This Time They WILL Take It!

[metaltrekman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc&list=LL6pz6-o5QgxBet6x1i5EVtg&feature=mh_lolz

A bill in Congress with an innocuous title - Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) - threatens to do much more.

 

An extremely technical, low-profile bill that isn't being covered by cable news, but has nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists officially working on it: the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA -- a bill with the power to fundamentally reshape the laws governing the Internet.

 

SOPA would imbue the federal government with broad powers to shut down whole web domains on the basis that it believes them to be associated with piracy -- without a trial or even a traditional hearing. It would provide Hollywood with powerful new legal tools to stifle transactions with websites whose existence worries the movie industry.

 

The bill's supporters, which also include major record labels, trial lawyers and pharmaceutical giants, call SOPA a robust effort to curb piracy of American goods online.

 

Opponents, however, have castigated it as an unparalleled attack on free speech online. Civil liberties advocates say SOPA would give the U.S. government the same censorship tools used in China. Those in the technology sector warn that the bill creates enormous new barriers to entry for web startups, threatening innovation and job creation. Farther afield, librarians say that under the letter of the proposed anti-piracy law, they could be jailed for simply doing their jobs.

 

Leahy's bill would also empower corporations to demand that payment processors, advertisers and search engines stop doing business with sites the companies believe to be dedicated to infringement. A Hollywood studio could claim a website is "dedicated to infringement," and tell Google to stop registering the website in its search results. If Google protested, the company could haul Google into court.

 

This new set of corporate liabilities -- known as a "private right of action" -- prompted resistance from Wall Street. Both JPMorgan Chase, which operates a major global payment processing business, and the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group representing the nation's biggest banks, began pressing Congress to reject the bill, arguing that it was unfair to hold banks accountable for the sins of others. Banks and payment processors didn't want to have Hollywood telling them who to do business with.

 

The government's ability to shut down sites would involve federal tampering with the domestic Domain Name System -- a basic Internet building block that links numerical addresses where Internet data is stored to alphabetical URL addresses that people actually type into web browsers. The Chinese government censors the Internet for its citizens by engaging in DNS blocking, restricting access to certain domains.

 

Tech experts warn that giving the U.S. government such powers could hinder the functionality of many web applications, severing the connection between domain URLs and numerical data addresses that many programs rely on. It would also hamper efforts to introduce a new security system known as DNSSEC, which national security programmers have been developing for years.

 

"The Act would allow the government to break the Internet addressing system," wrote 108 law professors in a July letter to Congress. "The Internet's Domain Name System ("DNS") is a foundational building block upon which the Internet has been built and on which its continued functioning critically depends. The Act will have potentially catastrophic consequences for the stability and security of the DNS."

 

Leahy's bill has whipped Internet advocacy groups into a frenzy. Dozens of nonprofits, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Center for Democracy and Technology, issued strong statements condemning the bill. Fifty venture capitalists sent a letter to the Hill warning lawmakers that Leahy's bill could cripple tech startups with absurd legal fees prompted by Hollywood. ...

 

Americans pay higher prescription drug prices than the citizens of any other nation, a product of strict intellectual property rules for prescription drugs. So many among the elderly and the uninsured import the same drugs at lower prices from Canada to avoid the sticker shock, a strategy advocated by both Consumer Reports

and AARP.

 

Though buying prescription drugs from Canada is technically illegal, the Food and Drug Administration has informally tolerated the purchases for years, provided the medicine is approved by prescription and is only for personal use.

 

SOPA includes a host of provisions designed to crack down on counterfeit medicine that are written broadly enough to encumber the importation of safe medicine from legitimate Canadian pharmacies. Provisions that bar the importation of "mislabeled" drugs would block a great deal of unsafe pills from making their way to the U.S., but they would also block all Canadian prescription drugs, because Canada's drug warnings don't exactly match FDA warnings.

 

"Our primary concerns are with the fact that non-infringing content is going to be taken down in the process of taking down infringing content," says Michael MacLeod-Ball, First Amendment counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "The way the bill is set up, if a site has infringing content on it ... their default reaction is going to be to take down the whole site."

 

While a judge has to review the Attorney General's request to take down a site, nobody from the site being targeted must be given a chance to defend themselves before the judge grants the AG's request. The AG doesn't ask a judge for a search warrant under SOPA, it requests to take down an entire website without a trial -- or even a hearing.

 

Under current law, any U.S. website posting infringing content has to take the song or movie down at the request of whatever company owns the copyright. But under SOPA, companies could go directly to web hosting companies and require them to take down the entire website -- not just individual songs and videos.

 

As a result, SOPA creates a new opening for corporate command of the Internet. Under SOPA, web hosting companies that take down legitimate websites at the behest of copyright holders would be granted blanket immunity from any liability for losses caused to those legitimate sites.

 

"Congress is on the verge of wrecking the greatest engine of innovation and greatest platform for democracy ever known to human kind," says David Segal, Executive Director of Demand Progress. "And for what? For the sake of propping up an ossified industry that refuses to change with the times, but happens to make a lot of campaign contributions."

[metaltrekman]

The thing is, the same people that are pushing for this and suing people for millions are the same ones that invented and distributed file sharing software. They promoted it AND profited from it. NOW they are saying the thing THEY created is bad, and making others pay for it!! Watch the video and you will see.

 

I AM against piracy, but this is going too far!!

[Nick C]

You know - the real criminals are not in the jails or detention centres. The real big criminals the ones that fuck the world up completely are big corporate businesses who control the governments. It's fucked all in the name of capitalism and free market....it's anything but these companies act in monopolistic fashion and screw everyone up with their greed. Might as well live in Stalin's Russia ....fuck 'em. No wonder people are rising up and rioting the world over...the old world order is beginning to crumble because of its greed.

[Dead Planet]

This is just the beginning...the rich and powerful will do anything to protect their money and influence...the question is how long will the majority of us continue to take it in the ass...

[Fat Freddy]

Oh noooooes! Tha gub'mint gonna shut down mah internetz! Then the illuminati are gonna come and put a V-chip in everyone's brains!!

[heaven&hell]

Oh noooooes! Tha gub'mint gonna shut down mah internetz! Then the illuminati are gonna come and put a V-chip in everyone's brains!!

Are you sure we dont already have chips in our brains?

[Evil Rick]

Meh, I'm fine with anything the government does...I swallowed the blue pill.

[Fat Freddy]

The Freemasons are putting mercury in my sandwiches!! Where's my tin foil hat? It blocks the mind control rays!

[All Nights Reserved]

As Jack Black sang...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poPOp6q1VFo

[Nick C]

Naw s'not the necessarily government or any secret illuminati , just greedy individuals / groups working independantly or jointly who want every bit of money and power they can get and they don't care who they have to step on, grind into the dirt or destroy to get it. They are powerful enough and have enough lobbying power (and monetary) to affect government policy and the governments are corrupt enough themselves to turn a blind eye and let endless dodgy laws be passed.

 

Plus don't forget that NBA satellite up in space collecting individuals data....I saw it on the Simpsons!!!!!!

[Fat Freddy]

 

Plus don't forget that NBA satellite up in space collecting individuals data....I saw it on the Simpsons!!!!!!

 

That satellite belonged to Major League Baseball, not the NBA. Remember, Mark McGwire let the Springfieldians watch him "hit some dingers" to distract them while its remains were taken away?

[glam_junkie]

only way to stop "illegal downloads"..... make it legal

 

remembering the days i sent tapes in the snail mail/

[Evil Rick]

 

Plus don't forget that NBA satellite up in space collecting individuals data....I saw it on the Simpsons!!!!!!

 

That satellite belonged to Major League Baseball, not the NBA. Remember, Mark McGwire let the Springfieldians watch him "hit some dingers" to distract them while its remains were taken away?

I'm disappointed Keith, it took you almost a full 20 MINUTES before you caught that!

 

Do you want to know the terrifying truth...

[Nick C]

 

Plus don't forget that NBA satellite up in space collecting individuals data....I saw it on the Simpsons!!!!!!

 

That satellite belonged to Major League Baseball, not the NBA. Remember, Mark McGwire let the Springfieldians watch him "hit some dingers" to distract them while its remains were taken away?

 

Heh! I knew it was baseball - NBA must be basketball then I always get mixed up U.S. sporting stuff (except NFL)- if it had been a FIFA (who????) satellite I'd have remembered instantly. As Homer would say doh!

[metaltrekman]

Well for now its on hold, until they can make some changes in it!

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/204167-sopa-shelved-until-consensus-is-found?tmpl=component&print=1&page=

[Nick C]

Sopa and the other bill PIPA are based on Internet restrictions used by such freedom of speech loving governments as China, Iran and Syria - what is even more appaling about US law is their claim to a global jurisdiction, demanding extradition of people who have never set foot in the US. No nation should acquiesce to what is, in effect, a groundless assertion of World Rule.

If the USA claims to be 'land of the free' how about defending free speech in one of it's most global and accessible forms - the internet? For once at least Obama has thrown his lot in the right bunch with this. What makes me piss is that paragon of virtuosity Rupert Murdoch has come out supporting the bill and chastising Bay-rakk for supporting his "Silcon Valley Paymasters" what a cock, this from a guy who came to Britain with contempt for the people who ran the media and the stuffy establishment is now part of it....another fat cat!

[Fat Freddy]

Apparently Wikipedia (as well as several other heavily-trafficked sites) will be "going dark" for 24 hours tomorrow as a protest against these bills.

[Dead Planet]

Apparently the main bill is dead for now but it will just come back in another form. The two sides need to come to a compromise that works for everyone...

[JamesEagle]

Sopa and the other bill PIPA are based on Internet restrictions used by such freedom of speech loving governments as China, Iran and Syria - what is even more appaling about US law is their claim to a global jurisdiction, demanding extradition of people who have never set foot in the US. No nation should acquiesce to what is, in effect, a groundless assertion of World Rule.

If the USA claims to be 'land of the free' how about defending free speech in one of it's most global and accessible forms - the internet? For once at least Obama has thrown his lot in the right bunch with this. What makes me piss is that paragon of virtuosity Rupert Murdoch has come out supporting the bill and chastising Bay-rakk for supporting his "Silcon Valley Paymasters" what a cock, this from a guy who came to Britain with contempt for the people who ran the media and the stuffy establishment is now part of it....another fat cat!

 

Fantastic post mate, well said. No need to say anything more - you've covered it all.

[Nick C]

Sopa and the other bill PIPA are based on Internet restrictions used by such freedom of speech loving governments as China, Iran and Syria - what is even more appaling about US law is their claim to a global jurisdiction, demanding extradition of people who have never set foot in the US. No nation should acquiesce to what is, in effect, a groundless assertion of World Rule.

If the USA claims to be 'land of the free' how about defending free speech in one of it's most global and accessible forms - the internet? For once at least Obama has thrown his lot in the right bunch with this. What makes me piss is that paragon of virtuosity Rupert Murdoch has come out supporting the bill and chastising Bay-rakk for supporting his "Silcon Valley Paymasters" what a cock, this from a guy who came to Britain with contempt for the people who ran the media and the stuffy establishment is now part of it....another fat cat!

 

Fantastic post mate, well said. No need to say anything more - you've covered it all.

 

It's a pity we see laws that are made to protect the interests of corporations rather than civilians. Protection of product before personal privacy.

It's fine that they can gather information about the aspects of your life but if you question their business practices and invasions into your private life then woe betide you to oppose it.