Internet Black out

[Malika Fantasy 144625]

Don't forget that tomorrow a lot of websites will be going black (literally) to protest again SOPA and PIPA

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/18/us-internet-protest-idUSTRE80H01U20120118

[thedriver 6179]

I had no idea. Thanks for the info Malika!

[MightyPen 67414]

Yup! If there's anything you want to check on Wikipedia, better do it soon, or else wait 'til Thursday...

[Guest Ou**or**n]

Good reminder. I encourage everyone to read this blog entry from the Electronic Frontier Foundation on the multitude of dangers to freedom and society present in these bills.

[Reddog01 30280]

Google is supposed to do something as well. I am sure they will not disappear though - too much to lose I suppose.

[Luckyme 41401]

Last I heard, Wikipedia which I love using it a lot, will also blackout to join in the protest.

[fortunateone 156618]

Speaking for the other side, I have no problem with the new proposed legislation, if these sites want to help work with the creative industry to help protect their copyright protected creations from being stolen, then they can say they've done something. But citing freedoms, while supporting pirates and thieves, I have a problem with that.

 

For an example, almost every day I can see or hear signs from sps who have their ad or website or photos stolen and used by someone else. In addition, the fake ad sites steal their ads and post them, in order to increase content. The sps did not agree to the site terms, and did not agree to allow the site to use their products.

 

Those are examples of internet theft from copyright owners. The proposed legislation would make it much easier for an sp, seeing her property used without her permission, to contact the site admin, and on pain of being shut down, remove it without delay. It will hopefully have the added result of the site's not even doing it in the first place.

 

The excuse to not agree to it is that little 6 year old Suki won't be able to lip synch to Beyonce and get it posted on youtube without youtube getting shut down is lame. The intent is to make sure that artists, photographers, writers, song writers and performers, movie makers, don't see their work being reproduced, copied, and sold without compensation.

 

If you created something, with your own hard work, you would not want to see someone else either take the credit for it, profit from it, or stick it on a site without your knowledge or permission.

 

If wikipedia doesn't take responsibility for stolen content to be posted on their site, then who is it exactly that is supposed to take responsibility for any laws broken, or copyright infringement, or piracy?

[Phaedrus 209521]

Speaking for the other side, I have no problem with the new proposed legislation, if these sites want to help work with the creative industry to help protect their copyright protected creations from being stolen, then they can say they've done something. But citing freedoms, while supporting pirates and thieves, I have a problem with that.

 

Freedom is important. The fact that a minority of people abuse their freedom doesn't make it any less important, and does not make freedom inherently bad. The fact that thieves exist does not mean that each and every one of us should be assumed to be a thief.

 

For an example, almost every day I can see or hear signs from sps who have their ad or website or photos stolen and used by someone else. In addition, the fake ad sites steal their ads and post them, in order to increase content. The sps did not agree to the site terms, and did not agree to allow the site to use their products.

 

Those are examples of internet theft from copyright owners. The proposed legislation would make it much easier for an sp, seeing her property used without her permission, to contact the site admin, and on pain of being shut down, remove it without delay. It will hopefully have the added result of the site's not even doing it in the first place.

 

True, but SOPA/PIPA won't help this. Quite the opposite, in fact; they'll make it far worse, as they allow for sites to be shut down purely on the basis of an accusation, with no judicial oversight.

 

Think about the implications of that for a moment. It means that a smart thief in the future won't just steal your pics; she'll steal your pics and then immediately launch a complaint under SOPA/PIPA, which will get YOUR website shut down. There's no obstacle to this; bypassing the courts means that no proof of infringement is required. And there won't be anything you can do about it. The rights and wrongs of the situation don't matter; the first person to assert ownership of the copyright has a huge built-in advantage.

 

Don't be lulled into thinking this couldn't happen. Since the judiciary is bypassed, there's no need for any proof beyond what someone who probably just wants a quiet life is prepared to ask for and verify. Sure, you could probably go through the courts and get things sorted out eventually, but it'd take years and a lot of money. Is that really what you want?

 

The excuse to not agree to it is that little 6 year old Suki won't be able to lip synch to Beyonce and get it posted on youtube without youtube getting shut down is lame. The intent is to make sure that artists, photographers, writers, song writers and performers, movie makers, don't see their work being reproduced, copied, and sold without compensation.

 

There are already laws that prevent this. The problem is for folks like the RIAA and MPAA that they're *laws*, and to get them enforced you have to do tedious things like going through a judicial process and proving guilt in a system that presumes innocence... and that kind of thing *really* cuts into the profit margins. Make no mistake, this is not about intellectual property; this is about money, and an attempt by a dying industry to avert their own destruction. It won't work.

 

Again, remember: 6-year old Suki isn't going to be able to shut down Beyonce, but another SP could shut you down.

 

If you created something, with your own hard work, you would not want to see someone else either take the credit for it, profit from it, or stick it on a site without your knowledge or permission.

 

That doesn't apply to everyone. Some are fiercely protective of their works; some are very happy to allow them to be distributed as widely as possible. The fact that you may be in the first camp doesn't mean everyone else is.

 

There's a good chance that you're reading this using software that was written and released by someone who was more concerned about the greater good of the world than hanging on to the code they'd written. I'd be very surprised if CERB wasn't running on servers running such code.

 

If wikipedia doesn't take responsibility for stolen content to be posted on their site, then who is it exactly that is supposed to take responsibility for any laws broken, or copyright infringement, or piracy?

 

I'd recommend not going after Wikipedia - they actually put quite a lot of effort to ensure that everything published on their website is done under the standard Creative Commons license and that no copyright laws are broken by them. There would be better targets for your ire.

 

To answer your question: there are already laws, and a process for enforcing them. It has worked and has been continuously improved for hundreds of years. It's not so broken that it suddenly needs to be bypassed entirely.

 

Two final ironies. First, the sanctions against websites proposed by SOPA/PIPA would be trivial to bypass, so the proposed laws wouldn't even work as they're allegedly intended to; this is the problem with having legislation written by a bunch of old men who utterly fail to understand what the Internet is and how it works.

 

Secondly, I'm quite surprised to see a SP supporting the arbitrary policing of the Internet by US-based organizations. Would you care to speculate where that goes when the religious right want to shut down everything they don't like? Trust me, they'd *love* to shut you down. Completely. Forever. Never mind that you may not live or work in the US; your very existence is intolerable to them.

 

And finally... here's the real problem with SOPA, admirably explained by Hitler :)

 

[fortunateone 156618]

Well said, but 'freedom' in this case is used to excuse theft. If, for example, a newspaper did not have an online version, the only way for you to read it is to buy it. OR, you can steal it, and read it that way. You are free to read the newspaper, how you go about accessing that information is the issue here. The freedom does not include freedom to steal copyright content that has been reproduced without the owners permission.

 

The entertainment industry is not being served by existing laws, and if that is the case, then this is a real problem. If the existing laws were sufficient, this new legislation would not be even introduced.

 

Do you see what I am getting at here?

 

 

wikipedia here is given as an example only. If they are taking care to check the content posted, then what is the problem? The problem is the sites who do not, and who profit by not doing that. It isn't the same thing at all, and certainly no ire towards wiki or any other responsible site. My objections are the overwhelming belief by the general population using the internet that because they can do something (copy and paste) that no one should be allowed to tell them they cannot steal what they are copying and pasting without consequences. If they stole a book out of a shop, or a dvd out of a store, or a bottle of wine from the bar, all of those things are exactly the same thing.

 

What I find also odd are the examples given by the opponents, which tend to have nothing to do with reality or even the proposed laws themselves. What is the purpose of the reference to the religious nut here, regarding sp ads or sites? That has nothing to do with my ownership of my ad, photos, and site content, and not allowing (and not wanting to allow) some other person, or website, to simply copy and paste it wherever and whenever they want to just 'because' it's the internet and no one can tell them what to do. That kind of lack of responsibility and insistence that illegal things should be allowed for the purpose of freedom is a very immature way of viewing this all. Not saying you are immature, but the majority of objections to it come from a level of immaturity about business, creative works, and copyright on the internet. Most ppl think that stuff on the internet is free, period.

 

Why would any sp object to the kinds of laws that would ensure no one is going to run around and steal their stuff, because finally they will be aware of the consequences of their actions, that there are consequences, because right now I guarantee you the majority of the people hearing about this act have no clue that copyright exists and that copyright owners are protected. In fact, the majority of ppl out there thumb their noses at anyone complaining about seeing their stuff taken, and misused, and not being compensated for them, and in fact, encourage it and let others know how they too can watch movies and tv and copy music without having to pay anyone for it.

 

and seriously, Hitler? Isn't he always brought out when someone has actually lost an internet debate?

[Kathryn Bardot 99339]

This is a good video explaining why ProIP/SOPA should be stopped:

 

Although I do like The Oatmeal's take on it better: theoatmeal.com/sopa

 

:)

[conquistador 18487]

Most of the info about it is, shall we say, 'censored' by the anti-sopa crew lol. So it ends up being really difficult to find an unbiased or even pro-sopa story, and even the balanced ones try to find a way to discredit it in some way.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/jan/19/behind-music-anti-piracy-legislation

 

 

I'm not really clear why someone would support SOPA...have a look at AmeliaMA's video and gives a good idea of what could happen.

 

Honestly i think the entertainment industry is taking things a bit too far...taking down a youtube clip of a baby dancing to a song playing in the back ground, crazy. It's all about profit for the entertainment industry.

 

Just imagine if this would go through, you would have to pay for every thing...what if you already own the song and have to pay for it more than once, crazy...even just the clip.

 

It's all about the gov controlling the internet and this the last bastion where the gov doesn't have any real control and you want them to take this freedom away from you. And there are already copyright laws for the internet and this just takes it a step further...do you really want that?

[fortunateone 156618]

I think my point is that the anti-sopa faction is doing a good smear campaign and fear mongering. The examples used are extreme, and to be honest, unlikely. For one thing, the copyright owner makes the complaint, not some random person. Is it likely or reasonable to assume that Beyonce's legal team is going to come to youtube and demand the baby bouncing to one of her songs had to come down? Really??

 

That is the kind of examples given by them tho. As well as random folks lodging complaints, which will shut down the internet? Really?? Do random folks own the copyright material? No, they don't. But neither does the site profiting from selling it, which actually is the issue here.

 

I've seen the wiki guy interviewed. All these ppl do is say 'it bad, not good, make it stop". They have absolutely no reasons given as to why "it bad" and absolutely no effort in suggesting what would be better.

 

If anyone really wants an unbiased opinion of the act, I would suggest one looks deeper into who is really affected by the way things are, and how they are suffering because of it. Then take another look at who is benefiting by the way things are, and how they are profiting from it. Take a harder look at the hypocrisy of the opponents.

[Kubrickfan 12836]

Given what I do for a living, I should be for these laws but I'm not.

 

There are already laws on the books to protect the content in question, and these proposed laws place the onus on the wrong party in my opinion. As long as a party has the right to object to the content provider/creator and go to court if the content isn't taken down, that should be satisfactory for anything short of criminal behavior.

 

I fully support the copyright law, but it is wrong to make other people responsible for the obligation of the copyright holder to enforce its rights. That horse has already left the barn.

[Phaedrus 209521]

Thanks for replying, FO. Some more thoughts from me. (Warning for everyone: this post contains some digressions into more general intellectual property and state-of-the-universe discussions, and there is no tldr version...)

 

Well said, but 'freedom' in this case is used to excuse theft. If, for example, a newspaper did not have an online version, the only way for you to read it is to buy it. OR, you can steal it, and read it that way.

 

Or borrow someone else's and read it, or pick up one that was left on the bus. I'm not trying to nitpick here; the point is that the buy/steal dichotomy is a false one. There are entirely legal ways of accessing content that you don't own. If I came to see you and you put some nice background music on, should I make sure you've acquired broadcast rights for it?

 

You are free to read the newspaper, how you go about accessing that information is the issue here. The freedom does not include freedom to steal copyright content that has been reproduced without the owners permission.

 

I shall come back to this in more detail in a bit, but there's a fundamental problem here: it's no longer possible to profit by selling easily-replicable content. This is a fundamental change in the world; nobody said it was going to be easy to manage. What we're seeing with SOPA et al is an effort by Big Content to prevent their entire reason for existence from complete extinction; alas, that's the way the world has gone (not "is going"; it's gone).

 

To address newspapers specifically, most now have free websites that make money by selling advertizing. I can think of one very notable exception; one of Rupert Murdoch's newspapers has decided they can make more money off a small number of paid subscribers than off the usual ads + eyeballs model. It will be *very* interesting to see how that experiment works out; my prediction is they'll fail.

 

The entertainment industry is not being served by existing laws, and if that is the case, then this is a real problem.

 

Laws do not exist to serve the entertainment industry. Laws exist to serve society as a whole, of which the entertainment industry is but a small part (despite what certain media moguls would have you believe). A law that benefits a very small segment of society to the detriment of everyone else is not a good law.

 

If the existing laws were sufficient, this new legislation would not be even introduced.

 

I think you're wrong, on both counts.

 

Firstly, the existing laws are sufficient (as an example, consider the exquisitely-timed takedown of megaupload.com, which has been done under existing laws); as I said in my first post, the problem from Big Content's point of view is not that there's no laws defending intellectual property and copyright, it's that they want to be able to bypass the judicial system and shut down websites on their own say-so (which is what SOPA's really about).

 

Secondly, as a general point, those with power will almost always seek to entrench the power they have and acquire more; same goes for those with money. To digress for a moment, look at the way governments and large corporations (in particular, Wall Street) inter-operate, and cross-pollinate by exchanging people on a regular basis; this is resulting in a system that's increasingly run by the few, for the few, and this is what the Occupy movement is about, at its heart.

 

Do you see what I am getting at here?

 

Yes - but I completely disagree with you :)

 

wikipedia here is given as an example only. If they are taking care to check the content posted, then what is the problem? The problem is the sites who do not, and who profit by not doing that. It isn't the same thing at all, and certainly no ire towards wiki or any other responsible site. My objections are the overwhelming belief by the general population using the internet that because they can do something (copy and paste) that no one should be allowed to tell them they cannot steal what they are copying and pasting without consequences. If they stole a book out of a shop, or a dvd out of a store, or a bottle of wine from the bar, all of those things are exactly the same thing.

 

This really gets to the root of the problem :)

 

The fundamental problem is that the world has fundamentally changed. The Internet, at its core, is about the free and global exchange of data; that is its purpose. And 'data' means a great many things; it means knowledge, speech, ideas, concepts; it also includes many things that have traditionally been harder to exchange, such as books and music and movies and images. There are several consequences to this.

 

The first is the 'global' bit. The Internet is truly international; it transcends all traditional legislative boundaries. In the absence of a World Government, who then gets to control it? No national government can legitimately claim jurisdiction. They can claim jurisdiction over a subset of people and companies, but it's quite easy for people and very easy for companies to simply move into another jurisdiction. This makes legislating anything online well-nigh impossible; you need pretty much every online country in the world to pass similar legislation if you're going to do it and, except in a minority of cases, that's not going to happen. Kiddie porn and child prostitution is the only thing I can think of that's been effectively shut down on a global basis, and even that's far from perfect.

 

Secondly, the sheer ease of transferring data has convinced a generation that this is okay. There are many people today who simply don't see copying a song or a movie or a picture as a crime. It may be theft according to the statute books, but they don't see that; and love this or hate it, I think it's necessary to acknowledge that this is how things are today. Please note that I don't intend this as approval or disapproval of that; simply as a statement of how things are.

 

Thirdly, the creation of the Internet has rendered content-delivery trivial, and this has completely destroyed some industries. It used to be that a band could play local gigs, and maybe get a local reputation, but in order to become big they'd need to sign up with a record company. They'd make an album, and the record company would market and distribute it. But that's entirely unnecessary these days; a band can publish their own stuff online, and build a huge fanbase without the involvement of any of the traditional music distributors. The same goes for photographers, cartoonists, movie producers, and all other creative types.

 

Naturally, the Content Distributors are terrified by this; they used to be a necessary conduit between the artist and the audience and they have, at a stroke, become entirely unnecessary. And so they do what they can to preserve their turf; that's where SOPA et al come from. It's the final gasp of a dying dinosaur.

 

There's an obvious problem for the artist (I'm using the word to include all creative type), too: now that they can't realistically make money by selling content, how *do* they make money? That's not a question with an easy answer in all cases; and besides, there may be as many answers as there are artists. But the answer probably lies in the performance; it's trivial to download the latest album from that band I like, but if they're good I'll still pay to go and see them. If the show's good, I'll buy a shirt. People will still pay to see movies in a theater. People will still pay to buy books (can you imagine trying to read War and Peace through a browser?).

 

But at the end of the day, the artist's problem is soluble; the distributor's problem is not. And that's why you see things like SOPA being driven by record companies rather than musicians.

 

What I find also odd are the examples given by the opponents, which tend to have nothing to do with reality or even the proposed laws themselves. What is the purpose of the reference to the religious nut here, regarding sp ads or sites?

 

That actually ended up at the wrong end of my post, away from the related stuff - sorry! Hopefully the stuff above will have addressed your first point.

 

The point I was trying to make with this was to illustrate the inherent danger of poorly written and ill-conceived laws, of which SOPA is a good example. Sure, the stated intent may be to protect copyright holders; but since the law as written allows any complainant to shut down someone else's website on no more than their own say-so, you may rest assured that the unscrupulous will make full use of this awesome new weapon in their armory to remove *any* content that they don't like. I'm sure you're well aware that there are those who object to the existence of SPs and would love to see their lives made as difficult as possible; SOPA or something like it would be a very useful tool for that, because it's written in such a way as to positively encourage abuse.

 

Those who are vulnerable to such abuse would, therefore, perhaps be better off opposing laws that would enable it.

 

[more to come on this; original post too long, dammit!]

[Phaedrus 209521]

(continued from previous post)

 

That has nothing to do with my ownership of my ad, photos, and site content, and not allowing (and not wanting to allow) some other person, or website, to simply copy and paste it wherever and whenever they want to just 'because' it's the internet and no one can tell them what to do. That kind of lack of responsibility and insistence that illegal things should be allowed for the purpose of freedom is a very immature way of viewing this all. Not saying you are immature, but the majority of objections to it come from a level of immaturity about business, creative works, and copyright on the internet. Most ppl think that stuff on the internet is free, period.

 

As I said above, most people are turning out to be right; and no matter what any of us thinks about this, it won't change. The world has changed. Yes, I appreciate that that sounds hyperbolic; it is, nevertheless, true.

 

Why would any sp object to the kinds of laws that would ensure no one is going to run around and steal their stuff, because finally they will be aware of the consequences of their actions, that there are consequences, because right now I guarantee you the majority of the people hearing about this act have no clue that copyright exists and that copyright owners are protected. In fact, the majority of ppl out there thumb their noses at anyone complaining about seeing their stuff taken, and misused, and not being compensated for them, and in fact, encourage it and let others know how they too can watch movies and tv and copy music without having to pay anyone for it.

 

To address SPs specifically: AFAIK most of them aren't selling their pics We come to see *you*, and spend time with you; and if there's a way to pirate that experience, it hasn't been invented yet. Yes, maybe one day the artificial authentic-in-every-way FortunateOne-bot will be created... but we aren't there yet.

 

And although people may steal your pics... how much do they benefit, in the long run? I can't imagine that SPs who steal pics get a lot of repeat business when their clients show up and discover that the person standing in front of them isn't the one they saw. And word gets around (thanks, CK!) and so many of us won't even get that far. In the long run, anyone who wants to succeed will require a basic, minimum level of honesty.

 

Most of the info about it is, shall we say, 'censored' by the anti-sopa crew lol. So it ends up being really difficult to find an unbiased or even pro-sopa story, and even the balanced ones try to find a way to discredit it in some way.

 

Um, no. The reason that you won't find much pro-SOPA stuff online is that most people who post online have rather more of a clue about what the Internet is and how it works than the lobbyists that wrote SOPA, and understand why it's a very bad idea indeed (I should emphasize that this is far more about the lack of due process than the idea of protecting copyright). There is no nefarious plot to deny anyone information about SOPA, or to silence its proponents.

 

I think my point is that the anti-sopa faction is doing a good smear campaign and fear mongering. The examples used are extreme, and to be honest, unlikely. For one thing, the copyright owner makes the complaint, not some random person.

 

Wrong. Anyone can make a complaint. I could claim copyright on your pics, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure I don't look much like you. And many website owners would rather take down something in response to a complaint, regardless of the legitimacy of it, than risk being shut down entirely. That's just good business sense.

 

Is it likely or reasonable to assume that Beyonce's legal team is going to come to youtube and demand the baby bouncing to one of her songs had to come down? Really??

 

Yes. Really.

 

To be fair, it's not so much the musicians that are the problem here; it's the record companies with their obsolete business model, their battalions of lawyers and their obliviousness to likely PR disasters that tend to pull stunts like this.

 

That is the kind of examples given by them tho. As well as random folks lodging complaints, which will shut down the internet? Really?? Do random folks own the copyright material? No, they don't. But neither does the site profiting from selling it, which actually is the issue here.

 

I hope the arguments I've made above address your criticism on the examples. I haven't addressed everything by any means (in particular, derivative works are a whole other can of worms). And I've never asserted that random folks own copyrighted material; my point is that poorly-written laws make it too easy for them to claim falsely that they do.

 

I've seen the wiki guy interviewed. All these ppl do is say 'it bad, not good, make it stop". They have absolutely no reasons given as to why "it bad" and absolutely no effort in suggesting what would be better.

 

That's a problem with getting sensible folks to make the argument. The fact that someone runs a website doesn't imply that they can string two sentences together in an interview.

 

If anyone really wants an unbiased opinion of the act, I would suggest one looks deeper into who is really affected by the way things are, and how they are suffering because of it. Then take another look at who is benefiting by the way things are, and how they are profiting from it. Take a harder look at the hypocrisy of the opponents.

 

I think (hope) that I've addressed this above. As I said, the root of the problem is that the world has fundamentally changed over the last decade or so. Nobody said this would be easy.

 

and seriously, Hitler? Isn't he always brought out when someone has actually lost an internet debate?

 

You've got cause and effect backwards... Godwin's Law states that by accusing your opponent of being a Nazi or comparing them to Hitler, you automatically lose the argument (Actually, that's not what it originally said, but that's how it's often used now). I'm well aware of this, hence the inherent irony in posting a Downfall vid. But the fact remains that whoever created that particular parody actually understands the issue quite well.

 

Finally, to everyone who got this far... thanks for getting through that attack of verbal diarrhea!

[Guest ***t***iv***]

I noticed google didn't black out.. whoever said they had to much to lose was right in their prediction lol

 

this law is, from my understanding as well, about copyright laws. which, as much as I love my 'freedom' to view illegal content online, I know it's wrong.

and maybe I can't stop myself because it's too easy to access. If the entertainment industry is losing too much money, even though threy are taking some of my 'freedom', I can't deny that it's their right do do so. the risk of getting caught isn't enough to stop me, so I guess they do need to go after the internet to create the change they want to see.

 

I agree that 'freedom' is really meant as an excuse for theft and piracy. As much as I must admit to being a frequent visitor to pirate sites, it's not fair to musicians, actors, production companies etc who have mouths to feed and rely on their expected income. and just as much as ladies on here who go to the effort to protect their images with watermarks and copyrights, they and their livelihoods deserve to be protected by law, too.

 

I do not think that our realistic needs and rights in regards to freedom should be compromised, nor do I think they will be.

 

does anyone know when the law will or won't be passed, or what the impact of the blackout actually was?

[Guest Ou**or**n]

It's interesting to see what bring awareness to an issue does to public opinion. In turn its interesting to see what public opinion does to a politician's stance on a particular issue.