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Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

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Correct me if I'm wrong (but don't) but those things have always been legal grey areas anyway, yeah? I remember hearing as a child that you were not supposed to record football games on a VHS (ouch, my archaism) or in fact any other kind of TV show and keeping it for more than something like 3 days.

 

Or was that just an urban myth with some ring of truth to it?

Urban myth, just like the "You can have a ROM for 24 hour" crap.

 

With the things I listed above, it falls under fair use policy, but SOPA would essentially disregard fair use policies which the internet relies on

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Correct me if I'm wrong (but don't) but those things have always been legal grey areas anyway, yeah? I remember hearing as a child that you were not supposed to record football games on a VHS (ouch, my archaism) or in fact any other kind of TV show and keeping it for more than something like 3 days.

 

Or was that just an urban myth with some ring of truth to it?

 

The big problem with SOPA and PIPA is they take these things out of grey areas and push them straight into criminal law. Under the provisions in the bills if someone claims that a Facebook user has posted a link to something they own the rights to, they can instantly force facebook.com to be completely taken down. Facebook can then appeal and defend themselves, but if copyrighted material has been posted they are charged, and the time taken will totally fuck their business.

 

Just to clarify for those not in the know. Technically, under SOPA the following would be considered violations

 

Posting game screenshots

Posting game videos

Posting TV show screencaps

Posting movie screencaps

Posting a video of yourself singing along to a song

 

Plus, it gets even worse. If a user came on say here and posted one of the above, he wouldn't be responsible, @Ashley would.

 

This entire thing is flawed.

 

If the copyright owner of the material posted saw it they could have the entire forum taken down, and Ashley & Co couldn't use any money gained from the site to legally defend themselves.

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To be fair Serebii, I don't hink you're supposed to have ROMS at all...

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To be fair Serebii, I don't hink you're supposed to have ROMS at all...

That was my point. It's one of those misnomers around the internet. People always thought that you could have them for 24 hours or if you had a copy ofthe game when in actuality you can't have them at all

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The whole thing is a thinly veiled excuse for the social elite (read as money bags bastards like Murdoch) to effectively control the entire internet!

 

No grey area, no leeway just black and white what is right and wrong - Only they say what is right and wrong! and the fact responsibility is on the site owner is madness!

 

the thing i do wonder is how long before rival news corps try using sopa to shut each other down for example say a newscorp site posts pictures of a new product, that its paparazzi photographed at a trade exposition, most of these frown upon or ban photography. A rival (no idea who newscorp own now) say CBS then appeals to the court that they are posting illegally obtained copyrighted material

BAM newscorp site down, CBS profits from displaced viewers

 

the law is that generalised it could be used for anything, wikipedia would probably suffer, so would many games sites like Gamefaqs, Facebook would be gone frequently as how can they control what people post? Twitter? likely to go to, youtube? you betcha

 

all it takes is as @Shorty said the right judge, report/application and a site will be down for a minimum of 7 days, 7 days offline will seriously hinder a company

 

if they pass through this orwellian law thinly disguised as a piracy act, what next?

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I'm just hoping that, as has been the case for a long time, the internet manages to evolve out of the problem. There's all this government dudes making laws about stuff when they don't really get/know the internet, then there's the kids in their bedrooms blowing the whole thing wide open.

 

I can wish, anyway.

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The way I see it, it's a bunch of people in the government who want money and don't understand the Internet constructing a banhammer.

 

I don't see any practical way to police the Internet the way they're trying to do it...it seems like they don't either, so they're just going to shut things down without listening to people.

 

About video and CD and bookstores dying, if this is the way the world is moving, it's inevitable. It happens because this is the way people are living and the way their habits are evolving...didn't they say the same about videotapes back then?

 

With all of the existing and emerging information security and cybercrime issues nowadays, governments need computer scientists in them...the next generation? At the very least, I strongly feel that these issues should be taught in computer classes in school.

 

I just thought of an awesome way to rebel: if no one but the govts cared about this act, no one would sue you for posting game screenshots, etc.! A totally open source world? But people care about money too much?

 

Overall, this act worries me, but I think that people might quickly adapt to it and forget about kicking up a fuss. Censorship on the Internet has been "successfully" implemented in some countries...but it would be a shame.

 

I'm not sure what I could do in protest of this though...I was reading someone's blog in which they said to voice your displeasure to your closest US embassy. How to do it effectively?

 

*surface thoughts...no verification or research done before posting!

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I still object to the name, sounds too much like sofa and how are you supposed to take that seriously? Or maybe that's the idea... If there was a law forcing you to kill a beaver every second Thursday from March to June called the "Affection and Cuddles Resoration Act" I think it wouldn't be so bad.

 

In Portuguese, "Sopa" means "soup", and "Pipa" is a barrel of wine (in Brazil, it can also mean "kite"). "Pipa de Sopa" is a barrel of soup! And "Sopa-Pipa" is something you can easily name a kite that looks like soup!

News about these acts are always amusing to me, as you can imagine :heh:

 

As for the law itself... Any act of censorship is loathsome. These bills are an abomination, like a Godzilla egg that was infused with Cthullu DNA.

Edited by Jonnas

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It's annoying, all of the responses these days seem to be to paint the other guy as doing exactly what you are doing, in this case "furthering their corporate interests". They are getting very good at doing that, so that the cynical people will say both sides are the same in their lazy ridiculous way. I've seen the Republicans do it an awful lot. People who would be on the other side now don't care, and people on their side will follow them anyway and use what they said.

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Er...thought Wikipedia were doing a 24 hour blackout? I can still access their mobile site on an iPhone.

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Er...thought Wikipedia were doing a 24 hour blackout? I can still access their mobile site on an iPhone.

 

The blackout hasn't worked too well. On a browser if you stop the page from loading at the right time it doesn't move you onto the SOPA message.

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I don't know what this is, and nor do I care. But frankly, that acronym is far too close to "SOFA" for my liking, and I will not have something I love as dearly as my sofa rendered a term of abuse.

 

You're just angry because you didn't get to say 沙发 (sofa) in this thread.

 

(I hope that's what you were referring to :))

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Er...thought Wikipedia were doing a 24 hour blackout? I can still access their mobile site on an iPhone.

 

The blackout hasn't worked too well. On a browser if you stop the page from loading at the right time it doesn't move you onto the SOPA message.

 

They didn't say they wanted to stop people accessing it, just to make sure people see the message. Read their sopa thing like I did and it says you can access the website if you use a mobile or turn off javascript.

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Sorry, I know this is sidestepping the issue completely, but I just can't get over Serebii calling blacking out a website in protest "a form of terrorism". :p

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Sorry, I know this is sidestepping the issue completely, but I just can't get over Serebii calling blacking out a website in protest "a form of terrorism". :p

In the truest definition of the word, it is :P

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no it's not.

 

The blackouts are a form of protest or activism. If pressed, you could call them industrial action (the sites are effectively on strike) but your definition is completely laughable, sorry.

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ter·ror·ism

   [ter-uh-riz-uhm] Show IPA

noun

1.

the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

 

Violence no, but the rest fits.

 

Now I'm not saying anti-SOPA is bad, but blacking out the site for it is not the way. Do what Amazon etc. have done or have the notice load up on each page but you can then go through, but don't close it all

Edited by Serebii

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Didn't see there was another page....

 

Also you can get Google's cached copy of Wikipedia pages and just look at them that way.

 

ter·ror·ism

   [ter-uh-riz-uhm] Show IPA

noun

1.

the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes.

 

Violence no, but the rest fits.

 

Now I'm not saying SOPA is bad, but blacking out the site for it is not the way. Do what Amazon etc. have done or have the notice load up on each page but you can then go through, but don't close it all

 

I don't think blacking out the site counts as a threat, so none of it before the word "to" fits.

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Didn't see there was another page....

 

Also you can get Google's cached copy of Wikipedia pages and just look at them that way.

 

 

 

I don't think blacking out the site counts as a threat, so none of it before the word "to" fits.

Don't need a threat when they're doing it. Before today it was a threat, now it's acting upon that threat.

 

I accidentally said SOPA wasn't bad in my final paragraph. Permit me to shoot myself now. I meant the fight against SOPA.

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Now I'm not saying anti-SOPA is bad, but blacking out the site for it is not the way. Do what Amazon etc. have done or have the notice load up on each page but you can then go through, but don't close it all

 

Is it still possible to access Wikipedia in any way?

 

Yes. During the blackout, Wikipedia is accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by disabling JavaScript in your browser, as explained on this Technical FAQ page. Our purpose here isn't to make it completely impossible for people to read Wikipedia, and it's okay for you to circumvent the blackout. We just want to make sure you see our message.

 

Are you seriously throwing a tantrum about not being able to access blacked-out sites? They're trying to impact people and spread awareness about SOPA/PIPA. Not terrorising people with lack of content.

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