OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

I don't know if anyone here has accessed Wikipedia this morning, but there's a proposal I've been following for a while now that I think everyone in here needs to know about because it could potentially have a bearing here at our site, and thousands of others.

The act is called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) which, if made law, would expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property. I have no issue with the concept of what they're trying to achieve, but the problem is that the language in the proposed law is too broad and it could have a direct impact on sites like this which contains a lot of "user generated material" (ie: posts, threads, etc.)

As you know I've been active against having people copy/paste complete articles, etc. to make sure we stay within the necessary guidelines so that we're not infringing on any copyrights. I think for the most part we do a good job, but obviously it's not perfect and it's obviously hard to catch everything.

The problem is several of the provisions in SOPA will force ISPs hosting websites (ie: the company that hosts our servers) to potentially disconnect us from the Internet if there’s a claim - unsubstantiated or not - that we're infringing against copyright, regardless of if it has not been fully proved in court. The argument is that this would make it easy for someone to make false or weak claims against the site to take a us offline until we went to court.

That's a headache I'm not prepared to deal with. The number of threats I get each year via e-mail from angry members from other teams we remove are pretty unreal and obviously you guys don't see them, so giving any additional ammunition backed up by a law like this would be a potentially huge issue. I've been talking with other sites and it's a very real concern that we're all potentially going to be faced with if this goes through, unless it's rewritten to better target the sites that are really the ones they're looking to address.

Needless to say this is something serious enough that everyone should be aware of. I noticed Wikipedia went black this morning over it, and I just felt that everyone here should know about what's going on. Again, I'm not condoning piracy, infringement, etc. - that's not the point. The point is the language in the proposal unfortunately is too broad and isn't specific enough in achieving the desired results.

You can read more about it here:

Stop Online Piracy Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

If you lock it we can't bump it. Perhaps this deserves a sticky.

Edit: And perhaps a separate discussion thread(?)

Edit2: I figure I'll use my real estate to provide some links for those that are interested:

Anti-SOPA
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...ive/Learn_more
Google: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Pro-SOPA
CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/tech...d=HP_Highlight
MPAA: http://consumerist.com/2012/01/mpaa-...ate-pawns.html

Neutral(?)/News
BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16612628

Nerd News (Not Neutral)
Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

I'll leave it open for a bit as long as it avoids any political debate, but it's definitely something people need to be aware of.

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

I think SOPA got knocked out by the House of Representatives. There's a Senate version called PIPA that is on the docket now. Hopefully, it won't go through. Write your congressional rep and sign the google.com petition,

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

Ian,

A great anti-SOPA argument, and not one I've seen made before.

Unfortunately, you got your phrasing a little garbled in the part quoted above.

(Yes, I've stopped posting here due to moderator nonsense. But that's about football. SOPA is about human liberties. That's a lot more important.)

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

From what I've read it's still in play, so it's not completely done yet.

For those that want to, you can go here to look up your local representative:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

The Senate is voting on cloture for SOPA on January 24th.

You can use the following site to contact your Senators/Representatives and urge them to vote no: http://americancensorship.org/ .

More info and more ways to contact your Congresspersons here: https://blacklist.eff.org/

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

Hey guys I don't know much about this stuff, can someone explain in basic language what will happen to the average internet user?

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ
 

i didnt realize this was that serious...where's the petition?

Re: OT - ATTN: We Need Your Help - PLEASE READ