Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

[Joey D]

From how I interpret it,

- Stealing/copying their promotional images: Illegal

- Modifying images from either site: Illegal

- Taking or creating your own images, without the potential for slander, especially those in a public place: Permitted by law, freedom of expression, freedom of panorama, et cetera.

I think some people are becoming nervous nellies on this issue.

What you are interpreting is the currently law we have, SOPA is much more then that. I do not believe you are fully grasping the gravity of this bill and what it could potentially do.

You do understand that GTP will cease to exist under SOPA and Jordan could be prosecuted for copyright infringement right? Threads like the "The amazing and cool photo thread", "Imports" and "Funny Pictures" will all be in violation of the law and the poster along with Jordan are subject to prosecution. This is not to say they will, but the Feds have the power to do so if they so choose.

That right there is enough to be a bit of a "nervous nelly", but maybe you have more faith in the government than I do.

 

[Bram Turismo]

Shut down with current laws. No SOPA involved.

Google Docs next? Dropbox? (yes, they're for office documents, but you can load media files into them...)

If they take Dropbox from me, they might as well shoot me in the foot as well. Dropbox is the best thing since the internet came along. I've got at least 500MB of university work stuffed on there, and it makes sharing work and updating it with group members so much easier!

 

[slims]

Support is slowly changing it seems. Hopefully this trend continues.
SOPA losing support

 

[White & Nerdy]

That can only be a good thing.

Now what about PIPA?

 

[Matty]

That can only be a good thing.

Now what about PIPA?

Been a lot quieter then SOPA as far as I know so we can only hope that they pulled support for both..:/

 

[Leonidae@MFT]

Uh oh..

Anonymous strikes against government

 

[White & Nerdy]

That's so a few hours ago.

In any case, it's true, they did go completely and utterly nuclear. I don't know a good analogy for these guys, but they need to chillax.

 

[Matty]

Uh oh..

Anonymous strikes against government

Been updated since I last seen it but still old news.

justice.gov - Back up.
universalmusic.com - Still down.
riaa.org - Can't connect. (I assume down)
mpaa.org - Back up.
copyright.gov - Back up.
hadopi.fr - Still down.
wmg.com - Still down.
usdoj.gov - Links to justice.gov
bmi.com - Still down.
fbi.gov - Back up.

Hmm.... Only 4 of 10 are back up as we speak..

Interesting..

 

[ZeGermanBastorD]

Uh oh..

Anonymous strikes against government

I bet Kim Schmitz aka. Kim Dotcom is/was one of their biggest supporters. He must be verry pissed now after they have taken down his site & arrested him (maybe for the next 25 years? You know America).

No more free 500.000$ fireworks for New Zealand?



No more superstars like Will.i.am, P Diddy, Kanye West, Chris Brown, Jamie Foxx, Kim Kardashian, Lil John, The Game, Floyd Mayweather, Serena Williams & Ciara for his promo clips?



No more Gumball 3000 for him?



Looks like his "party" is over now.

 

[shmogt]

I'm sure a lot of you heard by now that megaupload and megavideo have been taken down by the FBI. They did it the normal way and won so why can't they just do that for all the sites they want shut down? I also find it suuuuuper funny that the CEO of the sites was Swizz Beats who is one of the biggest music producers and didn't care at all about any of this copyright stuff.

 

[AOS-]

SOPA is Dead, Smith Pulls Bill - more like retracted temporarily.

Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA, said on Friday that he is pulling the bill “until there is wider agreement on a solution.”

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith (R-Texas) said. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

Smith also released the following statement on Friday:

“We need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products. “The problem of online piracy is too big to ignore. American intellectual property industries provide 19 million high-paying jobs and account for more than 60% of U.S. exports. The theft of America’s intellectual property costs the U.S. economy more than $100 billion annually and results in the loss of thousands of American jobs. Congress cannot stand by and do nothing while American innovators and job creators are under attack.”

“The online theft of American intellectual property is no different than the theft of products from a store. It is illegal and the law should be enforced both in the store and online.

“The Committee will continue work with copyright owners, Internet companies, financial institutions to develop proposals that combat online piracy and protect America’s intellectual property. We welcome input from all organizations and individuals who have an honest difference of opinion about how best to address this widespread problem. The Committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation.”

The move comes after widespread protest on the Internet on Wednesday by Wikipedia, Reddit and others. The sites signaled their displeasure with the bill by going dark. That day, several Congressmen dropped their support for SOPA and its Senate counterpart, PIPA. The latter bill has also been taken off the table for now.

 

[White & Nerdy]

That's one down, now just PIPA to go.

 

[AOS-]

Found this on 9gag, thought I'd share it:

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Uh oh..

Anonymous strikes against government

As said earlier on this thread, it was a matter of time before either Anon or Lulzsac got involved

Support is slowly changing it seems. Hopefully this trend continues.
SOPA losing support

Seems like some of the big name Senators are all for this, why am I not surprised.

 

[Alex p.]

That story pic is epic.

 

[slims]

I also find it suuuuuper funny that the CEO of the sites was Swizz Beats who is one of the biggest music producers and didn't care at all about any of this copyright stuff.

[conspiracy theory]
Swizz beats realized that the big media and copyright companies were shafting him out of royalties for his music. Swizz also realized that people are going to pirate no matter what. So by being the CEO of megaupload he was able to turn piracy into profit. Who cares is some premium user uploaded/downloaded his album. He still got money from them for that premium account.
[/conspiracy theory]

 

[shmogt]

[conspiracy theory]
Swizz beats realized that the big media and copyright companies were shafting him out of royalties for his music. Swizz also realized that people are going to pirate no matter what. So by being the CEO of megaupload he was able to turn piracy into profit. Who cares is some premium user uploaded/downloaded his album. He still got money from them for that premium account.
[/conspiracy theory]

ok I read new info that said Swizz was going to buy the company and was in talks very recently. They put his picture all over their site and said he was in charge to try and get some of the heat off, but Swizz said he didn't actually buy it. Obviously he's not going to buy it now tho lol.

It was pretty funny when I heard he was in charge, but it was a little strange that all the top guys got arrested and somehow he didn't. Makes more sense now why he didn't care at all that it was shut down.

 

[Carbonox]

Excuse me, but what right do they have to shut down those sites if the bill has not even passed (and won't, by the way)?

I might not know everything, but it certainly feels like those people are unable to handle their power at all...

 

[Danoff]

Excuse me, but what right do they have to shut down those sites if the bill has not even passed (and won't, by the way)?

Copyright infringement is a criminal act which can be prosecuted federally. SOPA was not needed to shut down MegaUpload provided that they have evidence of willful copyright infringement.

Don't get me started on why copyright infringement is a criminal act and can land you in jail and patent infringement is civil act and carries a fine. Makes no sense.

 

[Carbonox]

Don't get me started on why copyright infringement is a criminal act and can land you in jail and patent infringement is civil act and carries a fine. Makes no sense.

I know it's impossible to get a decent answer to that, so I'm not going to get you started with that. Basically, there are way more reasons for it not being a criminal act than vice versa.

BTW, am I the only one who badly gets angered by the musicians supporting copyright laws? They're 🤬 rich enough already, so why can't they just shut up? Also they make way more money from gigs than selling records...

 

[CaptainHarlock]

Excuse me, but what right do they have to shut down those sites if the bill has not even passed (and won't, by the way)?

I might not know everything, but it certainly feels like those people are unable to handle their power at all...

They don't have the right, and it really doesn't do any good. The sites go back up, and everyone forgets in a week why they went down, or nobody notices it at all. And in the case of the Department of Justice, the White House (this is the freaking WHITE HOUSE people!) and the FBI, they only increase the possibility of going to, as it was said in the film Office Space, federal, ram you in the ass prison for a very long time.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Copyright infringement is a criminal act which can be prosecuted federally. SOPA was not needed to shut down MegaUpload provided that they have evidence of willful copyright infringement.

Don't get me started on why copyright infringement is a criminal act and can land you in jail and patent infringement is civil act and carries a fine. Makes no sense.

The Patent thing may be due to how much more control the government has over it than the Copyrights. At least from certain laws, I see a much bigger hand over that at the moment than Copyrights. Copyrights are probably easier to infringe upon than patents and are more widespread. It could be that the Government wants to make an example, not sure though I'd think both would be in the same realm.

 

[CaptainHarlock]

I know it's impossible to get a decent answer to that, so I'm not going to get you started with that. Basically, there are way more reasons for it not being a criminal act than vice versa.

BTW, am I the only one who badly gets angered by the musicians supporting copyright laws? They're 🤬 rich enough already, so why can't they just shut up? Also they make way more money from gigs than selling records...

Traditionally musicians don't make any money off of their record sales, the labels do. Very few of them do make money, but they're "mega artists" like Springsteen and U2. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters was on Howard Stern once and Howard asked him what he thought about Napster. Grohl said "I don't care about Napster, I don't many any money off selling records anyway, I make my money touring". Chances are it's not the artists, but the labels.

If anyone has ever seen the film That Thing You Do, it gives you a good idea of how the music industry works. You have the moguls who may have founded the label or worked for it at one time, and they sit back and just collect the money. There's the A&R men (Artist and Repertoire). They actually go out and find the talent. They're the ones who are really in charge. There's the "bean counters" and marketers who crunch the numbers and figure out how to sell artists to the public. And at the bottom of the ladder you have the actual talent, who everyone exploits. Occasionally the artists can get to the point where they take some of the power back for themselves, but that's rare.

This is a business model that they've fought to preserve for the last ten to fifteen years. The big thing that's changed is technology. As we all know, it's in everyone's bedroom, and the capacity to make and store music has shifted from the record industry, to the user. For decades nobody had the capacity to make LPs, and if you wanted them made you had to find a company to press them. Now we can all make CDs, and we know how cheap they are. The industry has been price fixing CD for the last twenty five years, and overcharging us all the while. When fans have stated that they are unhappy OVER paying for CDs, the only thing the industry came up with were Super Audio CDs and DVD Audio, and charged you MORE for them. That's how they do business in the Bizarro world.

The party has been over in the music industry for a number of years now. They have to reinvent themselves, and suing the pants off of anyone and everyone is still not the answers. Unfortunately I don't have the answer, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here writing this.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Traditionally musicians don't make any money off of their record sales, the labels do. Very few of them do make money, but they're "mega artists" like Springsteen and U2. Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters was on Howard Stern once and Howard asked him what he thought about Napster. Grohl said "I don't care about Napster, I don't many any money off selling records anyway, I make my money touring".

Didn't know that. So I guess Musicians don't really care, unless the Labels want them to?

 

[Danoff]

I know it's impossible to get a decent answer to that, so I'm not going to get you started with that. Basically, there are way more reasons for it not being a criminal act than vice versa.

Lobbying by Disney is the reason for it.

When you invent something in the US, you file a patent application with the USPTO and after arguing with them for a while you may eventually get issued a patent. Your patent expires 20 years after the date you applied (which may be years before the patent actually issues). So you can expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 16-17 years of protection for your patent. After that, your invention belongs to the public.

If someone violates your patent, it's your responsibility to find them, notify them, come to an agreement, or sue (you gather all evidence and pay all legal fees). The government doesn't even get involved unless you take them to court over it. If you take them to court, a jury may award you monetary damages for their infringement of your patent. That's it, nobody goes to jail, you get handed money (if they don't file for bankruptcy).

Copyright on the otherhand....

Is something you have inherently. No need to file it with the government (though you can register it with them for extra visibility). I have a copyright on this post... I don't necessarily even need to say so. Your copyright lasts 70 years beyond the life of the author. A typical copyright will last well over 100 years. You pay no registration fees, there is no application process.

If someone violates your copyright, the FBI can prosecute the case with your even being aware. Sentences for copyright infringement include jail time as well as financial damages paid to the copyright holder and the government.

Now tell me.... why should copyright and patent be different at all?

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Lobbying by Disney.

When you invent something in the US, you file a patent application with the USPTO and after arguing with them for a while you may eventually get issued a patent. Your patent expires 20 years after the date you applied (which may be years before the patent actually issues). So you can expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 16-17 years of protection for your patent. After that, your invention belongs to the public.

If someone violates your patent, it's your responsibility to find them, notify them, come to an agreement, or sue (you gather all evidence and pay all legal fees). The government doesn't even get involved unless you take them to court over it. If you take them to court, a jury may award you monetary damages for their infringement of your patent. That's it, nobody goes to jail, you get handed money (if they don't file for bankruptcy).

Copyright on the otherhand....

Is something you have inherently. No need to file it with the government (though you can register it with them for extra visibility). I have a copyright on this post... I don't necessarily even need to say so. Your copyright lasts 70 years beyond the life of the author. A typical copyright will last well over 100 years. You pay no licensing fees, there is no application process.

If someone violates your copyright, the FBI can prosecute the case with your even being aware. Sentences for copyright infringement include jail time as well as financial damages.

Now tell me.... why should copyright and patent be different at all?

They shouldn't, not sure why inventions are less important than artistic value.

 

[CaptainHarlock]

Didn't know that. So I guess Musicians don't really care, unless the Labels want them to?

Some of them do, and those are the ones who are successful enough to own their own work, or were smart enough to make that a condition of their contract. Usually the label or the publishing house takes the copyright. The Beatles sold 2.3 BILLION records worldwide, yet they never owned any of their music. Each member founded their own company later on to prevent that.

 

[LMSCorvetteGT2]

Some of them do, and those are the ones who are successful enough to own their own work. Usually the label or the publishing house takes the copyright. The Beatles sold 2.3 BILLION records worldwide, yet they never owned any of their music. Each member founded their own company later on to prevent that.

Yeah I already knew why bands and artist make their own label, I just didn't really know that about musicians not getting paid much working under big labels and that tours make them more money, I guess I had the notion that contracts were big money and as long as you made say 4 different albums you'd be rich. However, I can see why music labels wont do that, if your first record is great but the next three are a flop, why should they pay you a fat check. Radiohead always talked about EMI being awful and I see why they talk against labels so much.

 

[Zenith]

Didn't know that. So I guess Musicians don't really care, unless the Labels want them to?

Unless I'm mistaken, some musicians flat out encourage piracy.

 

[CaptainHarlock]

Unless I'm mistaken, some musicians flat out encourage piracy.

Anyone old enough to remember The Dead Kennedys?

This is a REAL cassette tape of their's.