What is your opinion of SOPA?

[maidos]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
Curious what your opinions are especially if you are coder or designer?

Basically anyone can file a copyright complaint and make the hosting provider responsible for the content and force to disable the access even if its jsut an allegation.

 

[Jaxel]

SOPA violates everything Safe Harbor stands for... as a forum owner, it pretty much means that you are responsible for every post your users make. It means that if a company doesn't like a single post on your website, they can FORCE your host to shut you down...

It means websites like YouTube CANT exist. It means Facebook CANT exist... Hell... it means GOOGLE can't exist... if "questionable content" appears on Google's search engine, then Google is responsible for it and must be shut down. These sites are so big, and content is being pushed out so fast that it would take a team of 100,000 to moderate it all.

Yes, they can put in exceptions for these big sites, but what about the smaller sites? It stifles creative freedom and prevents startups from existing. It basically makes it so you are guilty, until proven innocent. Its a complete violation of everything this country was founded on, and if it passes... America is over.

 

[Jaxel]

This is something I think a lot of people don't understand... and I apologize for going so political in this...

SOCIALISM IS A BAD THING.

Most people don't actually know what socialism means. They think it means government supplied "whatever"; what they don't understand is that it actually means government CONTROLLED "whatever". And history has proven time and time again, that when a government, ANY government gets control of anything, they run it into the ground.

So where am I going with this? OUTSOURCING. With the demand for socialist healthcare in America, people don't understand that it doesn't mean FREE healthcare... the healthcare has to be paid by someone. Will the government pay it? In order to do that, they have to increase taxes... so that won't happen. So who will pay it? The employers. As long as you hire American employees, employers will be required to pay for healthcare. So the impetus for employers to higher foreign workers rises... Many people wonder why companies are posting record breaking profits, yet still firing people and unemployment rises... this is why.

The government has been controlling our economy, our welfare programs, etc for a long time now, and they have run every single one of them into the ground. Yes, you can easily give me examples of socialist controlled programs in other countries and how well they work... But that just means the government hasn't corrupted them... YET.

What does SOPA have to do with this? If SOPA passes, I won't be buying my domains, or hosting my websites by American companies anymore... way to **** over the American economy even more you ****heads in congress.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

SOPA violates everything Safe Harbor stands for... as a forum owner, it pretty much means that you are responsible for every post your users make.

I don't see how this makes a forum owner responsible for every post they make. If someone posts copyright content upon your site now, then there are already laws to enforce you to remove such copyright content. If you fail to do so, then you get shutdown.

This is also only a US law, and whilst this linked wiki pages states it allows the US to action things in other countries, that is not up to the US to decide, and is up to the specific countries themselves. The US ringing another countries ISP trying to enforce something that hasn't been approved within that country would only fall on deaf ears.

The document clearly states they will only see this ending up in endless legal challenges and will go nowhere fast.

It means that if a company doesn't like a single post on your website, they can FORCE your host to shut you down...

That is being a bit dramatic to be perfectly honest. Again, if a user posts material that is copyright to someone else, then that person has a right of law to protect their copyright. You either remove it or get shutdown.

It basically makes it so you are guilty, until proven innocent. Its a complete violation of everything this country was founded on, and if it passes... America is over.

Well, most other countries already have such laws... and I have had sites "suspended" myself for breach of copyright by going to the US host already, before this law was introduced, because hosts typically already have these terms and conditions within their own policies to replicate existing laws.

If you can send a host sufficient proof to act, that something hosted on their company servers is in breach of existing laws and their policy, they remove the content themselves or suspend the account until the content is removed.

I don't honestly see this affecting every website, but more websites that are doing things wrong by thinking they have some right to copy any content they want and republish it, reuse it, sell it, etc, which is not theirs to rightfully do so with. That stuff is happening and its hard to get action taken...

There are more positives to this than negatives IMHO.

 

[dieketzer]

you honestly reckon the australian government is capable of telling the usa 'no'?
i have no doubt that if there isnt already, there would soon be designed a system where the yanks can fire off letters to canberra whom then will order testra/optus/etc to comply with the wishes of their masters in washington.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Yes, Australia reject a lot of foreign nonsense.... US politics does not have a say in the majority of countries... and corporations in the country don't take orders from other countries. Countries may strike deals, and other countries may agree to be party to this protocol, however; until such time, the majority of countries really don't care what the US do.

Another thread talks about the US wanting a military base here. Australia has flatout said "no" for decades now. This 2500 troops based at our bases is the closest America has come to getting some military establishment within this country. Politicians aren't game enough here... they will get hung by the population at elections, because its compulsory to vote here... otherwise, you get fined.

You will more than likely find our laws on this are already stricter than what the US is proposing... the US has more than likely adopted such a policy that already exists in Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, which are not free speech, free that, etc... Australia is the most heavily regulated country in the world... these type of discussions about America introducing such things... nothing in comparison to the regulations we have in this country already.

Our Internet traffic is fully monitored by our ISP's, etc... if you download illegal music, movies, etc here, expect to have a letter in your mailbox with a "please explain" soon enough. You don't go to jail for it here, but you will get fined. Australia is massive on fines... huge. They don't screw around with threats of jail, which only costs the country money, instead they hit you in the pocket. This then stays on your file for life, so even in 20 years if you submit something, have a refund owing on tax, etc... they will automatically take it from you, no questions asked.

 

[EQnoble]

https://donate.mozilla.org/page/s/SOPA?source=snippet

 

[EQnoble]

This bill is not going to slow down piracy one bit...people generally don't host those type of sites in the US, not to mention they have no way of even finding the sources of the shared content...which means while they are in the middle of destroying the internet to find a couple of people...those people can just keep moving the servers around in countries that nothing can be done about anyways.

It effectively holds the internet ransom to suit a few large media companies' business models at the cost of a system that is owned by no one.

This bill is also literally a workaround for large companies to bypass legal procedure regarding copyright protection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act



THIS NEEDS TO END...NOW!

 

[Sador]

https://donate.mozilla.org/page/s/SOPA?source=snippet

It's always good to see things like FireFox getting involved, to see people who care, understand and stand up to these sorts of things.

 

[EQnoble]

http://opensource.com/law/11/11/whats-blacklist-three-sites-sopa-could-put-risk

 

[mrGTB]

Another bright spark idea to stop Internet Piracy that will never work. How can that work anyway when you have countries like China, Russia and others like Arab countries that couldn't give two flying hoots what the US say. And pretty much have no Anti Piracy laws there either.

Look at all the vBulletin pirated copies being run from sites hosted in these type countries. One's that cannot be taken down and have been there for years. Why does the US always seem to think they can dictate everything on other countries, just because they do it.

 

[maidos]

not sure but if sopa law passes all they need to do is just send an email of copyright infringment and the host will have to disable the site from internet access

 

[mrGTB]

Well you know, I can just imagine them sending an email to a server host in China or Russia sharing warez files. And that host talking notice closing the site down. I'll believe that one when I see it happen.

 

[maidos]

example i would be able to disable youtube from being online... thats how much power that law would grant u ...
so us hosting companys would be a disaster, many people woul probably not use usa hosting anymore.
Even if people has sites that is completely legal and if one member posted copyright filejust one is enoughtoget your site disabledcompletely.Since every post a members make is 100% the site owners responsibility

 

[Andrej]

example i would be able to disable youtube from being online... thats how much power that law would grant u ...
so us hosting companys would be a disaster, many people woul probably not use usa hosting anymore.
Even if people has sites that is completely legal and if one member posted copyright filejust one is enoughtoget your site disabledcompletely.Since every post a members make is 100% the site owners responsibility

That is really stupid.

 

[mrGTB]

many people would probably not use usa hosting anymore

You could have a point above. And seriously, I cannot see Joe (small fry) web user able to close down the mighty YouTube. I mean, doesn't Google own YouTube and Google owns the US. Or is it Facebook?

 

[maidos]

You could have a point above. And seriously, I cannot see Joe (small fry) web user able to close down the mighty YouTube. I mean, doesn't Google own YouTube and Google owns the US. Or is it Facebook?

actually you can disable youtube even if you are joe schmo... its even on the law proposal when i read it.

 

[EQnoble]

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not directly related but just do some math and you can understand why this is relevant.

 

[Brent W]

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/nmnie/godaddy_supports_sopa_im_transferring_51_domains/

I'll be moving my domains to Namecheap. Never did care for GoDaddy that much but just used it because it was what I started with.

 

[Slavik]

Meh, another boycott godaddy thread. Whatever happened that that godaddy hunting boycott?

Go nuts!