Can Someone Please Explain SOPA

[No Free Beer]

Just as the title suggests,

Can someone please explain what SOPA & PIPA are exactly, hold the legaltalk mumbo jumbo?

Yes, I said mumbo jumbo

[fisharmor]

They're proposed laws. They involve the internet.
No bill involving the internet has ever been a good thing.
They're supported by John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
So without even getting into specifics, a colonoscopy sounds preferable.

[Todd]

They're proposed laws. They involve the internet.
No bill involving the internet has ever been a good thing.
They're supported by John McCain and Lindsey Graham.
So without even getting into specifics, a colonoscopy sounds preferable.

How come those two always seem responsible for every piece of really bad legislation that comes out of D.C these days.

[fisharmor]

Here's a good short writeup.

http://www.slashgear.com/slashgear-101-sopa-and-pipa-explained-in-plain-english-17209599/

[No Free Beer]

Here's a good short writeup.

http://www.slashgear.com/slashgear-101-sopa-and-pipa-explained-in-plain-english-17209599/

Thanks

[InTradePro]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/11/sopa-down-not-yet-out

[InTradePro]

Just as the title suggests,

Can someone please explain what SOPA & PIPA are exactly, hold the legaltalk mumbo jumbo?

Yes, I said mumbo jumbo

Two bills that could allow the US government to control the entire internet in an underhand way without recourse.

[No Free Beer]

why would this site get shut down?

[fisharmor]

why would this site get shut down?

Because somewhere someone has posted copyrighted material here.
It's unavoidable.

What would happen is that FOX news would come to the conclusion that they don't like Megyn Kelly videos making her look like an ass getting replayed hundreds of times, and they also don't like the Judge getting more airtime than they've already given him (particularly without commercials).
CNN would decide that they don't like people reviewing the debates because it means more people start paying attention to this crazy kook that they're trying to bury.

Then they'd see that there's a site that is directly responsible for people getting this material and replaying it ad nauseum.
It would take about 2 seconds to find some copyrighted material in the videos.
And then libertyforest gets shut down.

Easy peasy.

[InTradePro]

Because somewhere someone has posted copyrighted material here.
It's unavoidable.

Even a posted link to an inappropriate site would do it.

[thepotatoman]

Basically if someone uploads a copywrited work to something like youtube, then youtube would basically be blacked out, by taking away youtube's ability to use the youtube.com web address and freezes any assets from advertisers youtube would get.

Basically for those sites to continue to exist they would have to hire people to inspect every single piece of content users upload before letting it put up on their sites, and even that might be too risky for companies to continue to survive. Every site built around user generated content would have some hard times staying up and running. Out of country sites are even affected as US advertisers would still have to stop doing business with them and the web address for those sites would still be blocked out in America.

All this happens without trial, but a system will be set up to dispute any take downs, but you need to be there in person, so small out of state businesses are out of luck. This would also be a huge blow to grassroots campaigning like the one Paul has built up. Even this site we are on would have problems if someone decided to link to illegal content.

Now the bill has been rewritten time and time again thanks to protests so I'll admit I don't know what exactly the current bill looks like, but the fact that all these huge sites are taking drastic measures makes me think it still must be pretty bad.

[No Free Beer]

Where is Tebow when we need him?

[EaSy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayhZvnYED6I

[No Free Beer]

But, taking other people's property isn't nec. right or legal anyway. Does this not just enforce that?

[fisharmor]

Now the bill has been rewritten time and time again thanks to protests so I'll admit I don't know what exactly the current bill looks like, but the fact that all these huge sites are taking drastic measures makes me think it still must be pretty bad.

As I implied in the beginning, it really doesn't matter to me what the bill looks like now.
If it's a federal bill and it involves the internet, there's not a big probability that we're going to like it.

[fisharmor]

But, taking other people's property isn't nec. right or legal anyway. Does this not just enforce that?
Hm... see now we're getting into the intellectual property issue.
Yes, it does enforce intellectual property.
If you believe in intellectual property, this is the logical consequence: shut down the internet.
While we're at it, create a state agency which will review all new paper publications as well.

Intellectual property sounds good on the surface. But we're in the end game here. There are only two philosophically pure directions to go: complete totalitarianism, or recognition that intellectual property is fallacious.

[No Free Beer]

I am so tired of this crap.

[Dsylexic]

Hm... see now we're getting into the intellectual property issue.
Yes, it does enforce intellectual property.
If you believe in intellectual property, this is the logical consequence: shut down the internet.
While we're at it, create a state agency which will review all new paper publications as well.

Intellectual property sounds good on the surface. But we're in the end game here. There are only two philosophically pure directions to go: complete totalitarianism, or recognition that intellectual property is fallacious.

i agree. while we are it,abandon languages .ALL languages evolved from somebody's intellectual property.

[MadHermit]

A friend of mine forwarded this to me this morning:
http://theoatmeal.com/sopa

[InTradePro]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayhZvnYED6I

+Rep

[orenbus]

But, taking other people's property isn't nec. right or legal anyway. Does this not just enforce that?

What they are trying to do is deal with a fly by trying to kill it with a cannon and not caring if people or free speech gets caught in the crossfire, because after all this legislation is being driven by lobbyist that don't care about what our representatives should be caring about.

[SilentBull]

Here's a brief explanation that I just wrote: http://www.truthinexile.com/2012/01/18/the-big-deal-about-the-sopapipa-bill/