Stop Online Piracy Act & Protect IP Act

[Mega]

By far two of the most dangerous and harmful bills introduced today, not only to US citizens but to the entire world, are Protect-IP and SOPA, proposed censorship systems for the internet based on the interests of the entertainment industry. It sounds ridiculous, especially because you probably haven’t heard of it before, but they’re very real.

The MPAA, RIAA, Hollywood knows that they have been flying in CEOs of as many companies as possible, recruiting people to get petition signups at malls in California, and here’s the big point— they know they have gotten their message through to Congress — the worst bill in Internet history, the one where government and their corporations get unbelievable power to take down sites, threaten payment processors into stopping payment to sites on a blacklist, and throw people in jail for posting ordinary content is about to pass before the end of this year. The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now.

PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites “by accident,” mistakenly, or for NOT doing “enough” to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples’ sites, including slowing down your connection. That’s right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.

—boingboing.com

And this is how it will affect you:

Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go: despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward “rogue” foreign sites, there is no question that it targets US companies as well. The bill sets up a system to punish sites allegedly “dedicated to the theft of US property.” How do you get that label? Doesn’t take much: Some portion of your site (even a single page) must

• be directed toward the US, and either
  
  
• allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” infringement or
  
  
• allegedly be taking or have taken steps to “avoid confirming a high probability” of infringement.
  
  

If an IP rightsholder (vaguely defined – could be Justin Bieber worried about his publicity rights) thinks you meet the criteria and that it is in some way harmed, it can send a notice claiming as much to the payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal etc.) and ad services you rely on.

Once they get it, they have 5 days to choke off your financial support. Of course, the payment processors and ad networks won’t be able to fine-tune their response so that only the allegedly infringing portion of your site is affected, which means your whole site will be under assault. And, it makes no difference that no judge has found you guilty of anything or that the DMCA safe harbors would shelter your conduct if the matter ever went to court. Indeed, services that have been specifically found legal, like Rapidshare, could be economically strangled via SOPA. You can file a counter-notice, but you’ve only got 5 days to do it (good luck getting solid legal advice in time) and the payment processors and ad networks have no obligation to respect it in any event. That’s because there are vigilante provisions that grant them immunity for choking off a site if they have a “reasonable belief” that some portion of the site enables infringement.

—eff.org

This is a huge deal, guys. If this bill passes, sites like tumblr, youtube, and megaupload could be taken down.

More information:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/11/infographic-effects-of-the-int.php

http://americancensorship.org/

This is

[PSI Wind]

Doesn't this counteract Free Speech?

[Mega]

It does. :/ The thing is, the party has been pushing bills like this for years, including the ACTA. They could be focusing on far more important issues than this.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

This is going a bit too far considering what it could affect.

I can understand the intentions, but for some reason when it comes to this in politics they seem to be completely ignorant of how far this could stretch. I may very well be exaggerating this, but really, they should at the very least know how broad their proposals would be covering.

Edited November 16, 2011 by ChaosSupremeSonic

[\gunther]

This is the exact same shit everybody criticizes the Chinese government for. How could anybody in the government support this? Just knowing that this idea managed to get this far, in a country where free fucking speech is supposed to be a guaranteed right, infuriates me.

Edited November 16, 2011 by HotGirlOnInternet

[Carbo]

I'm frankly baffled by how congress are willing to cover their ears and eyes to the colossal elephant in the room by having the only opposing party brought into the lobby being fucking Google.

It's like bringing a tactical nuke onto a defenseless toddler with a watergun.

[Jeffhog]

Straw man fallacy is in effect: by distorting the opposing party and making them seem weaker to make it that much more refutable.

BULLSHIT!

[Abominal SnowTaz]

This is the exact same shit everybody criticizes the Chinese government for. How could anybody in the government support this? Just knowing that this idea managed to get this far, in a country where free fucking speech is supposed to be a guaranteed right, infuriates me.

[Jeffhog]

I bet the next elected political party will get all the votes if they promise to repeal this, should it pass.

[Koopalmier]

Er, I don't understand. Could anyone sum this up, please ?

[Jeffhog]

Er, I don't understand. Could anyone sum this up, please ?

[Old dead account]

Another one of these? Didn't we have one last month too that went nowhere?

[Noir]

I'd normally dismiss this as another shitty attempt at censorship that will never get passed like all the other times these bills have been proposed, but the fact that the committee is stacked five to one in favor of it rather caught my attention. The fact that something so blatantly unconstitutional could possibly even be considered seriously disgusts me.

[Tori Himemiya]

Er, I don't understand. Could anyone sum this up, please ?

Well basically the Government wants to stop Internet Piracy. Their solution? Censor up the internet.

Its a pretty flawed solution. We have the right to free speech so this really shouldn't pass or else they'll be violating our rights. Humanity should be opposing this bill because they really can't keep us quiet.

[No more]

This could never really happen as your supreme court would find this unconstitutional, right?

Unless the money talks that is...

[Noir]

The Supreme Court hasn't quite had a perfect run with making good decisions, though the current justices probably wouldn't let this go through considering they've ruled against every similar bill.

[Solkia]

Another one of these? Didn't we have one last month too that went nowhere?

Yeah, they've tried it several times and it has never worked.

[Your Vest Friend]

Okay, i appreciate the sentiments behind the opposition and all, but it gets annoying when you start to throw up pop-ups while I'm browsing other sites. Stop it, anti-bill people. >:/

[Barry the Nomad]

I had listened to the talks that went on today, and a LOT of people who are the decision makers on this act know very little. One older gentleman assumed that typing “free J Edgar movie” into google, and clicking a YouTube link that in turn directed users to a movie download site was Google and YouTube making it easy to find a download version of the movie. However, I tried that very same thing and it does not take you to the movie, it takes you to a spam site that tries to make you fill out a survey. It’s still shady, and needs to be cleaned up by YouTube, but it was not an easy way to find a movie for free. So their little attempt to make Google and YouTube look bad was a fail.

Also, nobody but Google knew what DNS was and how it would be affected by this bill. Pitiful.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Barry the Nomad

[PSI Wind]

Thankfully, if it DOES pass the Senate, Obama will Veto it.

[Carbo]

Thankfully, if it DOES pass the Senate, Obama will Veto it.

The source this claim stems from is a year old one that has no bearing on the current situation when the corporations supporting the bills are funding him, and when he was never against Counterfeit/Infringement bills like COICA to begin with.

[Solkia]

Thankfully, if it DOES pass the Senate, Obama will Veto it.

It probably won't, it hasn't in the past.

I thought obama supported the bill?

[-Robin-]

Someone called Metal Man88 said it nicely on another forum:

They've had quite a while to lock down the internet.

The issue is the protocols of the internet prevent them from succeeding.

Let's pretend this bill is passed. Well, first thing, Youtube and similar make wads of cash over sharing IP, so they're going to sue against the law. So now the weak government must fight the wrath of corporations like Google.

Next, the RIAA and Hollywood do not have the sort of cash that the internet companies do have. Let's suppose they lock off all sharing of informaiton like this—then no one has any reason to have an internet connection anymore. So then goliaths like AT&T, who basically own the US government, just get up off their seat and idly shove the entire bill into the garbage and continue on like nothing happened.

I'm sorry, but I've been seeing these "Sky is falling" scenarios for the last 10 years. Remember the Millenium Copyright Act? Oh yeah, that was supposed to do this.

I see it had a lot of effect, since there's actually more sharing of stuff now than before it was introduced.

So, as a jaded observer who's been through a number of these bills being passed, I can rightfully say that they can make as many pieces of paper decrying how the internet works as they want. But the internet will always have proxies, peer-to-peer stuff, and loopholes. No amount of fancy legislative tricks will prevent people from using an alternate DNS based in another country in combination with a proxy to go wherever they want. If they make that the new norm, then so be it—the more technologically inclined will make programs to make it easier for lay users, and as a result all the US accomplishes is causing the infrastructure of the internet to go move somewhere else, which, GASP, would just lose more jobs and not actually benefit anyone.

Bills like this have been coming and going for years. In the end, they're highly unrealistic and usually fall apart on the "Make it real" step.

Worrying about this is perhaps a bit more rational than worrying about deadly asteroids but not very productive.

If it does in fact somehow magically destroy all the things we use the internet for, though, then we'll just have plenty of time to go down to the record stores and theaters and destroy the livelihood of the MPAA/RIAA.

You might say "How's that possible?" But I estimate thousands if not a million or two angry, bored, and intelligent people with hours and hours of free time forced into their hands against their wills will come up with something, especially when they know who's at fault for it and how to harm them.

This is the next of many similar bills attempted. It's not likely to happen.

Edited November 17, 2011 by Razor Wind

[Spirit of Vengeance]

Good news everyone! SOPA has been defeated!!!

One down, one to go!

Crud, this is what I get for posting while on medicine for sprained ribs. Disregard this, I'm a twit.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Spirit of Vengeance

[Mega]

That article isn't about the SOPA. :U