Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

  • Thread starter tlowr4
  • 589 comments
  • 33,873 views

What do you think about the new Internet BlackList Bill?

  • It's a load of crap! GET RID OF IT!!

    Votes: 131 67.9%

  • It's S.978 all over again. KILL IT. KILL IT WITH FIRE!!

    Votes: 57 29.5%

  • Oh finally, the US realizes that there's too much copywrited stuff going on these days. I'm happy ab

    Votes: 5 2.6%
  • Total voters
    193
tlowr4

tlowr4

2,128
Australia
Australia
N/A
N/A
Oh joy!

Another bill to stop people uploading "copyrighted content". THis is essentially Bill S.978, however S.978 immediatly sent people to jail if they uploaded copyrighted content. Thankfully S.978 was not even passed, mainly thanks to DSPGaming and davidr64yt's videos. However, the Internet BlackList Bill has been passed into parliament, and is in the process of being finalised.

A video explaining it all is here:

(thanks to pcgamer999)

If you wish to speak your word on this matter, please use this petition: http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/sopa/?source=fb

I will update this post as I find out more things about this bill. Please post your comments, suggestions and thoughts on this pressing matter. For now though, it's dinner time!


EDIT: I thought I would get in and make this thread before 30 other people did. No more threads to be made about this, put it allllll in here. Now, eating time.
 
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“Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished… if the infringement was committed… by the distribution or public performance of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.”
If a movie, TV show, video game, song, and cetera hasn’t actually been released yet, and you know or should know that it’s unreleased but you stream or upload it anyway, you’re in trouble.
There’s nothing wrong with WinCabbage’s interpretation of the changes by S.978(b) to Section 506 at all, he’s totally right. This bill would make it illegal to perform unreleased copyrighted works. It’s just that he missed the entirety of S.978(a).
Click to expand...
Trolling the Stream by Ultra David
Don't forget about this thread
After seeing this response, the person who streams unreleased product will get fined IF you make profit of it. Capcom's response:
The reality is, historically we have been helped by these activities (e.g. Evo streaming) and on some occasions we have been hurt by these things (MvC3 Galactus and other video leaks, AE video leaks, etc.).
There is no question there is an ownership and copywrite issue in these cases, though I’m not terribly sure legal action is in our best interests in most cases unless we have to do so to demonstrate continued protection of the IP ownership.
That said, if this legislation comes to pass I’m sure we’ll figure out ways to support folks whose efforts and intentions have historically been helpful. Our community team will likely take center stage in facilitating those activities.
And as you know, we’ve got games releasing soon that enable Youtube uploads directly from in-game… in the future I hope to have games that out of the gate enable streaming. Obviously we’ll have click through licenses to allow for those uses as facilitated by those products.
What’s more, I don’t believe the government is likely to take proactive action on criminal merits without the prompting of an IP holder to initiate the probe. They just don’t have the budget or bandwidth to police that.
In short, I don’t forsee this being a major issue for most organizations today.
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^^ That's all about S.978. This new one is the Internet BlackList Bill, an entirely different one. But the content is basically the same, it just doesn't jail people.

What are your thoughts?
 
In the U.S. I think "should have known" would get it thrown out. How can you prove "should have known?" There is no legal definition for common sense.

It seems one of the targets for this is somebody in the production lab with access making a copy of a movie and uploading it somewhere. Yeah, he knows. One of the things he signed to work there explains that pretty clearly.

But what about his 16-year-old kid at the house, who finds this file on the computer? Yeah, by common sense he "should know," but does he really understand? He just wants to be a hero to the folks at school, even if he doesn't let on it was him that uploaded. He just found a cool movie that he's never heard anything about, and shared it. What does he know about it?
 
Sadly, I would like to see the bill rather than one site. But it does favor the corporate media than the average Citizen. They need to find another way to stop Piracy than attack a person's rights.
Wired article about it
 
wfooshee
In the U.S. I think "should have known" would get it thrown out. How can you prove "should have known?" There is no legal definition for common sense.

It seems one of the targets for this is somebody in the production lab with access making a copy of a movie and uploading it somewhere. Yeah, he knows. One of the things he signed to work there explains that pretty clearly.

But what about his 16-year-old kid at the house, who finds this file on the computer? Yeah, by common sense he "should know," but does he really understand? He just wants to be a hero to the folks at school, even if he doesn't let on it was him that uploaded. He just found a cool movie that he's never heard anything about, and shared it. What does he know about it?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately common sense is going out the window in legal systems around the world. A prime example is a recent decision in a US court that shut down a DVD rental service (Zediva) because apparently while it is OK to rent a DVD through Netflix or other "traditional" DVD rental business, and watch it at home, it is not ok to rent it from Zediva and have someone at Zediva load the DVD into a player at a remote location, then stream the video to your house (Apparently lawyers are getting so stupid that they seem to think the length of the cable makes a difference). With stuff like this and e-PARASITE coming out of the US congress it probably won't be long before "should have known" is thrown out as a valid defense.
 
cjmpe
Unfortunately common sense is going out the window in legal systems around the world. A prime example is a recent decision in a US court that shut down a DVD rental service (Zediva) because apparently while it is OK to rent a DVD through Netflix or other "traditional" DVD rental business, and watch it at home, it is not ok to rent it from Zediva and have someone at Zediva load the DVD into a player at a remote location, then stream the video to your house (Apparently lawyers are getting so stupid that they seem to think the length of the cable makes a difference). With stuff like this and e-PARASITE coming out of the US congress it probably won't be long before "should have known" is thrown out as a valid defense.
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I think the issue with Zediva was that they weren't authorized by the studios to stream their movies and were profiting from it. It's actually happened before, in 1991 there was a hotel that did pretty much with the same thing only with VHS tapes streamed to guests rooms, the result was the same, the operation was shut down(not the hotel itself, just the rental service).

It's also nothing new, there is no way I could get away with buying a bunch of second hand movies and opening a rental shop without being sued out of my 🤬. I really see nothing wrong with that, like it or not you can't do whatever you want with copyrighted material.

I'll just quote on thing before I leave, it's shown at the beginning of every copyrighted film.

"...Any unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or broadcast of the contents on this disc in whole or any part is illegal."
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I'm very surprised that this didn't get a big reaction. I mean, it's only the fate of YouTube and basically the whole internet...
 
I know a few big name developers commented on this before saying if it were to ever go through there would be something in there "accept this blurb" when you load up a game that would say youtube and streaming their content is perfectly fine... I'm not too worried about it really. Plus there is more to youtube than gaming videos.
 
^^ Exactly. This affects "copyrighted content". Games, Movies, music...75% of YouTube. And I know that game developers like YouTube for free advertising. Hell, I hightly doubt MineCraft would even have 1'000'000 copies sold yet, if it wasn't for the big fella's, like davidr64yt and paulsoaresjr. Now MC has sold over 3'100'000 copies.
 
tlowr4
^^ Exactly. This affects "copyrighted content". Games, Movies, music...75% of YouTube. And I know that game developers like YouTube for free advertising. Hell, I hightly doubt MineCraft would even have 1'000'000 copies sold yet, if it wasn't for the big fella's, like davidr64yt and paulsoaresjr. Now MC has sold over 3'100'000 copies.
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Youtube should be renamed to moneytube. The amount of money some people make on there is absolutely ludicrous. Were talking $30k+ a month.
 
Doesn't matter, most people will get away with copyrighted stuff.

A tedious whack-a-mole game these copyright issues are.
 
I wrote a big statement, but nevermind. I'm pretty sure i would just get bashed for how I feel about stealing anything.
 
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I believe that it is the companiy's own fault that pirating exists. I don't believe we should pay large amounts of money for software. Take a look at AutoCad. The software liscense costs thousands of dollars. If software was cheaper, people would buy it more often instead of pirating. Another example is adobe Acrobat X Pro. $1740 for the full version? Are you kidding me? However, I do have to admit when people pirate music and other forms of media, they don't really have any excuse. They should pay up for it as it is not that expensive. However, the thing is that even though one song is only 99 cents, a whole library might cost you thousands of dollars. I understand that people need to make money off of things, but if it is causing people to pirate, there is definately something going wrong here. As for the removal of sites, I strongly oppose of this. They should not have the right to remove a site from the internet if they are hosting pirtated content. I think that they should be able to request the removal of files, and if it is not met, take the person to court.
 
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I find SOPA to be just another attempt to strip away little bits of our personal liberties in an effort to further corporatism. Personally, I'm siding with the pirates on this one.

I'm quoting myself on this issue from something I said earlier this year: :sly:

ChaosStar79
I would argue that the music industry's low standards of what music is/should be has led to all this piracy that we see now. How many times have you paid 15-20 bucks for a cd, only to find out that it has exactly 2 good songs on it and you have heard them both a million times already on the radio. The "Artists" and record companies are just as responsible as anyone for the downfall of the music biz as the pirates are. If they had not made a practice of releasing 9 filler tracks on every cd, more people would surely buy them. lol. This is the whole reason that I-tunes is profitable. The ability to only pay for the tracks that are actually worth paying for. Also this is why people simply steal music instead of paying for it. They are tired of being ripped off and paying good money for garbage product and have decided not to play along with the record companies games.

If the music is good, you will sell enough merchandise and concert tickets that you can view your lost revenue from album sales as advertising costs. If someone posts your music to a torrent site, they are actually doing you a favor by advertising for you and creating new fans. This is the business model used by Nine Inch Nails as described by Trent Reznor himself in online interviews, and it seems to hold water to me.

Good bands will profit regardless of piracy, and bad ones will make one song and then disappear after everyone has stolen it.
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I like your points Chaos. This act (and the Occupy Wall Street eviction) is a perfect example of how corporations are taking over the American government. It's bad enough as is that we are being robbed of our money, but I will not stand for being robbed of our rights. And worst of all, I won't be able to go on Reddit! >:(
 
I always love the responses threads like this get. It's amazing the excuses people can come up with to justify pirating. I don't agree with a lot of the measures they come up with to fight it (SOPA), but it is stealing, nothing more, nothing less. If you are going to do it, at least don't use the usual lame excuses to make yourself feel better about it. (it's too expensive, the music isn't that good anyway, etc., etc.) Obviously your parents raised you to be theives, be proud of your heritage. 👍
 
Thanks Skier :cheers:

Here's a good video about PROTECT-IP and how it could affect us all. Surely GTP would have at least one or two applicable items on it somewhere as well, so goodbye GTP.... 👎👎
http://vimeo.com/31100268

boshuter
I always love the responses threads like this get. It's amazing the excuses people can come up with to justify pirating. I don't agree with a lot of the measures they come up with to fight it (SOPA), but it is stealing, nothing more, nothing less. If you are going to do it, at least don't use the usual lame excuses to make yourself feel better about it. (it's too expensive, the music isn't that good anyway, etc., etc.) Obviously your parents raised you to be theives, be proud of your heritage. 👍
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Yes. Clearly that is what it is. :lol: ( <-- sarcasm )
 
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boshuter
I always love the responses threads like this get. It's amazing the excuses people can come up with to justify pirating. I don't agree with a lot of the measures they come up with to fight it (SOPA), but it is stealing, nothing more, nothing less. If you are going to do it, at least don't use the usual lame excuses to make yourself feel better about it. (it's too expensive, the music isn't that good anyway, etc., etc.) Obviously your parents raised you to be theives, be proud of your heritage. 👍
Click to expand...

Piracy came about because of corporate greed. You know the pre-Napster days, with $20 CDs of crap songs. And it continues today; you can't even post a short clip from a TV show or movie, or use a part of a song without getting slapped with a copyright claim. I agree the concept of piracy is wrong, but with how tryranical big companies are today, I feel it is more than justified.
 
boshuter
I always love the responses threads like this get. It's amazing the excuses people can come up with to justify pirating. I don't agree with a lot of the measures they come up with to fight it (SOPA), but it is stealing, nothing more, nothing less. If you are going to do it, at least don't use the usual lame excuses to make yourself feel better about it. (it's too expensive, the music isn't that good anyway, etc., etc.) Obviously your parents raised you to be theives, be proud of your heritage. 👍
Click to expand...

Well, you obviously don't have the value of money. Also, you are calling the whole Iranian population and the Iranian government thieves, along with millions of others people. Have you ever heard of a 24 DVD collection of pirated software? It gets released every year in Iran for 30 bucks per 24 DVD collection, and is updated and larger every year. Oh, did I forget to tell you its legal there? Its called money, and it doesn't grow on trees.
 
SkierPS3
Piracy came about because of corporate greed. You know the pre-Napster days, with $20 CDs of crap songs. And it continues today; you can't even post a short clip from a TV show or movie, or use a part of a song without getting slapped with a copyright claim. I agree the concept of piracy is wrong, but with how tryranical big companies are today, I feel it is more than justified.
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I bet you don't steal gas, food or clothing do you? You need those everyday, and they are all way overpriced. If you don't want to pay 20$ for crap songs, then why would you steal the crap songs. People pirate music and software because they don't want to pay for it, plain and simple. They want to use it but they don't want to pay money for it and can get away with it. Everyone justifies it because they don't have to ever look at the person they are stealing from face to face and they can just sit in their home and steal at will. It is no different then walking in a record store, picking up a cd and just walking out. How is that any different then stealing music online?

As far as autocad being so expensive goes, you didn't write the program so why should you be able to decide if it's overpriced or not. Do you really need autocad to survive? No you don't, then why would you steal it. You might want to play with it or design something, but I bet your not making money with it, and if you are, you should pay for the program. It's not like autocad is call of duty and 10 million people are going to buy it. It's a very small market and they need to charge a fortune to make a profit off of it.

I'm in a family sawmill business and we use a very expensive inventory system. The software is around 30k and it could be written by anyone who is decent at writting software. Is 30k way to expensive, hell yes, but they need to charge that because not many people actually need it. They need to be able to pay support people who actually know the program and can solve problems in a matter of minutes for a business. They too have expenses, and not millions of customers to support them.

I completely agree with boshuter. Getting a song online for free without the consent of the people who own the rights to the song is stealing. No matter how you guys want to justify not paying for programs or music that you can get for free, doesn't make you any less of a thief. The people who wrote the software or music can charge whatever they want for it. If you don't want to pay it, then don't, but that doesn't mean you should just take it because you want it. You are not entitled to anything you want just because you want it.

And Nissan. Are you really using Iran as an example of how to run a country? Seriously, what do you need autocad, or adobe acrobat for? How many people would even actually pay 100$ for either one of those programs? Not very many except for the people who are going to use them to make money, and how many people are going to make money using them. That's why they cost so much. I paid for my windows, photoshop, games, music, etc. because I run a business and know what it's like to get stolen from. It sucks when you work really hard trying to make something and people just take it because people feel entitled to it just because other people have it.

I had a guy beg me to saw him about 1100$ worth of lumber a few weeks ago. I don't usually do alot of small orders like that because it's a pain, but I also know how hard it is to get other places to do it for you. I went ahead and sawed the lumber and he came and got it and skipped out on going to the office and paying. That was 3 weeks ago and I haven't seen a check or been able to get ahold of him. Just because we produce millions of feet of lumber a year he thought it wouldn't be a big deal. It is and I'm pissed about it. I'm giving him one more week and then I will contact my lawyer and go through the process of getting paid.

Anyone just taking programs they want is no different then that at all, except they won't get caught because they hide behind a computer screen. Try just taking whatever you want in the real world that you think is overpriced, and see how that worls out for you.
 
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bevo
And Nissan. Are you really using Iran as an example of how we should run a country?
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Considering its a country that is rich, out of debt and living there is great (you don't need to work your ass off there to make a decent wage, compared to here), then yes.

Also, maybe I don't need it for making money, but I need it for a school project. What am I going to do about that? If its so easy to program the 30K software inventory system, why not save 30K and program it yourself? And the point you haven't realized is that you don't normally get caught pirating. You do when you steal something from a store though.
 

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