So does anyone actually think it'll come to that? I'm finding it hard to believe the US-population would go along with it, sure they're a pretty ignorant bunch most of the time (as are indeed most of the world-population), but when things come this close to home (the crippling of YouTube\Google\Wikipedia and all sorts of media-related content) I reckon there will be an uproar, a serious one, not this 1-day blackout crap. Especially considering the amount of employment it is going to cost, that will not go down well.
It just seems hard to wrap your head around, the notion that the US is going to devalue its own freedom over something as trivial as (proclaimed) piracy.
The impression I get is that most people in the US don't really know what freedom is.
Hell I don't really understand it myself.
To me, freedom is anarcho-communism. As in it is the freedom to do whatever you want to do, and it's anarcho-communism because it would only ever work if everyone wanted to do nice things and not take away the freedom of others, which is also what is required for that particular political system to work.
What the US, and all other countries in the world have, is rights.
Which is not freedom, it's control, you just know exactly how you're being controlled and presumably don't object to it.
Even further we have things like needing to work, needing to find food, needing to compromise with others to interact with society, needing to obey your own internal moral compulsions, needing to obey the rules of any god you may worship, and when you get right down to it, needing to obey your inescapable human limitations.
The thing is, what people call freedom isn't freedom, it's nice looking control, so when someone who doesn't care overmuch about the internet because they are busy with life/love/work/whatever sees something like this, they think 'ehh, it doesn't look that bad, not worth bothering about' and accept it, because it isn't any different than what they're already living with.
I mention the US in the opening line because speaking as a UK citizen, freedom is like a rallying cry in america, people say things about preserving freedom and it being the land of the free and I'm so glad I have my freedom in this country, and it seems really odd. I mean, britain is a pretty cool place, I love living here, and we're probably simialr to america in how nice our control is, but people don't run around shouting about freedom much here.
Everywhere I go I am surrounded by security cameras, watching and recording everything I do, the bus I used to get on to go to university had a leaky roof and shook like an earthquake and deafened anyone sitting in the back with the engine noise, and was full of a pervading smell of exhaust fumes, but it also had no less than three shiny and clean micro cameras installed to cover every part of the interior. In america people would probably shout about how the government is trying to take away your freedom by watching everything you do, over here, people just go 'the government probably doesn't care enough to bother'. It's like people know that they're settling for pleasant control, and are perfectly fine with that.
There isn't really anything wrong with the american approach, it just seems weird to me. Over here, people seem to think and act as if they are living in a really quite pleasant dictatorship. In america, people act like they are comfortable with control, but speak and presumably think as if they were living in a completely free utopian paradise.
I don't understand how your heads don't explode every now and then from the sheer amount of doublethink required to make that work.
<b>INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012. PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
<i>Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture. Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever. So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules. The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition. We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are. And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations. The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this: The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers. The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown. SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really. To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat. In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News. Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.
<!--quoteo(post=1895877:date=Jan 19 2012, 08:46 PM:name=Tykjen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tykjen @ Jan 19 2012, 08:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895877"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That made me chuckle, considering it was a piece of javascript. I have a hard time believing none of those guys aren't using NoScript or at least something similar, they're so full of crap.
I very much doubt they were being serious about the wikipedia part.
As for "lol it's just javamagic, big deal", I was inconvenienced by it. I did notice, when opening a wikipedia article, that the actual site was visible for a moment, but the blackout thing popped up on top of it. I knew I could propably circumvent it after a bit of google, but I didn't. I went a day without wikipedia and it was horrible.
<!--quoteo(post=1895884:date=Jan 19 2012, 09:11 PM:name=Retales)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Retales @ Jan 19 2012, 09:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895884"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I very much doubt they were being serious about the wikipedia part.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yea I know, it just comes off so incredibly hamfisted.
If it were put up to a public vote, I wouldn't be worried. I think the grassroots information campaign would win people over. But it isn't. It's in the hands of a group of politicians, several of whom think it's a good idea. And the lobbyists will spin it as being good for the economy - it's protecting the assets of US corporations after all! Surely that'll strengthen the economy!
I think that at this point, with many big, high-profile corporations speaking out against it, it's less likely to go through than it is to be scrapped. But the most likely case of all, I think, is that it'll be shelved, then quietly brought back a year or two from now under a different name (and with a few mildly mollifying modifications) and once again be put on the fast track towards getting passed.
In other anti-piracy news: <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Megaupload is dead, Feds arresting the ###### outta people. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/apnewsbreak-feds-shut-file-sharing-website-15396093#.Txh16iKCjXQ" target="_blank">http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory...93#.Txh16iKCjXQ</a>
Pretty much, incarcerating people who run a company that does illegal things despite the company not condoning it, but since it's too large to properly police, Federal: ###### it all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> And the retaliation: <a href="http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-takes-down-doj-website-in-response-to-megaupload-news" target="_blank">http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-takes...megaupload-news</a> That looks like quite the list of sites being down.
To be honest, this DOES affect those outside the US and not just in hosting as was mentioned. The US can attempt to get people extradited, as they've done with some poor 23 year old student in britain who they caught doing some piracy. What he was up to was nothing out of the ordinary but I guess they like making examples and I believe the british court ruled to allow the extradition :/
<!--quoteo(post=1895953:date=Jan 20 2012, 02:04 AM:name=Geminosity)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Geminosity @ Jan 20 2012, 02:04 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895953"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->To be honest, this DOES affect those outside the US and not just in hosting as was mentioned. The US can attempt to get people extradited, as they've done with some poor 23 year old student in britain who they caught doing some piracy. What he was up to was nothing out of the ordinary but I guess they like making examples and I believe the british court ruled to allow the extradition :/<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not really. America said "We want him", Britain put her ass in the air and said "Sorry! Sorry!" and swiftly let him take her from behind.
In other words,
The US had no right to do it but they were allowed to do it anyway.
<!--quoteo(post=1895707:date=Jan 18 2012, 11:22 PM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lolfighter @ Jan 18 2012, 11:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895707"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The law itself would be a US law. That means it could only be applied to US companies and US DNSes. In other words, a server operated and funded completely outside the US could still be blocked through DNS redirection inside the US, but not outside of it. The danger to the rest of the world is twofold: First, the precedent such a law sets: "Hey, if the US starts to censor their internet wholesale, so can we!" And second, the chilling effect it would have on internet entrepreneurship, as well as the self-censorship that would take place. Even though I'm outside the US, many of the sites I visit daily are US sites. I'd feel the effects anyway. And even sites operated entirely outside the US would have to censor themselves for fear of losing a large US user base. This law concerns everyone, not just the US.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anything Copy Written or owned by a US company and/or business.
<!--quoteo(post=1895767:date=Jan 19 2012, 07:29 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Jan 19 2012, 07:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895767"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Erm, the bill is being passed in the US, by US senators.
Contrary to popular belief the US does not actually have the power to give itself jurisdiction in other countries, at least not without involving the army.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anything Copy Written or owned by a US company and/or business, can be removed from other sites outside of the United States of America as a lawful act under these bills. Like I said, read em.
Removed how? US law enforcement does not have access to servers in other countries. In order to remove anything from such servers, they need to cooperate with local law enforcement. When local law enforcement does not cooperate, US law enforcement is powerless. That's the entire (stated) reason for this - because they can't hit foreign servers directly, they cut US internet users off from accessing those servers instead.
X_StickmanNot good enough for a custom title.Join Date: 2003-04-15Member: 15533Members, Constellation
Chris Dodd, the current head of the MPAA (one of the major supporters and instigators of SOPA, PIPA and other such things) is <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/205491-consumer-group-accuses-hollywood-of-threatening-politicians" target="_blank">pretty sad that they didn't pass.</a>
<i>"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake"</i>
Which I guess means "we bribed them but they didn't do what we said >:(!" or something. It's fairly bizarre to see someone say it that openly.
It's one thing to believe that politicians are being bought left and right and doing the bidding of people with money, rather than protecting and advancing the public interest. It's another thing to see it outright confirmed by the ones who do the buying.
As for postponed, yay for that. But forever? You can bet your ass it's not forever. They'll be back. Probably in a new form, definitely under a new name. But they'll be back, and their backers will be smarter about it the next time. The battle may be won, but the war's still on. Put on your fedora, we're heading deeper into the night.
i personally think most network technitions would bein protests running down the street and try to prevent people from blocking this stuff think about it again we controll what you can see and it will be really hard for government to go aginst the people that actually know how to do the blocking
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
To those who think that just because the US doesn't have legal jurisdiction in country X means that they can't enforce SOPA/PIPA in country X are fooling yourselves. The US government has a bunch of other methods they can and do regularly use to get other countries to effectively follow its laws. In particular, the US can 1. Browbeat country X diplomatically until it voluntarily ascents to the enforcement 2. Make enforcement a condition of renewing existing or future treaties/aid agreements/trade deals 3. Crack down on US companies to stop doing business with companies in country X that violate the law (think finance, i.e. banks/paypal/etc)
The US already has the odious Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or as I like to call it, the 'Arrest Grandma for Piracy Act') on its books, it doesn't need the even worse SOPA/PIPA laws. Thankfully, they look dead at the moment, but its only a matter of time before they try again.
Comments
It just seems hard to wrap your head around, the notion that the US is going to devalue its own freedom over something as trivial as (proclaimed) piracy.
In uneconomic times you don't reduce the growth or even the ability to trade.
Hell I don't really understand it myself.
To me, freedom is anarcho-communism. As in it is the freedom to do whatever you want to do, and it's anarcho-communism because it would only ever work if everyone wanted to do nice things and not take away the freedom of others, which is also what is required for that particular political system to work.
What the US, and all other countries in the world have, is rights.
Which is not freedom, it's control, you just know exactly how you're being controlled and presumably don't object to it.
Even further we have things like needing to work, needing to find food, needing to compromise with others to interact with society, needing to obey your own internal moral compulsions, needing to obey the rules of any god you may worship, and when you get right down to it, needing to obey your inescapable human limitations.
The thing is, what people call freedom isn't freedom, it's nice looking control, so when someone who doesn't care overmuch about the internet because they are busy with life/love/work/whatever sees something like this, they think 'ehh, it doesn't look that bad, not worth bothering about' and accept it, because it isn't any different than what they're already living with.
I mention the US in the opening line because speaking as a UK citizen, freedom is like a rallying cry in america, people say things about preserving freedom and it being the land of the free and I'm so glad I have my freedom in this country, and it seems really odd. I mean, britain is a pretty cool place, I love living here, and we're probably simialr to america in how nice our control is, but people don't run around shouting about freedom much here.
Everywhere I go I am surrounded by security cameras, watching and recording everything I do, the bus I used to get on to go to university had a leaky roof and shook like an earthquake and deafened anyone sitting in the back with the engine noise, and was full of a pervading smell of exhaust fumes, but it also had no less than three shiny and clean micro cameras installed to cover every part of the interior. In america people would probably shout about how the government is trying to take away your freedom by watching everything you do, over here, people just go 'the government probably doesn't care enough to bother'. It's like people know that they're settling for pleasant control, and are perfectly fine with that.
There isn't really anything wrong with the american approach, it just seems weird to me. Over here, people seem to think and act as if they are living in a really quite pleasant dictatorship. In america, people act like they are comfortable with control, but speak and presumably think as if they were living in a completely free utopian paradise.
I don't understand how your heads don't explode every now and then from the sheer amount of doublethink required to make that work.
<i>Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.
Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.
So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.
The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition. We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.
And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.
The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this: The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers. The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown.
SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really. To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat.
In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.
Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.
THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012</b></i>
That made me chuckle, considering it was a piece of javascript. I have a hard time believing none of those guys aren't using NoScript or at least something similar, they're so full of crap.
As for "lol it's just javamagic, big deal", I was inconvenienced by it. I did notice, when opening a wikipedia article, that the actual site was visible for a moment, but the blackout thing popped up on top of it. I knew I could propably circumvent it after a bit of google, but I didn't. I went a day without wikipedia and it was horrible.
sopa must be stopad!
Yea I know, it just comes off so incredibly hamfisted.
If it were put up to a public vote, I wouldn't be worried. I think the grassroots information campaign would win people over. But it isn't. It's in the hands of a group of politicians, several of whom think it's a good idea. And the lobbyists will spin it as being good for the economy - it's protecting the assets of US corporations after all! Surely that'll strengthen the economy!
I think that at this point, with many big, high-profile corporations speaking out against it, it's less likely to go through than it is to be scrapped. But the most likely case of all, I think, is that it'll be shelved, then quietly brought back a year or two from now under a different name (and with a few mildly mollifying modifications) and once again be put on the fast track towards getting passed.
We're not out of the woods yet.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Megaupload is dead, Feds arresting the ###### outta people.
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/apnewsbreak-feds-shut-file-sharing-website-15396093#.Txh16iKCjXQ" target="_blank">http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory...93#.Txh16iKCjXQ</a>
Pretty much, incarcerating people who run a company that does illegal things despite the company not condoning it, but since it's too large to properly police, Federal: ###### it all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And the retaliation:
<a href="http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-takes-down-doj-website-in-response-to-megaupload-news" target="_blank">http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-takes...megaupload-news</a>
That looks like quite the list of sites being down.
Not really. America said "We want him", Britain put her ass in the air and said "Sorry! Sorry!" and swiftly let him take her from behind.
In other words,
The US had no right to do it but they were allowed to do it anyway.
Anything Copy Written or owned by a US company and/or business.
<!--quoteo(post=1895767:date=Jan 19 2012, 07:29 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Jan 19 2012, 07:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1895767"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Erm, the bill is being passed in the US, by US senators.
Contrary to popular belief the US does not actually have the power to give itself jurisdiction in other countries, at least not without involving the army.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anything Copy Written or owned by a US company and/or business, can be removed from other sites outside of the United States of America as a lawful act under these bills. Like I said, read em.
<a href="http://lakeconews.com/content/view/23290/919/" target="_blank">http://lakeconews.com/content/view/23290/919/</a>
<i>"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake"</i>
Which I guess means "we bribed them but they didn't do what we said >:(!" or something. It's fairly bizarre to see someone say it that openly.
As for postponed, yay for that. But forever? You can bet your ass it's not forever. They'll be back. Probably in a new form, definitely under a new name. But they'll be back, and their backers will be smarter about it the next time. The battle may be won, but the war's still on. Put on your fedora, we're heading deeper into the night.
1. Browbeat country X diplomatically until it voluntarily ascents to the enforcement
2. Make enforcement a condition of renewing existing or future treaties/aid agreements/trade deals
3. Crack down on US companies to stop doing business with companies in country X that violate the law (think finance, i.e. banks/paypal/etc)
The US already has the odious Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or as I like to call it, the 'Arrest Grandma for Piracy Act') on its books, it doesn't need the even worse SOPA/PIPA laws. Thankfully, they look dead at the moment, but its only a matter of time before they try again.
Gaddffi ran the largest non IMF punked country
day 1 (one) after he is deposed US gives Rebels IMF loan (for "rebuilding" the country) and in doing so securing oil in Libya
boomshakalaka
Gaddffi ran the largest non IMF punked country
day 1 (one) after he is deposed US gives Rebels IMF loan (for "rebuilding" the country) and in doing so securing oil in Libya
boomshakalaka<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't forget how if Iran, wants to close the Strait of Hormuz, we send two Air Craft Carriers and their support ships to "watch" over them.