Members JKane Posted January 18, 2012 Members Posted January 18, 2012 If you've been under a rock on the Internet and not heard, the US government is moving ever-towards being nothing but corporate toadies, next week it's a bill that would have grave repercussions for the Internet (worldwide!) and this forum in particular. Entire sites would be shut down or formidably taken off the Internet (via DNS blocking) if they failed to kowtow to any and all copyright notifications immediately and without reasonable opportunity for question or appeal. It is basically a bunch of media corporations pulling a "recording industry", trying to enact/enforce crippling laws instead of keeping up with the times, to their eventual doom. But in the meantime we Americans could have to learn ways around internet censorship common to those who live in places like China, Syria, and Iran. Now sure, there are some provisions in the bill as it currently stands that leave a fair number of loopholes, but that's the point. Anybody saying "oh, well, it's OK because there's a exemption for X", what will you do in a year or two when a rider buried deep within a defense spending bill or something reads "delete provision 45 sub c from the the Protect IP Act / SOPA"? NOW is the time to make a stand! And don't assume your liberal senator / congressperson is on the right side of the issue!!! In California, Feinstein is of course carrying the corporate water, but BOXER is on the wrong side TOO! Even Franken, who I otherwise support 110% needs people to tell him he's wrong on this one. It takes less than 5 minutes to call your senators. And you'll feel better about it every time you come across a black "STOP INTERNET CENSORSHIP!" page today! Info: http://americancensorship.org/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SOPA https://www.eff.org/ Quote
Members JKane Posted January 18, 2012 Author Members Posted January 18, 2012 Great .PDF summarizing the bill and the problems with it. R41911.pdf Quote
Members JKane Posted January 18, 2012 Author Members Posted January 18, 2012 Or, if you prefer a quick video (be sure to watch the addendum at the end too!)... <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/31100268?byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/31100268">PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/fightforthefuture">Fight for the Future</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p> (Can't figure out how to embed Vimeo...) Quote
Guest EXPAT Posted January 18, 2012 Posted January 18, 2012 From the NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/technology/web-wide-protest-over-two-antipiracy-bills.html?_r=1 And this is how the internet is responding today including Google's black bar Quote
Members JKane Posted January 19, 2012 Author Members Posted January 19, 2012 Can't believe how apathetic this site is to something that affects it so directly... Boxer and of course Feinstein seem to remain firmly under the thumb of their big west-coast media masters, but something like 17 senators changed their position, 10+ of whom were originally co-sponsors of the bill. Not that anybody here seems to give two shits. Ok, back to talking about TV! Quote
Guest EXPAT Posted January 19, 2012 Posted January 19, 2012 I think the protest was a bit late yesterday since many senators had already said it was dead and the President said he wouldn't sign it in its current form anyway. I am still confused after all that why they chose yesterday to protest it when it was already dead anyway. I guess it did help reinforce their decision to kill it. But I'm not sure. Quote
Members JKane Posted January 19, 2012 Author Members Posted January 19, 2012 The senate vote was coming up and it still had pretty good support in the senate. The fear was it'd get through, sure, weakened all to hell, but would set a framework and precedent easily expanded upon. With big money AND the 'liberal media' behind it, the danger was too great. The protest has been a great line in the sand, that we're not going to lay down and let them fuck everything up in the name of big media profits yet again. NOW here's to hoping they take this and MOVE FORWARD with it instead of just being reactionary. Copyright reform! Patent reform! But sadly any such bill that actually goes anywhere will be written by and for the people with the money and it'll be back to another protest like this to stop things from getting worse... Quote
Members lookin Posted January 19, 2012 Members Posted January 19, 2012 But sadly any such bill that actually goes anywhere will be written by and for the people with the money and it'll be back to another protest like this to stop things from getting worse... Indeed, and you've expressed the present trends very well. Burying a rider in a future bill to further restrict what they didn't get around to restricting in this one is all too easy. It's becoming nearly impossible for groups of ordinary citizens to keep ahead of lobbyists and 'corporate persons' when it comes to influencing legislation. It seems odd that the tilt in U. S. government is away from individual freedoms, while we encourage the exact opposite in other regions of the world. Perhaps an overstatement, but I find myself wondering if we need a State Department that represents our values here at home as well as abroad. Quote
Guest EXPAT Posted January 20, 2012 Posted January 20, 2012 it looks like this has been postponed officially indefinitely. It was poorly written as all legislation has been in the last 10 years. Hopefully one day they will find some intelligent people to run for office. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/pipa-vote-harry-reid-piracy_n_1218702.html Quote
Members JKane Posted January 20, 2012 Author Members Posted January 20, 2012 Yay! Now to work on getting some people (any people) in office who aren't thralls of big business so this doesn't keep happening... Quote
