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Controversy Over SOPA: Internet Censorship or Not?

Raivh

Raivh

Old dog
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
So, SOPA has made it to the House of Representatives. What are your thoughts/opinions on this topic? Think the government should get involved? Is it an infringement of rights? What about the rights of artists--filmmakers, musicians, writers, and so on?

Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998:

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

"Sopa: Internet Bill Criticized as Internet Censorship" by Ned Potter:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/11/sopa-internet-piracy-bill-criticized-as-internet-censorship/

Any pirates out there that would like to see this bill passed into law? I'm curious if anybody is quaking in there boots. Personally, I think there's some good and bad to this new bill, given my field, but I'm not sure if I would like to see it made into a law.
 
I'm gonna go ahead and move this to the Blue Moon Academy section. Keep it civil.
 
Zalvek said:
I'm gonna go ahead and move this to the Blue Moon Academy section. Keep it civil.
Click to expand...

I thought it was strange to post it in the General Discussion and knew there was somewhere else, just couldn't find it. Thanks. Fully intend to.
 
I think making this into a law is indeed, as Ned put it, 'draconian'. It also seems a tad unenforceable; even if they remove URLs, people will still have a way of obtaining the work itself. Unless it works on a severity-based system (i.e. number of occurrences, what they're downloading, and how they obtained it), then a lot of people might get unnecessarily jailed, costing taxpayers even more and escalating this 'war' further.

While the rights of artists and film-makers should be protected (it is their work, after all), I think that this bill could be misused. Even the language in DMCA has some paragraphs in it that could be VERY widely interpreted if the right person were to analyze it.

I personally find that a lot of pirates (today, anyway) are kids with the whole self-entitlement mentality. They that just because it's there means they get to have it, and to restrict access is 'quashing their freedom to own it' (I know they wouldn't use those exact words). Unfortunately, since I can't find the actual language of the bill itself, a lot of this is superficial analysis on part.
 
Just noted this.

You do realize they do this in China right? That's a communist country.

And it's actually an infringement on privacy rights, as well as being a "free" country that is "democratic."
 
It's very much an infringement of rights. What part of the Fair Use Clause, section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 do these people up in the House of Representatives and within Congress not understand that this bill is heavily flawed and could lead into the complete and utter collapse of sites like YouTube, Blip.tv, MetaCafe and other video sharing websites where certain companies make their money off of views? As a commentator and LPer, I feel this is a slap in the face of everything that I stand for. I never intend on infringing any copyrights, for everything that I do is for the sole purpose of entertainment and that is it. I don't need any of their damn money nor do I intend on placing ads on any of my videos for something people don't want or need. I'm nothing like that.

Personally speaking, if I were to ever see the person who made this bill, I'd just as soon spit in their face and curse their very name until doomsday. It's bad enough I have to deal with false flaggers on YouTube - several of which I know of right off the top of my head - who either can't take a joke or have no concept of differences of opinions, but the one thing I will never stand for is to have someone up in the high levels of government tell me what I can or can't upload onto my own channel.

I apologize if this seemed a bit tl;dr, but this is just my stance on the whole issue.
 
--+Hahvoc Requiem+-- said:
Just noted this.

You do realize they do this in China right? That's a communist country.

And it's actually an infringement on privacy rights, as well as being a "free" country that is "democratic."
Click to expand...

They do it in Iran and the United Arab Emirates, as well, and they're religious and hereditary ogliarchies.

The key point here is not what excuse they use to justify their totalitarian control but the fact that these nations have totalitarian control. And that's the concern, here. You can have a totalitarian "democratic" state as easily as any other excuse, particularly when it's money that buys votes, not the actual quality of the candidates. Beliefs for hire get the money to fund a re-election campaign. And those who buy the beliefs of our politicians get to dictate our rights, as defined by our law.

And who has the deepest pockets in existence in this world? Corporations. Big business. Banks and financial institutions. You know, the people who don't want to start paying any taxes whatsoever on trillions of dollars of profit, and who currently get millions of dollars OUT of the government, instead? Yeah.

Communists have traditionally come to power through armed revolution against oppressive regimes, and become oppressive regimes themselves. Capitalist Democracies just sell out. Same result. Welcome to the New America.
 
It does seem like this can only end bad. I don't know if the american goverment will really be as silly as to accept that, but I've already seen some strange things get passed. I only see this could only damage people, and only benefit them to a very low extent.
 
Razgriz said:
I think making this into a law is indeed, as Ned put it, 'draconian'. It also seems a tad unenforceable; even if they remove URLs, people will still have a way of obtaining the work itself. Unless it works on a severity-based system (i.e. number of occurrences, what they're downloading, and how they obtained it), then a lot of people might get unnecessarily jailed, costing taxpayers even more and escalating this 'war' further.

While the rights of artists and film-makers should be protected (it is their work, after all), I think that this bill could be misused. Even the language in DMCA has some paragraphs in it that could be VERY widely interpreted if the right person were to analyze it.

I personally find that a lot of pirates (today, anyway) are kids with the whole self-entitlement mentality. They that just because it's there means they get to have it, and to restrict access is 'quashing their freedom to own it' (I know they wouldn't use those exact words). Unfortunately, since I can't find the actual language of the bill itself, a lot of this is superficial analysis on part.
Click to expand...

That right there is what bugs me.... self entitlement for these things being pirated which is the biggest issue that SOPA is trying to address (and will fail horribly at). I'm not entirely against pirating, but only if you're simply looking into trying the product before investing, or the product is no longer available for purchase. I've been pushing this on my boyfriend and his friend a lot lately. I was talking about how the anime industry is suffering and the fact that most anime fans torrent their anime doesn't help the Western industry. His friend was like "Well... I can't afford to buy DVD boxes so I have to torrent." Or you could... you know... not watch it? Typically the idea is that if you can't afford something you don't get to have it. Same with video games, he's trying to justify pirating Skyrim for PC with the fact that you need a Steam account to play it, even though he has a Steam account and game consoles he could buy it for if he doesn't want to use Steam.
 
The issue is simple. Criminals, by nature, do not obey the law. So passing more laws does nothing to fix the problem.

The only thing that more laws can do is harm those who are already obeying the law.

The artists and what not already have their protection and adding more to it can not, and will not do anything other than infringing on the law abidings' rights (See the fair use clause above).

It didn't work with gun control, it didn't work with the war on drugs, it didn't work with, well, ANYTHING,,,,,
 
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