Hypothetically kids, imagine a world where SOPA has passed. And suddenly, the only way to release content on the internet is to have expensive lawyers with a lot of free time to deal with SOPA claims. In very short order - you'd see most of the new media groups like Google, Twitter and Facebook either shut down or truncate their operations - because they would no longer be cost effective to maintain. You'd see almost all small operators pushed out of business because where Google would struggle to retain profit from it's largest leverage centers, SME's would just dissappear. Then, in this brave new world, only large enterprise with interest in media would really have the ability to release content to the internet. I wonder if there's anyone out there who might have a vested interest in resuming their control of the world's entertainment? The RIAA/MPAA types first genuinely don't get how to make money on the internet. They second, haven't been able to wrest control of properties they know will make money on the internet from those uppity other people who compete with them. And when you add in the vested interests of broadcast media entities who are seeing their ability to dictate what people think and what products on the market they're aware of and it's not hard to see where the primary motivation of the bill comes from. The other business markers pushing this bill might have their own reasons. But they're not the ones driving it.
I agree this is all terrible, but the thing I legitimately don't get about all this is the correlation between a U.S.-based piece of legislation that is not applicable in other countries, and the end of the internet as we know it. So all websites are forced to shut down their dot com domains? Fuck it, they'll migrate to dot co dot uk (or dot de, or dot fr, or dot it or what have you), or any other country that doesn't have SOPA or analogous legislation - i.e. most - and as far as I can see, there's fuck-all that any of SOPA's advocates can fucking do about it. Hell, some country with a large dot com sector and a struggling economy (I'm looking at you, UK) might even offer financial incentives to websites that switched their domains in order to benefit from the extra revenue that having their cyber-sector increase by orders of magnitude would undoubtedly bring. I read something along the lines of "If your website receives donations/payments from Mastercard or VISA, which are also US-based, even if you have a foreign domain you can still be shut down". Well, fuck that noise too. I'm sure Diners or some other credit card company would love to kick Mastercard and VISA in the ass. Switch payments to them. Done. Am I missing something? Because this really does not seem as scary as it's made out to be.
I think you are severely underestimating how entrenched the payment systems are in the internet, for one. It is not nearly as simple as "everyone switches to Diners or bitcoins". What if your online business uses PayPal exclusively, has a fat amount of capital sitting in it, then you get shut down on a bullshit copyright claim? PayPal is forced to leave you high and dry. You can't go to your bank and withdraw your PayPal balance from there; it's a one-way street, and there's nothing they could do about it.
The big problem with these bills is leverage. Under these laws, if Warner Hos. or Universal SAYS my website is hosting or linking to pirated material (no burden of proof on the accuser under the law) the government can wipe my domain name off the map completely, no questions asked, and fine me exorbitant amounts PER "violation" of copyright law (iirc ~$150k per song/movie/whatever). If it's not "my" website, such as TiB, then the owners/admins of the site get shafted with the fines. This would force admins to police the content users post so heavily that everything posted would have to be completely original to avoid litigation. The real world doesn't work like this. Wikipeda, Reddit, Tumblr, YouTube, ANY major site that hosts or links to copyrighted material suspected of being "pirated" could be banhammered. Which leads to that leverage thing I mentioned earlier. Say I'm the guy whose site got shut down because, I dunno, someone claimed I hosted or linked to pirated material. I now have to prove to the government, as well as the MPAA/RIAA that the material in question wasn't pirated. The accusers don't have to do jack except claim that I did it. The Justice Dept., since my site's hosted here in the US, closes me down on this false "complaint" without hesitation, and I'm fucked. Now I have to fight the Justice Dept./Big Media in court and provide evidence that, beyond a reasonable doubt, I wasn't hosting/linking pirated stuff. On top of that, if I don't have a lawyer already, I pay out the ass in legal fees I may not be able to afford. Do you see a theme here? Yes, it's money that is the leverage. The big content companies have billions upon billions of it; I barely have a thousand dollars to my name. I don't stand a slushball's chance in the desert of winning if I get slammed under SOPA/PIPA. That's why the bills are more cancerous to the internet than /b/, and why I don't, and you and everyone else on Earth shouldn't, support them.
There already is a road map of what SOPA will do to the internet. Spend a little time looking into Monsanto and what they've done with their patented seeds and how they've literally crushed independent farmers with court cases and fines. On top of that, look to see some of the court cases backing up Monsanto's legal rights to go after people who even if they didn't plant Monsanto seeds and their crops are tarnished simply from nature's amazing talent of pollinating nearby plants, they are still held accountable. If something along the lines of this gets passed in any form, it's going to be the death knell for smaller independent media outlets that don't play by the rules of the people who own the major media companies. The unfortunate part is that even if SOPA doesn't get through congress, as we've seen in the past with other bills that have made it through, someone is going to get lobbying campaign funds from a big media organization and they are going to sponsor another bill in the future and try to get it through. With the courts deciding that companies can pour money into funding a campaign and with all of the Super-PAC bullshit going on, it's only a matter of time before the money becomes too good to not get these bills passed.
An interesting conversation on SOPA http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
A guy who works for the MPAA goes on fox news and basically says "WTF we are paying you, pass our laws, or we will not pay you any more" http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml#comments
From what I know now, the public has spoken, and the bill is dead. Next time use a pocketknife to cut out what you want instead of a gas saw. Thank you.
No, not dead: On January 20, 2012, Smith postponed plans to draft the bill "until there is wider agreement on a solution." Don't go to sleep on this, people. They will find a way to sneak this through if we let them.
What I want to know about the bill is this: if you go high enough, you find the person behind the idea. Who originally thought up this migraine-inducing tripe in the first place? Who are the actual faces we can put to this travesty?
I'd like to know which company/association wrote up the bill and coerced/bribed Smith into introducing it.
No shit. And here I thought Dell and Google were the main supporters. My comment was more of a sarcastic observation on the fact that Smith almost definitely did nothing more than take a pre-written piece of legislation and introduce it, and is thus getting far more credit for his involvement than he deserves. (Although he's still a spineless piece of shit) And GoDaddy.com, what the hell...I can't understand why they would have ever offered support for SOPA. I'm either completely misunderstanding the potential scope of the bill, or it took them a while to realize how badly they would be fucked if it passed. And suapyg is right on, this bill is not gone. It will be reintroduced, it's just a question of how cleverly, what it's earmarked into, etc.
Now that we have a small window to breathe about this, I have to say that every time I look at this thread title this is what goes through my mind: Relevent because if SOPA, as is, had passed, it's likely I wouldn't have been able to link this.
I think you just don't get how much work and pain is involved in that change. Paypal, Mastercard and VISA respectively handle well over 95% of financial transactions online. Also, I think you'll find that there are very few financial institutions of any size in the world, that don't have assets and operations in the US. If they're planning to flout US law, they need to move all those things off shore first. You'd also need to off shore hosting, and any businesses that were receiving money. It'd take years for that to happen on a crash basis of tech work, and cost billions.
And in any event... who gives a shit if it's feasible? Of course it's not feasible - I don't know where my post went on the subject that was similar to yours, it seems to have never made it up - but the point is, why does it matter if it's possible to move everything overseas? We should pass shitty, paid-for, internet-altering legislation because, well fuck, we could always just start moving everything overseas? Is that really the logic? Sure, it's fine to do whatever as long as there's a work-around?
No, I get you, and I agree 100% with Binary. What I mean is, in a manner of speaking, "the internet will find a way". SHOULD SOPA pass in some way shape or form and turn out to be the stuff of nightmares, then I am convinced that sooner or later people will find some kind of workaround. It might take a month or it might take a year, but eventually they'd get round to it. I mean, we joke, but the backlash I've seen on the web against SOPA has to be completely fucking unprecedented. I've never seen anything like it whatsoever, not even for shit like the war in Iraq. I think we can safely say that none of us now of a single fucking private citizen that we either know or whose online posts we've read that supports this bill in any way shape or form. In the immortal words of Malcolm X: "Be courteous, be respectful, always obey the law. But if they lay a hand on your streaming online pornography, send them to the cemetery." Relatedly, I'm surprised there's not more talk on here about the closing down of Megavideo. I mean, it's (was) the 13th most visited site IN THE WORLD. They've got assets, resources, and lawyers up the ass. And the fact that it was apparently perfectly easy for the U.S. authorities to get arrest warrants for foreign nationals residing in different countries has got to be a pretty big deal. I mean yes, the owner sounds like an utter cunt (changed his name to Kim DotCom, owns cars with retarded vanity plates) and Megaupload always knew perfectly well that 90% of their traffic came from people sharing pirated shit rather than original content, but frankly threatening him with 20 years' worth of jail time seems a little excessive.
I understand that very few of the employees of smith and wesson, or Ford have ever stood in front of a court for the millions of deaths caused by their products. Mitch Glazier used his position in the public service to screw musicians than pirates ever will, for a half million dollar a year job with the RIAA. Drunk drivers don't get the kind of sentances they give pirates. Half of hollywood is behind one mass extortion scheme or another to blackmail people out of a thousand dollars because their kid downloaded an album. Unless a software product is specifically designed for, and marketed to child pornography users, it's just retarded to treat it any more severely than illegal parking. Even treating it with the same severity as speeding seems insane given the consequences of the crime. But the RIAA seriously thinks that Limewire should pay them 120% of the american GDP. It's just greedy cocksucker bullshit with no basis in reality.