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[PATSNUTme]

Don't care....

I suppose this is a big deal for people who spend all their time on a computer. I hate to say this but people who spend all their time on a computer need to get something else to do, at least part time.

You are all already screwed anyway in this regard if you have, and use a credit card, an automatic toll paying system, a cell phone, a GPS device and yes, a computer. You are all okay with Facebook collecting and selling reams of data about you to the highest bidder but not the government. The difference is.... What? Is Mark Zuckerberg really just a grandfatherly good guy? No he's not. Was Steve Jobs really the second coming a Christ? No, he was business man and he destroyed as much as he created. Still we worship Jobs almost as a Saint.

There is little doubt that this legislation is not driven by a desire to spy on you or some such stupid shiite but rather that it is driven by the same corporate, wealthy interests that drive everything else. Wake up, everything which comes to your computer is not always the truth but what is always true is that whatever it is has an agenda. Even those who are leading this effort against these bills, which I would oppose on principle, have an agenda. They too are making money in this environment and they want to continue to do business as they have been doing. Its about money, not freedom.

thanks for spending time on your computer to tell us not to spend so much time on our computers.

 

[Deus Irae]

Both versions are lousy and need to be stopped. Any politician who votes for either version needs to be voted out of office.

 

[Joker]

Both versions are lousy and need to be stopped. Any politician who votes for either version needs to be voted out of office.

heh heh...yes, I endorse this platform!....

 

[shmessy]

While that might be true, that's not how I interpreted it. It seemed pretty clear to me.

I don't know. I hope that you're wrong. I might have let my emotions cloud my judgement but I'm usually pretty good at being logical.

Rojo, with a financial flick of the wrist, they could have had this bill written clearly.

You haven't stopped for a moment and wondered WHY they haven't?

 

[BradyFTW!]

This post shows a real understanding of the issue. In theory, torrents are a great idea. In practice, not so good.

I'd say that bittorrent is a lot like a car, which is a great, game-changing technology that can be used to get to work faster or, say, to rob a bank. There are specific uses of bittorrent that need to be (and already are) legislated against, and perhaps that legislation needs more teeth to it. Once that's done, hopefully people will appreciate bittorrent for all of its legitimate uses.

 

[Deus Irae]

This post shows a real understanding of the issue. In theory, torrents are a great idea. In practice, not so good.

The real issue is the disaster of intellectual copyright laws, and copyright laws in general. But that's for another thread.

 

[rojo8401]

Rojo, with a financial flick of the wrist, they could have had this bill written clearly.

You haven't stopped for a moment and wondered WHY they haven't?

It seemed clear to me. The language was pretty direct.

I'm considering your point. I am not a lawyer and I can admit that my initial interpretation might have been a bit naive and coming from a biased position.

That doesn't mean I'm ready to concede just yet though.

 

[BradyFTW!]

Don't care....

I suppose this is a big deal for people who spend all their time on a computer. I hate to say this but people who spend all their time on a computer need to get something else to do, at least part time.

You are all already screwed anyway in this regard if you have, and use a credit card, an automatic toll paying system, a cell phone, a GPS device and yes, a computer. You are all okay with Facebook collecting and selling reams of data about you to the highest bidder but not the government. The difference is.... What? Is Mark Zuckerberg really just a grandfatherly good guy? No he's not. Was Steve Jobs really the second coming a Christ? No, he was business man and he destroyed as much as he created. Still we worship Jobs almost as a Saint.

There is little doubt that this legislation is not driven by a desire to spy on you or some such stupid shiite but rather that it is driven by the same corporate, wealthy interests that drive everything else. Wake up, everything which comes to your computer is not always the truth but what is always true is that whatever it is has an agenda. Even those who are leading this effort against these bills, which I would oppose on principle, have an agenda. They too are making money in this environment and they want to continue to do business as they have been doing. Its about money, not freedom.

If you had any idea what these bills actually entailed, you'd realize that about 90% of your comment is completely irrelevant, and the other 10% is sanctimonious BS. By all means, please do turn off your computer and go do something else, because you clearly have nothing to add here.

 

[TheGodInAGreyHoodie]

I'd say that bittorrent is a lot like a car, which is a great, game-changing technology that can be used to get to work faster or, say, to rob a bank. There are specific uses of bittorrent that need to be (and already are) legislated against, and perhaps that legislation needs more teeth to it. Once that's done, hopefully people will appreciate bittorrent for all of its legitimate uses.

I think that can be said of almost every form of technology.

Fire, gunpowder, computers, etc.

 

[BradyFTW!]

heh...everybody has seen this movie before...by the time any anti-piracy bill gets to the floor there'll be a hundred additional riders like funding for that highway to nowhere in Alaska....and yes, I'm a cynic...former idealist...decades of playing Bambi to the corporate Godzillas has made me this way

You know what will make me really cynical? When public outcry kills SOPA/PIPA, and as a result Lamar Hunt (the same guy who introduced SOPA) just takes all of the text from SOPA and adds it onto his “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act” that's currently coming down the pipeline. Since he knows that no politician will take a stand that opponents could spin as "pro-child porn", this copyright/censorship issue will pass as a trojan horse under the guise of 'protecting our children'.

When that happens, and it will probably happen sometime within the next year, I will officially have lost whatever remaining faith I had in our government.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I think that can be said of almost every form of technology.

Fire, gunpowder, computers, etc.

Exactly. I'm getting really sick of people wanting to lock down entire technologies because it's possible to us them illegally. Every single argument that the MPAA/RIAA is making now is recycled from back when they tried to make VCRs illegal.

You don't legislate against technology; you legislate against specific uses. It's common sense.

 

[BradyFTW!]

It seemed clear to me. The language was pretty direct.

I'm considering your point. I am not a lawyer and I can admit that my initial interpretation might have been a bit naive and coming from a biased position.

That doesn't mean I'm ready to concede just yet though.

In some parts, I think the language is actually too direct, most notably in defining a foreign vs. domestic site. It attempts to define a very complex issue in simple terms, and as a result introduces a ton of vagueness and room for abuse.

 

[Ian]

Exactly. I'm getting really sick of people wanting to lock down entire technologies because it's possible to us them illegally. Every single argument that the MPAA/RIAA is making now is recycled from back when they tried to make VCRs illegal.

You don't legislate against technology; you legislate against specific uses. It's common sense.

I agree, it's sad that a lot of technologies they're working on to improve things gets bogged down because they have to play devil's advocate and figure out how to keep it from being stolen, pirated, etc. It's sad that it's the world we live in

 

[rojo8401]

The real issue is the disaster of intellectual copyright laws, and copyright laws in general. But that's for another thread.

Yeah. Obviously I disagree.

 

[Joker]

on a side tangent...have any of you ever gotten e-mails from this entity?...


Irdeto Silicon Valley, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "Irdeto") swears under penalty of perjury Lionsgate Films has authorized Irdeto to act as its non-exclusive agent for copyright infringement notification. Irdeto's search of the protocol listed below has detected infringements of Lionsgate Films copyright interests on your IP addresses as detailed in the below report.

Everyone KNOWS I'm flammable at the drop of a hat...so yeah, I called this in house counsel, Osama Hussein(real name) at the number listed and after jumping through a myriad number of hoops, got some clown who said my internet addy had downloaded some straight to DVD piece of crap teen buddy flick from Bit Torrent....never mind that I haven't used the torrents for years, I have no need or any urge to search out and DL anybody else's intellectual property...just not my bag...anyway, I told this "lawyer" that he was full of feces,stop sending my e-mail these bogus threats and the next one I get goes to the attorney general's office in RI....heh....two days later I get ANOTHER e-mail from the same shyster accusing me of DL'ing "Abduction II".....huh?who?what? not only is it "who's making this crap???", it's "who WATCHES this crap?" and "I think I'd DL a file a little more relevant than THIS garbage, if I was going to take a risk"....I don't know...maybe one of you guys has heard of this movie...

looks like a real 2 A.M. Lifetime re-run barnburner

 

[robbomango]

Silly story about how the Congressman(author) used an unapproved stock photo on his Website. The writer was just being a ball buster but none the less it's true.

Wait I don't have the rights to use this photo

http://www.vice.com/read/lamar-smith-sopa-copyright-whoops

...

 

[BradyFTW!]

on a side tangent...have any of you ever gotten e-mails from this entity?...


Irdeto Silicon Valley, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "Irdeto") swears under penalty of perjury Lionsgate Films has authorized Irdeto to act as its non-exclusive agent for copyright infringement notification. Irdeto's search of the protocol listed below has detected infringements of Lionsgate Films copyright interests on your IP addresses as detailed in the below report.

Everyone KNOWS I'm flammable at the drop of a hat...so yeah, I called this in house counsel, Osama Hussein(real name) at the number listed and after jumping through a myriad number of hoops, got some clown who said my internet addy had downloaded some straight to DVD piece of crap teen buddy flick from Bit Torrent....never mind that I haven't used the torrents for years, I have no need or any urge to search out and DL anybody else's intellectual property...just not my bag...anyway, I told this "lawyer" that he was full of feces,stop sending my e-mail these bogus threats and the next one I get goes to the attorney general's office in RI....heh....two days later I get ANOTHER e-mail from the same shyster accusing me of DL'ing "Abduction II".....huh?who?what? not only is it "who's making this crap???", it's "who WATCHES this crap?" and "I think I'd DL a file a little more relevant than THIS garbage, if I was going to take a risk"....I don't know...maybe one of you guys has heard of this movie...

looks like a real 2 A.M. Lifetime re-run barnburner

Hahaha, awesome. I got a letter from my ISP last year saying that a claim had been made against me for downloading--no, I'm not joking--Sex and the City 2. I called my ISP and explained that, as a 25 year old male, I would rather pay the cost of admission to not have to see the movie than sit through it for free.

It's ridiculous how imprecise the current measures used by the MPAA and RIAA are. There are plenty of examples out there of senior citizens who don't even own computers being sued for allegedly downloading music, because the people doing the suing just don't care if they get it right or not. It's a giant shakedown, and if innocent bystanders get nailed, then so be it. And these are the people who SOPA would grant the ability to censor pretty much anything that they personally didn't like.

 

[rojo8401]

Good discussion.

My bias as someone who has been directly affected by piracy was preventing me from seeing very real concerns about SOPA.

I am happy to say that my bias as a native New Englander and Pats fan has ruled the day in the sense that I respect my fellow Pats fans opinions highly.

I am changing my mind and now saying scrap this bill. This is due to the excellent points brought up by many of you guys. So thank you. I knew that we had very intelligent and thoughtful posters here and this thread has really shone a light on that.

If the bill has even the slightest chance of abuse that could ostensibly be used to harm sites like this, then I am definitely against it.

My boss and many of my coworkers will be mad but I think that it's worth risking their wrath in the interest of the overall health of the internet.

You're a good man Ian and I respect your hard work and faithfulness in maintaining this fine site.

 

[TheGodInAGreyHoodie]

I haven't received one of those. But I know a landlord who has and so did his ISP.

He had to stop providing internet service to his tenants, because his ISP was threated with being sued because supposedly someone downloaded a cheap movie you could get for $2 at the bargin bin of a department store.

 

[BradyFTW!]

The real issue is the disaster of intellectual copyright laws, and copyright laws in general. But that's for another thread.

Agreed, and we can thank Disney for that. The fact that Mickey Mouse is still protected pretty much makes a mockery of intellectual property laws as originally written and intended. The concept of public domain might as well not exist anymore.