http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/media-and-entertainment-companies-add-support-to-proposed-antipiracy-legislation/ (http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/media-and-entertainment-companies-add-support-to-proposed-antipiracy-legislation/) link from the New York Times.
I'm just going to let you read the article. then express your opinions.
Will it help the Hollywood studios and record labels?
OR
Will it hurt sites like YouTube, Facebook, Google, Flickr, Photobucket, etc. where if there is a hint of copyrighted material they must pull it and report it.
I'm kind of not happy that the politicians (both parties) are going to push this through, I'm not sure if it will destroy the internet as a whole or if it will enhance these hollywood moguls profits.
If it does what Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc think it does, We won't be able to post many road trip photos or videos anywhere.
Your thoughts?
Quoteblah blah blah America, fuck yeah blah blah blah
get over it, you nationalistic freaks.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on December 13, 2011, 07:07:27 PM
Quoteblah blah blah America, fuck yeah blah blah blah
get over it, you nationalistic freaks.
Would you translate that to English for those of us who don't speak Occupy? :P
There a thread similar about this on Toonzone http://www.toonzone.net/forums/showthread.php?288697-Internet-Intellectual-Property-Act
I think those Hollywood moguls needs to adapt to the new realities or they could hit the wall like General Motors did.
This story has been bubbling along for a while--it is far from a done deal and in fact I would urge you to contact your senators and congressmen if you object to this proposed legislation. I am personally skeptical that it will pass, and tend to see it more as a maximalist opening bid in a policy auction, but I think it would be unwise to be complacent because the bills would essentially give not just the content providers but also malicious third parties unlimited freedom to break the Internet in the interests of preventing piracy. The draft legislation is technologically illiterate and poses a remedy which is at least an order of magnitude more damaging than the alleged problem, which is mainly loss of profit from secondary release streams.
Quote from: Master son on December 13, 2011, 07:48:38 PM
Would you translate that to English for those of us who don't speak Occupy? :P
I (with the possible exception of Elkins and a few others) am just about the last person on this board to speak Occupy.
I was objecting to the level of flag-waving propaganda, which is pretty high even by usual US standards.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on December 13, 2011, 09:05:28 PM
I (with the possible exception of Elkins and a few others) am just about the last person on this board to speak Occupy.
But, you see, to a right-winger, everyone to their left is a dirty hippie.
Quote from: NE2 on December 13, 2011, 09:22:20 PM
But, you see, to a right-winger, everyone to their left is a dirty hippie.
I dunno, I've heard Ralph Nader practices good hygiene.
I speak Newt's dialect of Occupy. Occupy a bathtub and a job. :-D
But how would this prevent anyone from posting photos and videos of their travels? You might not be able to set your video of clinching I-199 to "Roll On Down The Highway" by BTO, but you could post a video nonetheless.
Depends - YouTube, Facebook and Flickr are endangered. Some nutjob CEO will see their product shown "by accident" and sue Flickr for it.
--and I know I responded to Jake in unkindness but lets keep on topic guys.
Quote from: Master son on December 13, 2011, 11:24:47 PM
--and I know I responded to Jake in unkindness but lets keep on topic guys.
On topic in a board specifically labeled "off topic?" :hmmm:
Quote from: hbelkins on December 13, 2011, 10:23:37 PM
I speak Newt's dialect of Occupy. Occupy a bathtub and a job.
Because there are no jobs out there.
Why doesn't Newtzi put his wealth to good use by starting a company that provides new jobs? Oh yeah, he's too busy cheating on his wives before he dumps them when they're on their deathbeds.
off topic as in not fitting into any of the roads related forums.
Quote from: bugo on December 13, 2011, 11:42:44 PM
Oh yeah, he's too busy cheating on his wives before he dumps them when they're on their deathbeds.
Except that isn't true. Educate yourself: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20111120/OPINION02/711209969
Remember that episode where they went warp 10 and turned into Newts and had hot amphibian sex?
Quote from: bugo on December 13, 2011, 11:42:44 PMBecause there are no jobs out there.
I was unemployed for 15 months.
I made a profit.
if you don't like the 1%... form your own 1% which is up to your moral standards.
Quote from: Master son on December 13, 2011, 11:24:47 PMDepends - YouTube, Facebook and Flickr are endangered. Some nutjob CEO will see their product shown "by accident" and sue Flickr for it.
I think it is a bit worse than that. I understand that while the bills as a group would create new causes of action and eliminate DMCA safe-harbor provisions, at least one of the bills provides for the creation of an IP administrator with the power to deny IP resolution (an administrative action) on the strength of a complaint,
before that complaint has been adjudicated. In other words, malefactors in effect get the ability to do a denial-of-service attack by filing a false complaint.
How did we get sidetracked onto Newt and the Occupy protests?
Quote from: agentsteel53 on December 14, 2011, 12:01:12 AM
Quote from: bugo on December 13, 2011, 11:42:44 PMBecause there are no jobs out there.
I was unemployed for 15 months.
I made a profit.
if you don't like the 1%... form your own 1% which is up to your moral standards.
So you sold food stamps for a year. Thats kind of illegal.
Quote from: Hot Rod Hootenanny on December 14, 2011, 12:08:54 AM
So you sold food stamps for a year. Thats kind of illegal.
nah, drugs.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 13, 2011, 11:51:42 PM
Quote from: bugo on December 13, 2011, 11:42:44 PM
Oh yeah, he's too busy cheating on his wives before he dumps them when they're on their deathbeds.
Except that isn't true. Educate yourself: http://www.unionleader.com/article/20111120/OPINION02/711209969
"OPINION"
I can see a lot of state DOT websites getting sucked into this too, because the bills allow action on the basis of incidental infringement. It is not just YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc. which are in danger.
It's their own daughter, for heaven's sake! "Opinion" refers to the section of the paper it was printed in.
Once again, the RIAA and MPAA are overreaching in a too-late attempt to curtail filesharing. Old money dies hard. The Industry should've seen the piracy thing coming long ago. It was inevitable the minute computers and internet got fast enough. Now they desperately play catch up, overreact to the issue and unnecessarily try and hamstring internet users. And for what? So some kid can't use a pop song in his stupid YouTube video? Gimme a break.
Maybe if they devoted these resources towards making something worth paying for. Do they see the ads for movies & DVD's that have been out in the last month or so? I can't imagine anyone paying to see most of that shit. Another Chipmunks movie? Really? Somebody needs to be in jail for that. Because I'm pretty sure that counts as torture.
Quote from: triplemultiplex on December 14, 2011, 06:33:45 PM
Once again, the RIAA and MPAA are overreaching in a too-late attempt to curtail filesharing
[...]
Maybe if they devoted these resources towards making something worth paying for. Do they see the ads for movies & DVD's that have been out in the last month or so? I can't imagine anyone paying to see most of that shit. Another Chipmunks movie? Really? Somebody needs to be in jail for that. Because I'm pretty sure that counts as torture.
While I can understand how they don't want their latest movie shared for free, there is some merit to actually creating something that the public might want to buy...the problem is, we shouldn't dictate taste as an excuse to steal or sell, only to ignore or preach (mind you, I go to two movies a year, and maybe rent about 4-5 a year, and watch next to no TV shows, save some sporting events).
Never mind the hassle of having to jump to the latest format before it's damned to obsolescence.
With that said, I don't want my AT&T-based home service to restrict me from viewing Comcast's website, nor should we suffer the indignity of any permutations thereof, especially if I'm PAYING for my internet/TV service. If you give it to me for FREE, then you can choose my path, understandably so. And no, tiered service plans aren't the same as free.
I don't think this is going to spell the end of user-created content, but it might mean the demise of "derivative works" that YouTube is heavily (and yet, conveniently and helpfully) composed of. The screenshots and someone-else's-bullshit-passed-off-as-another's-creativity that wades around the 'net without attribution. The flotsam and jetsam that hasn't gone away since Spry Mosaic was launched. And all the duplicated information that clutters up the web. However, the point of the world wide web was to inform and display under the guise of Fair Use, which is arbitrarily discussed in copyright law.
Stating that this hurts American jobs is really a phony guise; it's hardly the reason for stagnant employment figures. Put some tech-savvy folks to work at preventing your own forms of illegal duplication and transmission, instead of asking government to fix your problems while simultaneously howling that they're interfering with your livelihood. Fix your problems on your dime.
I refuse to believe that piracy actually hurts the economy. Hurts the owners of the content, absolutely (for any big name, anyway - small timers can actually benefit and usually understand that), but hurts the economy as a whole? If someone pirates an album rather than spending $10 to download it legally, that $10 doesn't go up in smoke. They spend it on something else instead. Money still moves around, just in a different direction. So, the "save American jobs" bit is bullshit.
This legislation is quite destructive and is demanding censorship... never a good thing.
The problem is that Hollywood is a major special interest lobby in Washington, and as long as that remains the case we are going to see stuff like this which protects them but hurts the American people in general.
Quote from: Duke87 on December 14, 2011, 10:27:30 PM
I refuse to believe that piracy actually hurts the economy. Hurts the owners of the content, absolutely (for any big name, anyway - small timers can actually benefit and usually understand that), but hurts the economy as a whole? If someone pirates an album rather than spending $10 to download it legally, that $10 doesn't go up in smoke. They spend it on something else instead. Money still moves around, just in a different direction. So, the "save American jobs" bit is bullshit.
This legislation is quite destructive and is demanding censorship... never a good thing.
The problem is that Hollywood is a major special interest lobby in Washington, and as long as that remains the case we are going to see stuff like this which protects them but hurts the American people in general.
What if somebody pirates an album, likes the music, then spends $50 for a concert ticket and $40 for a shirt? That money would have not been spent if not for the piracy. But the fascist RIAA doesn't care about concert ticket or t-shirt sales.
Quote from: bugo on December 14, 2011, 10:30:16 PMWhat if somebody pirates an album, likes the music, then spends $50 for a concert ticket and $40 for a shirt? That money would have not been spent if not for the piracy. But the fascist RIAA doesn't care about concert ticket or t-shirt sales.
Content providers' lobbying on this issue seems cynically designed to exploit economic illiteracy. For example, the recording industry likes to toss around a figure of $74 trillion (several times total world GDP) that it allegedly loses through piracy. This is a nonsense since there is no way they would be able to earn $74 trillion if they were somehow able to compel pirates to pay full list for everything they download--a large chunk of the audience would just go up in smoke, driven away by prices higher than they are willing to pay.
That said, I am not so sure that the game will finish with the content providers accepting a certain level of ongoing parasitism from pirates. I can envision a scenario where a majority of Internet users voluntarily agree to some measures to prevent free-riding (but nothing nearly as draconian as what is currently proposed) in order to prevent or relieve long-term content droughts.
Quote from: Master son on December 13, 2011, 06:47:26 PM
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/media-and-entertainment-companies-add-support-to-proposed-antipiracy-legislation/ (http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/media-and-entertainment-companies-add-support-to-proposed-antipiracy-legislation/) link from the New York Times.
I'm just going to let you read the article. then express your opinions.
Will it help the Hollywood studios and record labels?
OR
Will it hurt sites like YouTube, Facebook, Google, Flickr, Photobucket, etc. where if there is a hint of copyrighted material they must pull it and report it.
I'm kind of not happy that the politicians (both parties) are going to push this through, I'm not sure if it will destroy the internet as a whole or if it will enhance these hollywood moguls profits.
If it does what Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc think it does, We won't be able to post many road trip photos or videos anywhere.
Your thoughts?
It is gonna only hurt We the People and help the Big Record Labels and their bloodsucking lawyers.
These two bills need to be killed right away!
Quote from: bugo on December 14, 2011, 10:30:16 PMWhat if somebody pirates an album, likes the music, then spends $50 for a concert ticket and $40 for a shirt? That money would have not been spent if not for the piracy. But the fascist RIAA doesn't care about concert ticket or t-shirt sales.
I'd go so far as saying that many, many artists have actually earned more money thanks to tickets and merchandise sold to people that illegally downloaded their music than the money the lost due to illegal downloads. I remember a couple of cases from small indie bands, here in Germany, that had an album for sale, were on tour, and barely got 50 people at their shows. So, they decided to put their albums on their Facebook pages, for free so that more people would actually listen to them, and bam, soon they were playing in front of 300-500 people, sold plenty of merch, and were far better known than previously. And there's no doubt in my mind there's plenty of bands in the US, UK, Canada or wherever, that are pretty much the same.
Word of mouth after offering free legal stuff can pay off big time, but obviously, RIAA or whoever ignore that, because they don't get their cut of merch sales or ticket sales (at least I think so, don't know how similar the RIAA is to the German GEMA).
Heck, I know I got into Volbeat (Danish Metal/Rockabily band) thanks to acquiring their first album second-hand, got hooked, and have bought 3 albums since then, plus 2 shirts, expenses I would never have made without the second-hand album, and I know from word of mouth that quite a few other people in my area got hooked on them as well.
This short, to-the-point piece on one of Slate's blogs sets aside the free-speech considerations and looks at the lack of economic justification for SOPA and Protect IP:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2011/12/15/the_non_problem_of_online_piracy.html?wpisrc=slate_river
There's also the matter that people who pirate stuff wouldn't watch/listen to it if it wasn't free - especially if it was a tip off from a friend, or an interest due to writer/performer/producer (more on the video front there than audio) and see whether they like it.
And there must be a large amount of youtube/downloading that is basically functioning like a catch up TV service/DVR, or a way of saving you the time of ripping CDs/DVDs (and Vinyls, tape, VHS) to .mp3 and .avi (or whatever file type you want), rather than actually trying to swindle a company out of money (and stopping them swindling it out of you).
Plus there's the "watch it before the rest of the country"/"actually be able to watch it" issues - the Internet is international, and TV isn't so much - you don't get some shows here that you get there, and vice versa. Some shows here (eg Glee, which is the only show from America that is being heavily advertised at the moment) are billed as "just after the states" (on GMT, the States gets it at 2am Wednesday morning, the UK gets it at 9pm Thursday). Sky, in the end, for the finale of Lost, aired it simultaneously with the States at silly-in-the-morning, then repeated it in their regular slot. Given US primetime is graveyard time in the UK, why can't channels air stuff in the early hours that DVR users/catch up users can watch the day after, rather than illegally downloading it, and keep the UK primetime viewing, that the people who want to watch it earlier wouldn't do anyway, but if they have several easy options of watching it legitimately, then they won't go to the internet and you can still get a bit of ad revenue from them.
Quote from: bugo on December 14, 2011, 10:30:16 PM
What if somebody pirates an album, likes the music, then spends $50 for a concert ticket and $40 for a shirt? That money would have not been spent if not for the piracy. But the fascist RIAA doesn't care about concert ticket or t-shirt sales.
Nothing personal, but for forty bucks, I'll buy 2-3 albums before I buy the overpriced shirt!
Quote from: english si on December 16, 2011, 07:22:48 AMThere's also the matter that people who pirate stuff wouldn't watch/listen to it if it wasn't free - especially if it was a tip off from a friend, or an interest due to writer/performer/producer (more on the video front there than audio) and see whether they like it.
Yes--this is an important consideration from the economic point of view. There are others, too:
* The parasitic loss from piracy tends to be heavier for more recent stuff simply because it is more readily available. In general, a TV show has to be either fairly recent or highly popular in order for there to be usable torrents for downloading it illegally on a "set and forget" basis. It is, for example, much harder to find a high-quality torrent for
The Pretender (a niche NBC TV show first aired in the mid-nineties) than it is for, say,
Breaking Bad (now in its fourth season). It is similarly easy to find torrents (though not well-seeded) for
The Rockford Files because that is a highly regarded classic 1970's TV show, but not for the first two seasons of
Kojak (also 1970's). Moving back to the 1990's, it is far harder to find good torrents for
Renegade (Stephen Cannell trash TV, the kind whose fans have to stay in the closet), which was syndicated on cable from the start and is hard to find even in DVD now, than it is for
The Pretender or, for that matter,
Kojak.
* If a torrent of reasonable quality is not available for the pirated content, it may be possible to get it through an eMule distribution or by grabbing links from a commercial file transfer service, but pirating content in either of those ways is actually more work than getting hold of a legal copy. It takes forever for files to finish downloading across the eMule networks, and with the commercial file transfer services you generally find that the good-quality links (which allow you to download complete AVIs rather than RAR fragments) disappear fast due to DMCA take-down, and even if you have good links in hand, you still have to put up with CAPTCHA entry, mandatory timeout, download limits, etc. Plus, if you need complementary content like subtitles, you may find yourself out of luck, especially for the older and less popular stuff. Many TV shows just don't have subtitles available in many foreign languages. Some TV shows don't have English subtitles for some seasons that can be pirated--for example, the pirate world has no English subtitles for
The A-Team season 4,
The Rockford Files seasons 1, 3, and 4, etc. These are limitations that can be largely overcome by getting hold of legal copies either through purchase or through the nearest well-stocked public library. (Even the legal copies have their limitations, however. For example, the most recent DVD release of
Renegade has no closed captions at all, despite the show having been required to have captions when it was broadcast on cable. This is because the bargain-basement DVD publishers tend to license only audio and video, not subtitles.)
Put simply, I think TV piracy is self-limiting and in most cases is effectively time-shifting. The content providers that have the strongest claims for economic loss through piracy tend to be the ones making original content available through premium cable without advertising support, followed closely by the basic cable providers who still rely on advertising support to finance original content. This is not to say that piracy doesn't cause problems in content provision. Piracy does not prevent the actors and writers on TV shows from getting paid, but it makes it more likely that TV shows will be either cancelled outright or face per-episode budget restrictions because people who can get hold of high-quality TV rips through torrents will have no incentive to pay for premium cable or sit through ads in initial broadcast or on legal secondary release channels such as Hulu.com. In the case of some specific TV shows, notably
Stargate Universe, it has been suggested that they have been cancelled because a large share of the viewer base came in through torrents and so could not be used to sell ad time.
QuoteAnd there must be a large amount of youtube/downloading that is basically functioning like a catch up TV service/DVR, or a way of saving you the time of ripping CDs/DVDs (and Vinyls, tape, VHS) to .mp3 and .avi (or whatever file type you want), rather than actually trying to swindle a company out of money (and stopping them swindling it out of you).
For TV shows I think this is definitely true--for movies the case is less clear, though you could try to frame an equal-harm argument on the basis that getting your dinner at a McDonald's with a Redbox nearby ($1 cost/day rental through Redbox, paid for with a $1 coupon from the McDonald's) does no more harm to the content provider than getting an AVI or MKV of the movie illegally through a torrent.
QuotePlus there's the "watch it before the rest of the country"/"actually be able to watch it" issues - the Internet is international, and TV isn't so much - you don't get some shows here that you get there, and vice versa. Some shows here (eg Glee, which is the only show from America that is being heavily advertised at the moment) are billed as "just after the states" (on GMT, the States gets it at 2am Wednesday morning, the UK gets it at 9pm Thursday). Sky, in the end, for the finale of Lost, aired it simultaneously with the States at silly-in-the-morning, then repeated it in their regular slot. Given US primetime is graveyard time in the UK, why can't channels air stuff in the early hours that DVR users/catch up users can watch the day after, rather than illegally downloading it, and keep the UK primetime viewing, that the people who want to watch it earlier wouldn't do anyway, but if they have several easy options of watching it legitimately, then they won't go to the internet and you can still get a bit of ad revenue from them.
That is one option that can be tried. Part of the problem is that services which offer this functionality (like Hulu Plus) require paid subscriptions and the rates, unrealistically, assume perfect enforcement of anti-piracy laws and therefore you pay to get the content, with ads, subject to regional licensure. Americans can't see stuff through BBC iPlayer, while Britons can't see stuff through Hulu.com. It has been suggested that a large number of Americans abroad keep up with US TV shows by pirating them because they are not broadcast locally, second-day release services like Hulu.com won't stream to their local IPs, and DVD releases appear months or even years in arrears.
Quote from: J N Winkler on December 16, 2011, 12:27:52 PMyou could try to frame an equal-harm argument on the basis that getting your dinner at a McDonald's with a Redbox nearby ($1 cost/day rental through Redbox, paid for with a $1 coupon from the McDonald's) does no more harm to the content provider than getting an AVI or MKV of the movie illegally through a torrent.
possibly a valid argument, but RedBox would likely still have to pay for the content which it buys from the provider, and then gives away for free (through the use of the promotional coupons).
therefore, the question is, does RedBox pay the content provider a per-rental fee, or a fixed fee for the title as a whole?
if it's a fixed fee, then indeed there is no harm done to the content provider, whether RedBox rented the title N+1 times, or if RedBox rented only N times and the N+1st was a pirate. if it is per-rental, though, then there is a difference.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on December 16, 2011, 12:57:26 PMpossibly a valid argument, but RedBox would likely still have to pay for the content which it buys from the provider, and then gives away for free (through the use of the promotional coupons).
Since it is McDonald's that provides the coupons, I think the likeliest scenario is a cost-sharing arrangement where McDonald's bears a fair share (possibly the majority) of the cost. Both parties benefit: Redbox gets profit from consumer inertia (failure of the consumer to return the DVD within one day, which causes rental fees to accrue on a daily basis), while McDonald gets to market meals on the basis of added value.
Quotetherefore, the question is, does RedBox pay the content provider a per-rental fee, or a fixed fee for the title as a whole?
I don't know enough about the video rental business (or any agreements Redbox may have made with the film studios) to say for sure. But the traditional video-rental business model is that the rental shop pays more for each copy than an end consumer would pay for a more or less identical copy. The premium the rental shop pays buys the film studio's consent for that single copy to be rented out multiple times. Once the rental shop makes its "nut" on that copy, all future rentals contribute directly to the bottom line.
There is reason for doubting that this applies to Redbox because, unlike traditional video rental places, they allow you to "buy" the rental copy if you allow additional-day charges to accrue for 25 days. This puts the cost of the rental around $25, while my understanding is that $80 is a more normal cost (to the rental shop operator) for a rental DVD. The film studios have also tried to shut down and squeeze out Redbox for reasons which are never clearly spelled out (at least to me) but seem related to product dilution. I can't imagine them going to that trouble if they were part of the film distribution system on the same terms as the traditional video rental businesses.
Quoteif it's a fixed fee, then indeed there is no harm done to the content provider, whether RedBox rented the title N+1 times, or if RedBox rented only N times and the N+1st was a pirate. if it is per-rental, though, then there is a difference.
But end consumers are not required to take cognizance of business-to-business relationships; that is just not how markets are structured. A more powerful counterargument is that piracy gives the pirate the unearned non-monetary but nevertheless economically real reward of having the content on terms far more flexible than offered by the Redbox/McDonald's distribution channel. No need to buy a McDonald's meal (which is a real hardship if you are not into fast food), no need to go physically to a Redbox location which has the film in stock, etc.
Quote from: bugo on December 14, 2011, 10:30:16 PM
What if somebody pirates an album, likes the music, then spends $50 for a concert ticket and $40 for a shirt? That money would have not been spent if not for the piracy. But the fascist RIAA doesn't care about concert ticket or t-shirt sales.
This is absolutely true of small-time bands and they usually recognize this. I have heard bands live on stage tell people to go download their music illegally, and I own a CD that has a message printed on it encouraging the owner to share it with their friends.
It's not so much true of famous artists since they are not in need of additional exposure. It can still happen that somebody may spend money as a result of piracy, but it's probably more common in such cases to just pirate something which otherwise might have been purchased.
Quote from: Duke87 on December 18, 2011, 04:35:44 PM
Quote from: bugo on December 14, 2011, 10:30:16 PM
What if somebody pirates an album, likes the music, then spends $50 for a concert ticket and $40 for a shirt? That money would have not been spent if not for the piracy. But the fascist RIAA doesn't care about concert ticket or t-shirt sales.
This is absolutely true of small-time bands and they usually recognize this. I have heard bands live on stage tell people to go download their music illegally, and I own a CD that has a message printed on it encouraging the owner to share it with their friends.
It's not so much true of famous artists since they are not in need of additional exposure. It can still happen that somebody may spend money as a result of piracy, but it's probably more common in such cases to just pirate something which otherwise might have been purchased.
What's funny is it often works the other way in people's consciences. I know a couple people who absolutely insist on not pirating some small bands' works, figuring they need every dollar in record sales to keep going. But big artists–what's $10 to Nickelback anyway?
The more I read about SOPA the more it pisses me off. Streaming copyrighted content is a felony under SOPA. I have a friend who likes to draw, and sometimes she'll borrow someone's tablet and demonstrate her techniques over the streaming website Livestream. To make things more interesting since she's kind of shy sometimes and not that talkative, she plays music in the background. Under SOPA she would be a felon. Does that make any sense to anyone?
The markup hearing was scheduled to resume today, but it's been delayed until Congress returns to session next year.
I spotted the following from Gizmodo
http://gizmodo.com/5870241/presented-without-comment-every-single-company-supporting-sopa-the-awful-internet-censorship-law
Quote
All the Companies Supporting SOPA, the Awful Internet Censorship Law–and How to Contact Them
Who's officially on the record backing what could be the worst thing to ever happen to the internet? All of these companies listed below. Don't take our word for it–this list comes straight from Congress. Just FYI.
If you want to get in touch, we've provided a contact list below. Maybe you want to let them know how you feel about SOPA.
anyone notice that GoDaddy is on that list -.- :pan: :-|
Yep, and I am actively exploring a change in webhosts as I type- I can't give money to a company that wants to shut down the internet
Quote from: corco on December 22, 2011, 05:55:41 PM
Yep, and I am actively exploring a change in webhosts as I type- I can't give money to a company that wants to shut down the internet
Let me know what you find. I'm planning on getting a new webhost for unrelated reasons (I need someone that supports HTTPS/SSL and my current host doesn't).
News on the SOPA/Protect-IP front: the White House has sounded a discouraging note.
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/01/14/sopa_and_pipa_white_house_criticizes_internet_anti_piracy_legislation_as_lawmakers_delay_votes_.html
This is (as the article notes) not an instruction or encouragement to throw out the bills altogether, which is the solution the Electronic Frontier Foundation and some other groups on the Internet side of the debate want. However, it is a preliminary indication that the content providers are no longer having everything break their way.
This blog post by Matthew Yglesias (Slate's economics editor) makes the point that there is a nonzero socially optimal level of copyright infringement:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/14/obama_administration_comes_out_against_sopa_and_protect_ip.html?wpisrc=slate_river
Wikipedia will be shutting down Wednesday for 24 hours in protest of SOPA.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/01/most-people-probably-havent-paid-much-attention-to-thehuge-corporations-waging-war-in-washington-over-legislation-designed-to.html
Quote from: Zmapper on January 16, 2012, 08:50:23 PM
Wikipedia will be shutting down Wednesday for 24 hours in protest of SOPA.
I look forward to Wiki Wednesday. I hope they continue their valuable, important protest.
There more infos about it
http://kotaku.com/5876355/the-vote-on-the-bill-to-kill-the-internet-has-been-delayed?tag=sopa
http://kotaku.com/5876582/how-to-exploit-wikipedias-shutdown-wednesday?tag=sopa
Sorta off topic, but notice the text of your second link, Stephane.
"Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales issued a "student warning" on Monday, urging people in shool to "do your homework early.""
Looks like spell check will be going down in protest. :-D
Quote from: The Situation™ on January 16, 2012, 09:32:20 PM
Quote from: Zmapper on January 16, 2012, 08:50:23 PM
Wikipedia will be shutting down Wednesday for 24 hours in protest of SOPA.
I look forward to Wiki Wednesday. I hope they continue their valuable, important protest.
So you're saying you support SOPA? :eyebrow:
Quote from: Master son on January 17, 2012, 10:40:18 AM
Quote from: The Situation™ on January 16, 2012, 09:32:20 PM
Quote from: Zmapper on January 16, 2012, 08:50:23 PM
Wikipedia will be shutting down Wednesday for 24 hours in protest of SOPA.
I look forward to Wiki Wednesday. I hope they continue their valuable, important protest.
So you're saying you support SOPA? :eyebrow:
No, I think he's saying he's not a fan of Wiki. :-P
It's not really down, at least from my phone's browser. But obviously in protest.
The blackout seems to have been implemented by adding code to each Wikipedia page (possibly a line or two that defines a CSS property that is inherited by all but a few pages) that loads the blackout graphic on top of the article text. Thus, articles, etc. load as normal and then are blacked out, but can still be read (albeit not easily) by going to the HTML source.
Wikipedia has a page explaining the protest and the current status of SOPA and PIPA. This is not blacked out, but rather is linked to from within the blackout graphic. The foreign-language Wikipedias also, by and large, have black-background graphics (positioned above article headers in much the same way as "Personal appeal from founder Jimmy Wales" advertisements) explaining that the English-language Wikipedia is protesting and why.
Edit: Here is an example on the Spanish Wikipedia:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autov%C3%ADa_del_Pirineo
By the way (albeit on-topic), lengths of the A-21 have opened recently. In relation to the Corridor H thread, note the use of two tunnels to maintain operating speeds of 100 km/h or better.
Quote from: J N Winkler on January 18, 2012, 08:53:25 AM
The blackout seems to have been implemented by adding code to each Wikipedia page (possibly a line or two that defines a CSS property that is inherited by all but a few pages) that loads the blackout graphic on top of the article text. Thus, articles, etc. load as normal and then are blacked out, but can still be read (albeit not easily) by going to the HTML source.
Or by disabling JavaScript...
Quote from: NE2 on January 18, 2012, 09:33:59 AM
Or by disabling JavaScript...
or hit "esc" (stop page load) between the time that the page and the black cover loads.
On the mobile version it's just at the top of the page, with the article below it as normal.
Some Hollywood moguls are not happy from what I read at
http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/exclusive-hollywood-moguls-stopping-obama-donations-because-of-administrations-piracy-stand/
Quote"God knows how much money we've given to Obama and the Democrats and yet they're not supporting our interests."
Just from reading the article, it is obvious that Hollywood expects they can buy the POTUS, screw you American people. How long after the corporate cash flow stops will Obama flip on this issue?
On the bright side, my soon-to-be representative (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120111/14540217379/online-gamer-congressional-rep-jared-polis-discusses-problems-sopa-gaming-forum.shtml) is one of the more active anti-SOPA members. :clap:
If the Democratic party platform becomes "let's shit on the Constitution" more than both parties' platforms already are (both parties' platforms are already that way), then you can go ahead and register me as a Republican.
Good for Obama for not sinking to that threat, assuming he doesn't sink to that threat.
I wonder if Ron Paul's anti-SOPA post on Facebook will draw him many votes in SC? Judging by likes, that post was liked 38,000 times, much more than the 10,000 or so he gets on other important posts. If he can really hit hard about SOPA the next few days, he might just win it.
Then again, when the debate audience boos the golden rule, it might not affect his final vote tally.
2 minutes until most sites other than Wikipedia come out of the dark ages.
IMO The Wikipedia folks are a bunh of a**holes.
I think that organizations like that should be neutral, this is ACTIVISM.
I got along fine before Wikipedia ever existed. Let them f**k themselves.
EDIT:
This is not that I support the proposed legislation in question but simply stating my opinion that Wikipedia is not the place to voice the protest. They want their articles to be "Neutral" but they're taking an editorial stance????
If the alarmists like Wikipedia are right then the legislation is a bad idea. I just haven't looked it up to see how bad it really is.
Am I concerned? A little, but the world was fine before the internet and it is not necessary to survive. Helpful, yes. Necessary, no.
Quote from: Stephane Dumas on January 18, 2012, 07:19:10 PM
Some Hollywood moguls are not happy from what I read at
http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/exclusive-hollywood-moguls-stopping-obama-donations-because-of-administrations-piracy-stand/
Murdoch is an asshat, pure and simple. Look at the scandal surrounding him. He certainly enjoys censorship judging by this.
I would really love to find an objective analysis of this legislation. So far everything I've read seems to be overhyped fear. The Internet is not going to die.
When stores get caught selling knockoff designer purses or bootlegged CDs or DVDs, they get shut down. And no one cries "it's the end of the world" when that happens.
Quote from: hbelkins on January 18, 2012, 11:14:10 PMI would really love to find an objective analysis of this legislation. So far everything I've read seems to be overhyped fear. The Internet is not going to die.
Thomas.loc.gov would be a good place to start.
I actually agree that much of what is feared is unlikely to come to pass, but I don't think this means that the fears are overhyped. Every new piece of legislation creates possibilities for legal action which in practice are unlikely to be pursued, but this is no reason not to try to get the legislation right from the get-go.
For example, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has an anti-circumvention provision which makes it illegal to use a program like
AnyDVD to override the CSS protection on DVDs so the contents can be copied to hard disk (which is useful for time-shifting, e.g. if you have a TV series boxset out from the public library and want to watch episodes outside the loan period). I believe there is the theoretical possibility of fines or prison for using
AnyDVD but I have never known this provision of the law to be enforced in the case of the ordinary home user.
AnyDVD has many US customers and after a major effort (around 2003, IIRC) to step hard on Antigua, where the authors of
AnyDVD are based, the US government has more or less stopped trying to enforce this provision of the law. Part of the problem is that it is only the circumvention itself that is illegal; under copyright law (fair use), you are allowed to make a copy of a DVD you own strictly for your own personal use. In general, there is no public-interest argument in favor of prosecuting people for taking an illegal path to a legal end when the illegal path leads to no collateral damage to third parties.
In the specific case of SOPA/PIPA, the scope of the remedies they offer encompasses DNS resolution, which is fundamental to how the Internet works, so their effects are likely to be much more far-reaching than the specific problem of Internet piracy that they seek to address. I don't think they should even be under discussion when copyright is unreformed and more gradual approaches have not even been tried yet.
QuoteWhen stores get caught selling knockoff designer purses or bootlegged CDs or DVDs, they get shut down. And no one cries "it's the end of the world" when that happens.
This is something that should be tried first. Part of the problem, from the content providers' point of view, is that a substantial fraction (probably the majority) of the piracy that goes on is not for profit and is really an effort to evade monopolies created by copyright. The warez release groups that pirate movies and TV series do not do so for profit, and AFAIK do not even have mechanisms for accepting donations from users. If you acquire pirate AVIs through a torrent, you are not expected to pay anything for them--you are only expected to continue uploading after you have downloaded the finished files ("seeding") so that the torrent remains available to new users and does not die off. Torrents for popular TV series can remain viable for years after initial broadcast, so the world of torrenting effectively functions as a cheap and convenient TV catch-up service.
At the moment DMCA (the existing enforcement mechanism) requires the content providers to have some "skin" in the business of enforcing copyright--the onus is on them to identify infringing content. In practice they simply don't bother for many types of content, e.g. TV show episodes which are already broadcast free-to-air, but God help you if you try to pirate, say, a HBO original series like
Game of Thrones (for which the only legal forms of access involve premium pricing). SOPA/PIPA, if passed, would encourage them to try to suppress piracy on everything. That in turn would give the ordinary user a powerful incentive to subscribe to a proxy or pay VPN service and then start pirating premium content which he or she had previously ignored. That would in turn lead to the content providers going back to Congress and asking for a ban on proxies and VPN. Why even start down this road in the first place?
There's also a couple more points:
1. The content providers have been waging a war on fair use for quite some time now. They've been trying to get rid of it for a long time now but know they can't directly attack it because people will see them for the greedy monopolies they are. So they try to make it impossible for the consumer to exercise fair use rights. They tried to do this in the courts with VCRs and lost badly; now they know better and create "anti-piracy" legislation to attack anything that threatens their monopoly on content creation. The leads into the second point...
2. The content creators are unwilling to acknowledge that their business model is obsolete. In a capitalist society, a company changes to changing conditions, or it dies. The content creator abhor change and want to live, so they are trying to get laws passed to strangle new media in any way possible. This is also why bloggers aren't considered journalists today, even though a journalist used to be anyone who had the means to get their work published. Now you need a special badge. Why? Because old media doesn't want to admit obsolescence in the face of new media.
Also, copyright law is a joke. Ever wonder why it the copyrighted time for works keep getting extended? It's because Walt Disney doesn't want Micky Mouse to go public domain.
I am definetly a fan of The National Parcs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDl5lXSN2-E