The answer to stop piracy? Mass censorship of the internet

[MusicallyInspired]

Seriously scary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8 ... AAAAAAACAA

http://www.americancensorship.org

[QuestCollector]

Wow, seriously scary may be an understatement!

This bill could destroy everything we love about the internet. Every site I visit daily could potentially be destroyed because of this bill. Even this site would be at risk. The government is trying to get there hands on everything, it seems that they've forgotten what the constitution even is anymore.

I think the creator of the video said it best "It would be like a nuclear strike on the internet" because it would. How long before we see "Anonymous" again?

[Collector]

I have been aware of this for a while, now. This is getting to the same things that have given rise to the 99% movement. Our government is owned by the lobbyists. The Democrats are bought and sold to them and the Republicans are wholly owned subsidiary of them. They are all a bunch of corporate whores. We have had legislation that was written by the corporations and handed to members of Congress that then gets passed, without regard to the best interest of the nation, its citizens or global implications.

These two bills will wreck the DNS. There is not a single technological company that thinks this is a good idea. It is just a bunch of old men holding onto a dying marketing model, much like, as was pointed out in the linked video, the movie industry did when the VCR was introduced. The VCR turned out to be the savior of Hollywood. It was no longer tied to just what they could get from the theater run and later marginal gains from broadcast rights. The VCR opened up the huge consumer market for film makers. The recording industry has gained huge sales from the like of iTunes.

It is time for the marketeers of these industries to adapt to the digital age. The likes of Netflix and Hulu are the future, not forcing people to continue to buying physical copies. Charging a reasonable price and making downloads easy and painless will have greater results in their favor that any of these draconian laws. After all, no anti-pirate measures have been that effective to date outside of the likes of Steam and physical copies of pirated discs can be easily purchased, even locally.

[MusicallyInspired]

Anonymous has made their announcement of a scheme they're calling "Operation Blackout" if this bill gets passed. They made a video and publicized it. They've already spread the personal information of a few members involved in the created of this bill to the public.

[Maiandra]

Yikes. Talk about scary. If they were targetting piracy sites more specifically or becoming more active against people who post copyrighted material individually, I could maybe understand it, but this sweeping power is too heavy-handed of a solution. Exactly as they said, these people understand nothing about the internet or the broad-reaching effects this would have. It's not just about the large companies (although they'd like them to think everything is about them).

It's ludicrous that they should even be allowed to make laws about it, when they understand so little and it seems few of them have bothered to get any kind of thorough un-biased investigation of the topic.

[Rath Darkblade]

This bill could destroy everything we love about the internet.

Yikes! It could destroy the Internet, period. Never mind the copyright thing - this bill (and PROTECT IP Bill, if pushed through) could destroy DNS, which the internet depends on. No DNS = No Internet.

SOPA could also destroy the internet in another way: by removing "fair use". This bill would allow them to take down a WHOLE WEBSITE just because one page has something copyright on it. But where would this stop? My website, an homage to QfG, has images of QfG characters on it. Would my ENTIRE SITE be taken down, without my authorisation, just because some bureaucrat sees it and says "Hang on, those aren't your pictures! Right then, let's destroy this commie pinko"?

Even this site would be at risk.

This site would definitely be at risk. Look up at the image at the top - it includes the Sierra logo. But we don't OWN the Sierra logo. If this SOPA bull-droppings goes through, that would be enough for some bureaucrat to say, "Take it off!" and it WOULD be.

This proposed legislation has me so hopping mad, I can't even find the words to say how mad I am. So here's a picture to show it:

[DeadPoolX]

There are some politicians against these bills and like the video said, some have even suggested deferring to those who know more about the Internet in general. Unfortunately, these people aren't in the majority.

Like Maia said, if they were only targeting known pirate sites, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But the scope of these bills are just too wide and allow far too much leeway on the enforcement side of things.

[MusicallyInspired]

Old people shouldn't be running things.

[dotkel50]

Old people shouldn't be running things.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

[MusicallyInspired]

You what?

ROFL

[Collector]

Major Websites To Shut Down In Protest Of SOPA

http://www.minyanville.com/dailyfeed/20 ... z1idJ8gMzL

[BBP]

Am glad GoDaddy switched sides, that's my webhost.

[DeadPoolX]

Major Websites To Shut Down In Protest Of SOPA

http://www.minyanville.com/dailyfeed/20 ... z1idJ8gMzL

That's an impressive list. I'm not surprised Google and Mozilla are on it, but Facebook, Amazon, PayPal, etc. Those names mean something to people, even those who're practically computer illiterate.

It also seems that big companies, like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, have pulled their support for SOPA. Whether or not they merely want it altered to be less potentially damaging or destroyed altogether is unknown, but this definitely hurts SOPA. Even if politicians discounted Nintendo as "just a gaming company," Sony and Microsoft have their hands in a lot of other areas.

[Rudy]

Good to see the protest against this bill. Gonna make a new backup of my site just in case though. I'm surprised Paypal and such are with it too. This seriously hurts their earnings. Doubt all shareholders will be happy about it.

[DeadPoolX]

Good to see the protest against this bill. Gonna make a new backup of my site just in case though. I'm surprised Paypal and such are with it too. This seriously hurts their earnings. Doubt all shareholders will be happy about it.

I'm sure the reason PayPal is against SOPA is it could affect sites that use them. PayPal itself wouldn't be attacked by SOPA, but they're an entity that makes money off users. If those users have their sites shut down, then PayPal is affected far more (in the long term) than shutting themselves down for one day.