SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is another one of those bills that sounds like it’s going to do something mildly positive but, in reality, has serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it.
It puts power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” copyright infringement. This language vague enough to encompass sites you use every day, like Twitter and Facebook, making SOPA a serious problem. Here’s how it works and what you can do about it.
SOPA’s coming to a vote very soon. In fact, it was supposed to come to a vote December 16th but was delayed, likely because of all the pushback. Reddit users have already started compiling a list of the IP addresses of popular sites in case SOPA passes and access will be restricted within the United States. A decision is going to be made soon, so if you still don’t know what SOPA is or haven’t done anything to stop it, read on to learn how you can help beat the bill.
Read More: http://lifehacker.com/5860205/all-about-sopa-the-bill-thats-going-to-cripple-your-internet
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
It is very sad that a site like this, purporting to be for musicians, has fallen for the hype, and in some cases outright lies, of billion dollar tech companies who have built their businesses on stealing from artists. I strongly suggest you read more about the issue before you repeat any more of their propaganda. These two articles would be a place to good start:
http://www.copyhype.com/2011/11/why-i-support-the-stop-online-piracy-act/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcleland/2011/12/14/sopa-fixes-isolate-opponents-especially-google/
The United State has become a Communist nation. THis is just another attempt to conrolt our freedom & the American Spirit. The US Constitution plainly says that we are allowed to grievence aginst our own government. But Obama wants a law to make it illegal to speak out against our governmet. This law is in the house now too.Look at the USSR & North Korea. We’re almost in that boat now. Democrats and a few Republicans are know socialist or comunist. Becareful who you vote for.
Jeff, if you learn how to spell and speak English your ludicrous statements might appear to be more than the rantings of an illiterate weenie.
Jeff, this bill doesn’t have anything to do with Pres. Brarack Obama. It was penned by a handfull of so-called republican congressmen.
I cannot believe that grown-ups can be such morons. Whether it is from Congress, or the President is irrelevant. This Bill will give the government the power and authority to control the internet, period. They say it’s for copyright protection, but once they have the authority, they will expand it to political sites, and monitoring everyones web habits, etc….If you all knew anything about history, you’d know this is the way it works. The thing that really scares me is that you all can vote.
This has nothing to do with Pres. Obama, and it is also unhelpful to pronounce large groups of people that one has never met as “morons” who “all” are ignorant of “history.”
The reality is that SOPA would provide the Dept. of Justice some teeth to enforce the claim of copyright that it does not currently possess. This aspect of the proposed legislation is consistent with government’s traditional role in the protection of copyrights and patents. However, the proposed law has serious potential for abuse and could be used by groups such as the RIAA and the “Industry” to give themselves a greater advantage over their indie competitors ...like they need or deserve one. Though the bill says that it cannot be construed as impeding free speech, it’s inherent mechanisms do just that. It also sets up a system where people could just file complaints about sites that they don’t like and force service providers to be overly cautious to protect themselves from action. It isn’t too much of a stretch to see how this bill could be used to keep one from creating a piece of music or video, making it available on their site for sell or download ...and then having a larger entity BLOCK access. Or it could also be used to make putting up original work more expensive.
Having read it, on the whole, I find the bill to be poorly written and find that it’s potential dangers outweigh its potential benefits. I generally favor keeping the government out of the business of policing the internet for corporations and other opportunists.
So show me where I am wrong. Are you saying the government never abuses their power? Is there any instance where the government has NOT overstepped it’s authority, once it has gained a foothold?
The government doesn’t need any more ‘teeth’. What is really needs is a dentist, to extract most of the teeth it already gnashes, on a regular basis. There is no need for any new legislation for copyrights. The current civil and judicial system is perfectly adequate to handle any cases that a US Court would have jurisdiction over. The Napster case is a prime example. It was handled by Due Process, just like it should have been.
The only reason for new legislation is so the government can do something to you that they can’t already do. The sooner people learn that, the better off the country will be.
Wake up, America!
> Are you saying the government never abuses their power?
No. Nor am I saying that govt. ALWAYS abuses its power or that good doesn’t sometimes come about as the result of the legitimate exercise of govt. power. I’m not an anarchist. Are you?
>Is there any instance where the government has NOT overstepped it’s authority, once it has gained a foothold?
Yes. Had govt. been diligently exercising its regulatory power during the Bush years, the economy would not have collapsed and the gulf oil spill would not have occurred. Allowing corporations to permanently destroy portions of our habitat to make a buck such as is going on with the repercussions of mountaintop removal mining in West Virginia, to name one example.
>There is no need for any new legislation for copyrights.
1. The legislation itself is drawn up, not because the govt. is looking for something new to do, but because certain constituencies have successfully lobbied for action: In this case the MPAA, the RIAA and others. It is a legitimate process of govt. to take up the legislative needs and concerns of American citizens AND American business entities ...and at least bring those concerns to the floor for debate. The author of the SOPA legislation is Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas.
2. The global nature of the internet and the exploitation of the intellectual property of American citizens by foreign powers suggests that current copyright protections are inadequate. However, we need legislation that actually protects the innovator/creator not the American business entities that exist to exploit the innovator/creators. Republicans haven’t shown themselves to be all that interested in doing much for individuals that are the backbone of our country; just the corporations that exploit those individuals to further the wealth of those who control the corporations.
3. This legislative battle is primarily between the interests of two sets of business groups: those who make money through the tight restriction of access to certain classes of intellectual property: MPAA and RIAA ..vs.. those who make money by providing cheap or free content to draw users to their product: The Silicon Valley Cabal. Regardless of who wins, people like me lose: either the RIAA gets more control or the Silicon Valley Cabal gets to devalue my products even more than they have already done. So this really has less to do with govt. controlling us and more to do with which group of corporations get to exploit us in this plutarchy that we live in.
Thanks, James, for the links to two great articles on the merits and intent of SOPA.
The MPAA and RIAA, at best, will only be regaining ground lost when the Internet started turning their formerly paying customers into non-paying eyeballs. It is not the traditional media that has failed to react to a changing world - now, it is the Internet that is behind the times, clinging to the fantasy of a “wild frontier” model, where everything that is sucked into its vortex is considered fair game for exploitation at the expense of its originators.
It is high time that regulation take hold in the Internet. Time to grow up.
Wait a minute! Let’s make this clear. A professional musician is a person who creates a product and has a right to sell it to make a profit. Both Democrats and Republicans agree on this.
No one should be legally able to give away this musician’s product for free and thereby take potential income from the musician. If it takes the government to control THAT part of the internet, then they BETTER do it.—-
Next thing you know, there will no reason to go to a movie theater. Or if someone can hack in to get copies of Spielberg’s latest movie right before he releases it, there would be no reason to pay for ANY method of viewing Spielberg’s movie.
That is not what America wants.
Consumers do NOT want everything to be free, or they’ll eventually find out that no one is going to be able to PROVIDE anything.
Come to think of it, this sounds more and more like people who want to live off of welfare because they feel entitled.
Let’s start by realizing that you can’t expect musicians to supply you with free music. -Therefore don’t expect certain sites to be allowed to be able to provide you with these musicians’ free music. -Therefore, don’t stop the govt. from censoring THAT PART of internet traffic. The internet needs SOME rules, duh! And quit thinking that the govt. is going to “take over” the internet. That’s just paranoid delusion. I detest Obama’s Presidency, and want him out of here tomorrow, but this law in question is a GOOD thing, not a bad one.
The internet needs laws just like non-online society needs laws.
There should not even be a QUESTION about this.
The proposed law in question has some good elements mixed with some bad ones. The RIAA and MPAA aren’t too big to fail. They have been every bit as exploitative of artists and musicians as the internet pirates ...moreso actually. What has devalued music isn’t the 13 year old kid snatching a song off of a peer to peer network. It’s the all of the big companies like ..in the early days… mp3.com, myspace, the pay to present sites that actually want to charge artists to provide their content for them. When labels cut deals with companies like Spotify ...what that means is that a song becomes worth maybe .03 after it gets streamed 100 times. There is NO legislation doing ANYTHING about this. So no… I’m not for this badly written legislation that, as a music creator, isn’t really going to help me that much, and as a citizen is going to be another cause of govt. monitoring my activities. Screw the RIAA ...the are there for the Recording “industry,” not the recording artist.
As some on this thread see it as an excuse to express how much they dislike our president, as if it has anything to do with this legislation or conversation, I’ll go on record as saying, I can’t wait to vote FOR OBAMA in 2012, and that I look forward to the trouncing the Republican/Teabaggers are facing this year. I know which party did the most damage to our economy and it didn’t happen in the last three years. I also know that they haven’t tried to do a thing to take responsibility or clean up the mess that the made.
I am a professional musician and songwriter, so you can’t tell me anything about the music business. I’ve been a pro for over 30 years. And I’ve had my music used, and swiped for 3 decades, by publishers and other concerns, who are supported by law. This law will have no effect on that whatsoever. As I said, the current legal system is perfectly capable of handling infringements, if they can be handled at all.
This is a bad law, and it is just the government trying to take over the internet, like they have been trying to do since it’s inception. If you support this law, then you need to pack your bags and move to China, where they control everything, and see how you like it. Then you won’t have to be responsible for anything you do, because after all, it’s the governments fault for not regulating it.
People that support this kind of communist garbage are the reason that our Bill of Rights has been gutted. Remember I said this when Government Goons bust in your door at 3:00 AM, drag you into the street and you disappear, because you may have infringed on a copyright, and possibly sold it to terrorists. I am a Vietnam vet, and I have personally seen what happens in countries where the government gets too much power. It can happen here, as well.
Over the course of my life I have created things: music cds, books, an educational series of tapes. I sell these items on my web site. And everything I have created has been put on the web by thieves so people can download them for free. There are so many lies and hysterical fantasies about SOPA. And companies like google, who make a profit off of the pirates advertisements, oppose giving up their profits. Do you have any concept of what it feels like for people to steal all your hard work?
I know exactly what it feels like for people to steal my work. That doesn’t change the fact that this bill was poorly written and needs to be revisited. I am all for the protection of intellectual property, but I also think that having to give up more of my liberty to create and distribute that property as I see fit is not a bargain I’m interested in. This law would be great for the RIAA and MPAA ...but as an indie music person, it isn’t going to do a thing to help me. The “industry” people will make more money, but I don’t see how they would be motivated to share that increased revenue with the artists that they make their living by exploiting. What it will do is be a new weapon for big Music industry people to stifle any competition by merely filing a complaint with the site accused not having much recourse at all. I can see this type of legislation being used to shut down indie radio casts, for example. I can see it greatly narrowing the outlets that indie people have available to them. I can also see it having great potential for abuse and silencing dissenting free speech. I can never get behind that, even if it did put a couple of more shekels in my pocket.
Since this Bill has been pulled it will have to be submitted again. This bill was most likely to go after Copyright Violaters that are outside the countries that signed the Berne agreement. Those countries have no way for a legal remedy to be filed. Most probably ignor requests to cease and desist using and selling copyrighe material so shutting down or blocking offending Web Sites is the only remedy. There will be due process before the last resort of blocking a Web Site. Those that ignor legal copyright will suffer the consequenses.
You can’t just support or oppose a bill based on your own narrow personal interests!Its your kids who are going to suffer!!!!Did anyone happen to notice the NDAA passing? They’ve taken away our freedoms and privacy; robbed us of our sovereignty, and destroyed our constitution! Our centralized media makes it all possible! Yeah, lets let military industrial complex(the wolf) completely control everything we(the sheep)think and do. The internet is the ONLY place left to get UNCENSORED information. I suppose its too late anyway. I suggest you all brace yourselves for reality’s impact!
It’s a moot point now. SOPA is dead (for now at least), and America has spoken. Finally, enough of us stuck together to get something rational done.
Condolences to all the SOPA supporters….you lost. Deal with it. For those who still think the government should control everything, my suggestion is for you to immigrate to some other country, like China, where they do control everything. You might be happier there.
I am a full-time musician and songwriter, and if I have to sacrifice a song or two, or lose a little money in order to keep the internet free and open, then I am willing to pay that price. I am an inactive Marine, and I have already been wounded once defending our country’s values. I consider this just an extension of the same battles. So be it….
Ouuugh Rah! Semper Fi!
SOPA lost…internet won with their protest.