The answer to stop piracy? Mass censorship of the internet

[Rudy]

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.

My first reaction would be to say that you're right, but there's more to it than just one day of earnings: credibility/reliability. If that gets damaged, it could cost them (and other corporate sites taking similar steps) a heck of a lot more. There's tens, hundreds of millions, if not a billions, flowing through them daily. If they really want to go forward with this, they'd better have a VERY good advance notification strategy that would put customers at ease.
Again, I'm all for the shutdown, even though I doubt it's going to happen on such large scale. It would definitely send a strong message if these guys go through with it though.

[Tawmis]

I agree with what DPX said. Millions of people's websites could be endangered. Millions of those websites use paypal. I think shutting down for one day and standing up for this - shows those who use paypal, that they're on their side. I think that's more valuable than anything.

[Collector]

As I understand the bill, if an IP holder just accuses a site of hosting any material in violation of copyright law, knowingly or unknowingly, they can have that domain name blacklisted without due process. The good faith clause is null and voided. This means that sites such as YouTube or eBay could be taken down just because someone posted a "Let's Play" video or someone tried to auction an OEM copy of some software the didn't want that they got with some hardware. Any number of sites hosted on services like GoDaddy could potentially take down the host and thereby all of sites hosted on them. Not that I think that it would necessarily go that far, but the potential would be there. If eBay were taken down, that would defiantly hurt PayPal almost more than any other site alone.

[Rudy]

The White House responds to SOPA. I guess the key sentence is:

"While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet."

The whole statement is here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/01/ ... ine-piracy

[BBP]

Wow. First time in ages since I've heard anything positive coming out of politics... Very good news!

[Rath Darkblade]

So what's happening with SOPA now, hmm? Last I heard, Rupert Murdoch has come out strongly in favour of SOPA. This is hardly surprising, because he owns so many newspapers and TV stations, and SOPA protects his interests!

What was surprising is that he apparently called Google, who participated in the blackout, "The biggest pirate and thief of them all, an enabler of pirates" or words to that effect. He later toned it down and said that the people at Google are "Immensely creative" and so on, but still... WTF?

[MusicallyInspired]

Google didn't participate in the blackout. Only Wikipedia and Reddit (of the big name ones) did.

In other news I got an email recently (some kind of mailing list on SOPA...don't know how I got onto it) that the FBI shut down megaupload.com and arrested 4 people behind it for "piracy." SOPA's not even passed yet!

[Collector]

Google did not go down, but they blacked out the logo. As Rudy posted, the White House came out against it before the blackout. It is essentially dead. Not only would Obama veto it, both SOPA and PIPA have lost Congressional support. The blackout worked. It caused congress to be flooded with an unprecedented number of emails and calls (I had heard millions) to the point that all of the Congressional idiots stepped back and realized they actually needed to read the bills that Hollywood and RIAA handed them to enact.

This does not mean that there won't be further boneheaded attempts to legislate it away that will have negative results without solving the issue. The best way to deal with it is for the industries to adapt to the realities of the digital world. These are futile attempts to hold onto a dying model of marketing. Who want to have to deal with video rental store these days? All they really need to do is to make it easy and cheap enough to get people to buy from legitimate sources, a la iTunes, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc. or if it needs some sort of copy protection, a method that is safe and pain free like Steam.

[MusicallyInspired]

Whoa. Anonymous takes action against the Megaupload debacle. They took down numerous government, justice department, music and film corporation websites, and threatened that the FBI is next.

[Datadog]

Who want to have to deal with video rental store these days? All they really need to do is to make it easy and cheap enough to get people to buy from legitimate sources, a la iTunes, Rhapsody, Pandora, etc. or if it needs some sort of copy protection, a method that is safe and pain free like Steam.

I'd love to sign up for a monthly streaming movie service like Netflix, but so far, it looks like the film selections are still only targeted at the bargain bin demographics. This is a shame, because I'd love to catch up on oldies like "Casablanca" without being recommended "The Cable Guy" instead. Even video stores were guaranteed to have at least one copy of "It's a Wonderful World" available as opposed to none.

I haven't done much shopping on Steam, but so far, I'm really warming up to it. I've begun to lose my passion for owning physical copies in recent months (it might have to do with my lack of shelving space) so simply being able to summon my purchases from the ether is a near-magical business model that every company should be taking advantage of.

[Rath Darkblade]

Meanwhile, back on the farm... (Warning: NSFW)

Incredibly incadescent idiots bombard SOPA - only the wrong one! Share and enjoy!

[DeadPoolX]

Meanwhile, back on the farm... (Warning: NSFW)

Incredibly incadescent idiots bombard SOPA - only the wrong one! Share and enjoy!

Idiots. I'm not surprised, but still... what a bunch of morons!

[Maiandra]

I haven't done much shopping on Steam, but so far, I'm really warming up to it. I've begun to lose my passion for owning physical copies in recent months (it might have to do with my lack of shelving space) so simply being able to summon my purchases from the ether is a near-magical business model that every company should be taking advantage of.

I still like to get physical copies of certain games, but I also really like Steam as a distribution model. They work hard to make it very user friendly. I especially like it when they're having awesome deals! We've got so many games at super-discounted prices on there.

[therogue]

SOPA may be beaten but its scarier big brother has arrived; ACTA and its global this time.

http://www.edri.org/ACTAbooklets
https://www.eff.org/issues/acta

Its a terrible proposal which has naturally already been signed by most of the participating countries and even worse all the negotiations have been done in secret. The European Commission has signed it which means it will go to the European Parliament and the member states next.

[Collector]

Looking it over, it seems that it does present significant treats to privacy, but I would not call it SOPA's big brother. SOPA would have allowed actions on even those that had little to do with the supposed crime by guilt by only slight association without due process based on just suspicions. But most importantly, it would have broken the DNS. It would have brought down the internet.

ACTA may be disturbing, but its aim is more focused. Some may may feel that we needn't worry if we are not doing anything wrong, but in another threat to privacy, former Representative, Bob Barr in responded to this dismissive notion with a statement that those who have done nothing wrong most deserve that their privacy be respected.