SOPA

[KingIsaacLinksr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

All I can say is, too much power for people who don't need or deserve it.  I don't usually talk about politics like this but, I believe under these vague rules that even Treks-In-Scifi can be shut down because it uses "copyrighted material".  And that's all they need under this bill to shut us down.

King

[Feathers]

As long as they don't break the Internet for those of us in the rest of the world then they can do what they like :)

(Yeah, I know there's a fat chance of that happening :( Although can they legally stop me using a UK VISA card from buying something online? I'd like to think not.)

[QuadShot]

Ok, I'll admit I don't know a whole lot about this but let's ask this question: IF, as you suggest King, the government prevents podcasters from using any sort of music, audio, heck, even words that technically belong to another entity, what would happen to, oh I don't know, ALL podcasts out there? I'd dare say that the largest percentage of podcasts out there today are devoted to movies, TV shows, attractions, etc. If this "law" is strictly enforced, NO ONE will be podcasting that isn't employed by said entities. Therefore, it is safe to surmise that the only podcasts that will exists will be officially sanctioned ones. Sounds suspeciously like radio to me. I have high doubts this thing will fly.

[Rico]

Sounds like it's pretty unlikely this will pass.  So, I'm pretty happy about that.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

This bill is so loosely worded that yeah, many podcasts would likely be frozen.  As far as what I've been able to read into and glean out of this bill, it is that poorly worded and structured that it threatens the entire internet.  Now, whether the big companies will go after podcasts is something I'm not sure about.  I guess it would depend...

It shouldn't fly.  It fails to do the one thing it was "designed" to do, which is to stop piracy.  Pirates took one look at this bill and laughed in amusement so hopefully such clear-headed thinking will prevail once again.  I wish these companies would just give up trying to control the internet.  Just wasting everyone's time here.

King

[QuadShot]

King, I know. In order to stop the pirates, they need to hire a pirate- where's captain Jack when you need him! :)

[Dangelus]

You know, there will always has been and always will be piracy, counterfeit and black market goods.

Before the Internet age when you talked about this you were talking about disreputable people selling dodgy of pirated goods from a suitcase, down a back street or in busy markets. In terms of entertainment this included pirate DVDs, CDs, video games and cassettes etc.

The thing is this still happens. People still go out and BUY pirate goods. It has been reported that a lot of the people selling physical pirate goods are associated with organised crime rings, prostitution, terrorism, drugs, you name it. Perhaps not directly the guy on the street, but his supplier. Shouldn't the governments of the world be concentrating on fighting THIS sort of piracy?

Yes there is a lot of piracy on the Internet but the "scenes" that are putting this stuff out are putting it out for FREE, trying to get some kudos not cash.

I'm not condoning internet piracy but the figures the content makers put out about how much money they are losing via Internet piracy are just ridiculous. People who buy still buy, the majority of those who download wouldn't buy in the first place. In fact during the early days of mp3 on the Internet it actually helped to make people aware of artists and some surveys actually reported that some of these downloaders went on to make legitimate purchases because they had access to low quality mp3s of that artist. And again there is no cash going to organised crime.

Just my 2 cents.

[QuadShot]

Heck Dan, I'd pay as much as 5 cents for your input! :) Well said by the way...

[KingIsaacLinksr]

If you want to combat piracy:

Quit fighting piracy. 

Time and again I've just seen companies lose customers over trying to fight Piracy.  DRM for videogames is the best example, that has killed my interest in anything Ubisoft. 

You want to combat piracy, iTunes, Netflix, all these companies provide cheap and easy way to get your content and people are more likely to go through them than anything else.  Your never going to stop piracy, if it were possible, we wouldn't have crime in our world. 

King

[Rico]

It looks like one of the latest SOPA situations was when GoDaddy was, at first in support of SOPA and started to lose thousands of domain name registrations as customers took their business elsewhere.  It seems now that GoDaddy has reversed their stance and is no longer in support of SOPA.  I like it!  Hit them where it hurts - their pocket!  More on this here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398067,00.asp

P.S. Going to move this thread to the Tech Topic area.

[Jobydrone]

Here's a fun, federally funded video for the kiddies that blames piracy for unemployment, drugs, gang violence, and child labor.  Kind of hilarious. but scary that people are meant to believe this nonsense.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DvQFnSnhg7U#

[turtlesrock]

yeek! lost jobs i can imagine, but drugs and crime? it doesn't make sense.

[Geekyfanboy]

First of all I think SOPA is ridiculous and had no chance of passing the way it is now. As for piracy and my thoughts I on it I'm going to abstain from commenting as I work in the TV/Movie/Web industry and do not wish to get into any heated debates over this topic.

[ChrisMC]

I am against piracy simply for the fact that I like supporting people who produce things I like with my dollars. That, and I don't want to see a crappy low-res version of a movie. This law, of course, would go too far and from what I can tell, we have all been guilty of violating this proposed law at one time or another. Plus, actual pirating operations could easily close up shop and open up another domain name, while users like you and me would get most of the blame for copyright infringement. Do we really want every aspect of internet life governed?

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Some FYIs:

GoDaddy's CEO made it pretty clear they wish to continue supporting SOPA, they merely "retracted" their support to avoid losing customers.  Which so far hasn't worked, 21,000 domains have moved from Godaddy. 

Second: The tv and movie industry has spent way more money "combating" piracy than the suspected "loss" of business piracy has accrued.  And that's only if the pirates would have paid for it if they had no choice.  So that's something. 

I already said it before, neither industry is doing anything to truly combat piracy.  If you want to combat it, the first step is giving the consumers some respect =\

King