! See, I don't see any censorship issues!
:kissit:

 

[LagunaH1]

I haven't looked into SOPA / PIPA in details but:

I *do* understand the need to protect IP. I work for a software company and I have a hard time with folks who occasionally tell me they don't think our products (or, any others' for that matter) are worth paying for. The reason I have a hard time with the "I don't want to pay" approach is that it comes across as someone thinking that what I and my coworkers do is not of any value. -And yet the "I don't want to pay"'ers apparently *DO* most of the time want the benefit of the software.

From what I understand, SOPA would enable the legal system to REQUIRE ISP's or hosting companies to remove content or block connections to pirate sites if content can't be removed. So, if that's the case what would be required to force an ISP to block connections to a particular domain or host? Would it require a ruling by a court? What evidence would be required? The biggest issue I am worried about is when it comes to user-managed content. If a site unknowingly hosts pirated software because one of its users placed it there, how many attempts would the site get to remove the offending content before it gets blocked by ISP's? On that note, how is offending content defined? By who?

The bottom line to me is that I am worried what can happen if SOPA is misused. From what I have read, there seems to be an absence of checks and balances to counter misuse of SOPA regulations.

 

[Steve #1]

For the most part, software companies are staying out of the issue. While they do have a stake in the issue, many have as much to lose as they have to gain.

The main backers of SOPA are the MPAA and pharmacological companies to a lesser extent (but they have a ton of money to throw at the issue).

The questions you ask are some of the major problems with SOPA. The way the bill is written, if a piece of unauthorized intellectual property makes it to the internet, anybody that came in contact with it would be fined, required to remove it, required to block access to it, required to monitor packet data of anyone that did access it or just have entire websites be removed.
So, the way it is now under the DMCA, if somebody claims IP, it has to be removed if it isn’t authorized. The DMCA will be mute. No more “excuse me mister webmaster, that thing one of your users posted on your site belongs to me. Could you please remove it?” It would change to “Excuse me mister law enforcement officer, somebody put something that belongs to me on the internet. Could you please remove them, and the website they put it on, and the search engine whos spider stumbled upon it, and the ISP that let them access it………

And that's just the start of it. :no: