Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Overkill

[sailingaway]

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/computers/9808-stop-online-piracy-act-sopa-overkill

[Oddone]

SOPA might as well be ACTA.. Ron Paul in short, 'No Thanks'.

[acptulsa]

Just when we finally got this Republc functioning as a real Republic, they want to take away the tool we used to do it with.

Surprise, surprise.

[DamianTV]

I suppose 200 years ago, Publishers would have been complaining about the evils of paper and how paper was used to infringe on copyrights of the previous masterpieces of that time. THe more things change, the more they stay the same.

But look at how copyright has changed from 1776 to now. It used to be 26 years was the life of a copyright, or something like that. Now, its like 99 years. It does great for Publishers who get to maintain intellectual control over their content for longer periods of time, but what does it really do for the Content Creator? The Publisher is the Middleman that makes all the money, and we used to need Paper to distribute material, copyrighted or otherwise. The Internet is the new Paper which has all but destroyed the need for a Middleman as companies can self publish for very little cost. These laws are all nothing more than an attempt by the Self Important Publisher to maintain their role as the only lawful distributor of any Copyrighted Material. And they have realized that the need for their services is disappearing, and as a result, extort more money from both the Content Creators by way of a larger percentage of the profits for less work, and charging us more for access to the Copyrighted Content by way of money, privacy, and various forms of DRM.

To me, Copyright Infringement occurs when those of ability steal the benefits from the efforts of the Content Creators. THat means the Publishers are the Copright Infringers, not us. Content Creators have always and will always want to create Content that they can get to the people who want to consume that Content. The Publishing Middlemen have abused the legal system to extort as much money as possilbe from both of us, not to mention that they usually end up with the Intellectual Property Rights to many Intellectual Properties that do not belong to them. Much like the Federal Reserve Bank enabled the transfer of wealth from individuals to itself via taxation on your Earnings.

The Middleman thinks they deserve the biggest share of the pie for doing the least ammt of effort for it. The Publishers are the Real Pirates. The Corporations are the Real Criminals. Never forget that.

[ShaneEnochs]

I really like online piracy.

[FrankRep]

I really like online piracy.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVXCr6upWUo

[dannno]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVXCr6upWUo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcOdNc_seyM

[DamianTV]

I guess the rest of the world is pissed about this bill!

EU Speaks Out Against US Censorship
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/17/2142214/eu-speaks-out-against-us-censorship


"The EU Parliament has adopted, 'by a large majority,' a statement warning the US to refrain 'from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names' due to the 'need to protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communications.' This resolution highlights both the practices prescribed in SOPA/PIPA... but also the actions of Homeland Security and ICE in seizing domain names. By adopting a resolution against domains seizures the European Parliament recognizes the dangerous precedent the pending SOPA legislation would set, and it wouldn't be a surprise if more foreign criticism follows. No country should have the ability to simply take over international domain names, and surely the US would feel the same if this plan was put in motion by a foreign country. Or as some 60 press freedom and human rights advocate groups put it in their letter to the US representatives: 'This is as unacceptable to the international community as it would be if a foreign country were to impose similar measures on the United States.'"