SOPA. Good or Bad? Your Thoughts

[CloudStalker]

CloudStalker thought that it might be interesting to know what the people here on the forums think of the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Here's an interesting YouTube video that explains the SOPA bill in greater detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhwuXNv8fJM

CloudStalker is especially interested in knowing what the VideoLAN Organization's members' thoughts are on this controversial bill.
Will this somehow bring about a balanced approach to combating online piracy or is this a nightmare for the internet as we know it?

Discuss.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

I don't think there is anything to discuss. It's bad and crap, to stop freedom online.

[CloudStalker]

I don't think there is anything to discuss. It's bad and crap, to stop freedom online.

While CloudStalker agrees with you, he find it interesting that in conversations about this with friends and others, many don't seem to fully understand what this bill is about and the consequences that would result if it were to pass in it's current form. With that said, CloudStalker figures that it is worth discussing and finding out what people know about it.

Other than the MPAA, RIAA and a handful of other organizations, does anyone see any positives to such a bill being passed? Are there any concerns that such a bill might actually pass and be made into law or do you think that it is doomed to fail like previous proposals?

[IanMc]

It's a very interesting topic.

I think all governments would like more control and technology provides many ways to get it.

Why do they want more control over what the populace does? Firstly perhaps to be able to tax people then perhaps for crime fighting purposes. In any case knowledge is power, as they say.

It is interesting to note how at first an idea may sound silly, wrong or even outrageous but the more exposed we are to the idea the more it worms its way into our heads and then suddenly we think 'oh, perhaps this idea is not so bad after all' and I suppose that's how advertising works. The Comfort Boot springs to mind, it is a warm comfy boot that you put both feet in while watching TV to keep you warm

Here is another example. I think we will all agree that crash helmets are good for motorcycle riders, after all statistics will state that you have more chance of survival if you are wearing one while involved in a crash.
In some countries they are in the last phases of making the wearing of helmets mandatory for cycle riders, this too may seem like a good thing. The more you think about it the more logical and good it sounds.

What about in the future if they introduce the mandatory wearing of crash helmets for pedestrians?

At the moment that idea seems ludicrous but let it simmer and roll around in your mind for a while and it won't sound so stupid, after all I'm sure they can come up with statistics that state that any pedestrian walking in or close to traffic will have a greater chance of survival when involved in a traffic accident if they are wearing a pedestrian crash helmet and anyone seen walking alongside traffic not wearing a helmet will be subject to prosecution and a fine.

The problem is that the freedoms that we take for granted today are being slowly eroded and in a one-way fashion, like the arrow of time, more and more laws and regulations are made but they are never un-made.

Soon we will need to compile a long list of things that you mustn't do that we can give to a time traveller from the past just so that they can walk down the street without breaking any laws.

In Oxford, England they have just decided that taxi drivers must pay for and install equipment that will record the driver and passengers in video and audio. Yes audio too, so the passengers conversations will also be recorded.
Recording will start when the engine is turned on and continue for thirty minutes after the shift.

Big brother anyone?

It is almost inevitable that we, the lowly populace won't get away with the freedoms that the internet currently gives us for much longer.

Big brother is already watching, you may one-day find yourself in court where the prosecutor says 'we have requisitioned your internet history, can you tell me about this file that you sent in 2005 to a person in asia?'

Scary.

SOPA may be shoved in under the pretext of protecting innocent hard working artists who are being usurped out of their hard-earned wages but what other purposes will it fulfil for Big Brother?
What unforeseen effects will it have on our currently unrestricted internet freedoms?

We've all heard of the 'Great FireWall of China'

Are we headed for the same fate?

IanMc

[CloudStalker]

SOPA may be shoved in under the pretext of protecting innocent hard working artists who are being usurped out of their hard-earned wages but what other purposes will it fulfil for Big Brother?
What unforeseen effects will it have on our currently unrestricted internet freedoms?

We've all heard of the 'Great FireWall of China'

Are we headed for the same fate?

IanMc

Agreed. The more CloudStalker reads and watches videos about this bill the worse and more Big-Brother-ish it sounds.

Interestingly enough, speaking of "protecting innocent hard working artists who are being usurped out of their hard-earned wages", CloudStalker read an article showing how the Universal Music Industry succeeded in temporally blocking the very popular MegaUpload website, using the same DNS blocking technique that is being proposed in this SOPA bill, because they consider it to be a rouge website. In response to this attempted takedown, some well-known music artists produced a song in support of MegaUpload which YouTube was forced to take down because Universal Media Group claimed it violated their copyrights. Most disturbing thing about this is that they did not and do not own any copyrights to that song and yet they were able to get it removed from YouTube simply because it promotes a message that is contrary to their agenda. This is just a taste of what the SOPA bill will do should it pass.

If anyone is interested, CloudStalker posted a link to this YouTube video in his first post that further explains how the SOPA bill works and its expected consequences should it pass.

Another interesting piece of information that CloudStalker stumbled upon is how the popular website GoDaddy had publicly given its support to SOPA and called opposers of this bill "Myopic". This caused a huge backlash as many clients left or threatened to leave GoDaddy unless they reversed their support of SOPA. There was even one GoDaddy client that suggested on Reddit a "Move Your Domain Away From GoDaddy Day" staring December 29th. The cool thing about this is that it actually worked and GoDaddy no longer supports SOPA.

The weird thing about all of this is that in an attempt to pass this bill in the hopes that more people will purchase music and movies instead of pirate them, the industries behind this bill are in fact ticking off pretty much everyone which will probably only lead to boycotts of these industries. Do these industries not see the harm that they could be causing themselves?

[CloudStalker]

CloudStalker has some more information to share regarding SOPA.

For one thing, as many of you may have already heard, starting January 23rd, Google, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Yahoo!, Wikipedia and more may be planning to shut down their services in protest of SOPA just one day before the bill is to be debated. Some have described this as "the nuclear option" or "internet blackout." So if you happen to visit one of these sites on January 18th, instead of seeing the usual content you might instead see some sort of anti-SOPA message. Read more info about this here.

Another interesting bit of information CloudStalker stumbled upon is from this YouTube video which talks about how some of the companies that are key supporters of SOPA and are pushing for it to get passed into law are in fact the ones that have created, hosted, distributed and encouraged the use of software such as LimeWire and Kazaa knowing full well that these programs would be used to infringe upon copyrights and then turned around and sued people for using them. The guy in the video is a little kooky but it's an interesting watch nonetheless.

[AmandaM]

I don't think there is anything to discuss. It's bad and crap, to stop freedom online.

I agree, I support the NO TO SOPA. because if you get rid of free, unregulated filesharing, then what's the use of the internet?