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The part that worries me the most are the very provisions that are most important to its supporters: the ability to take down sites without due process, and as accessories for linking to infringing sites. Let's not sacrifice freedom of speech to copyright law.
Loss of revenue, and the inability to hold copyright claims in court internationally.
If you could solve that, this issue goes away.
I think the bluster is a bit overdone, basically wikipedia lives off 'borrowed' content and google really just directs you to the stolen material, how are they harming anyone? (sarcasm added).
I would like to see a stricter rule that deals strictly with software, video and audio content. I think that bullet takes down the largest volume of this issue and it really is easy to determine if a website has the authorization to allowed 8 million downloads of Transformer 3.
Right?
If you could solve that, this issue goes away.
I think the bluster is a bit overdone, basically wikipedia lives off 'borrowed' content and google really just directs you to the stolen material, how are they harming anyone? (sarcasm added).
I would like to see a stricter rule that deals strictly with software, video and audio content. I think that bullet takes down the largest volume of this issue and it really is easy to determine if a website has the authorization to allowed 8 million downloads of Transformer 3.
Right?
... an obsolete business model. The cost of producing copies no longer justifies making money off that monopoly. Content producers need to get paid for their productions, but not by charging per copy. That model is broken.
.. are NOT going to buy the movie / CD / whatever. There's no lost revenue there. Many of them pay >$1000 for enough storage to contain the massive amounts of media they've downloaded illegally. Never in their lifetime will they consume all of that. That being the case, they didn't feel strongly enough about any of it to pay $20 to own it. (Not that you can say you own it even when you have paid for it, but I digress.)
So the person who downloads maybe a couple things a year off the radar and buys (or doesn't) the rest isn't going to affect profits a great deal. The person who has a torrent list longer than the anti-SOPA petition has no intention to spend money either way. Who is this helping? Is the existing take-down process really insufficient to cover the ground in between?
As an aside... When Napster first came out, I admit I went a little hog-wild. I still have about half the MP3s I downloaded back then. The other ~50% have been converted from CD audio to AAC as I slowly chip away at the ones I'd like to own, legally, every time I get the urge to supplement my music collection. A great deal of it I would have been long since forgotten about otherwise. I know this isn't what you'd call the typical scenario, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
So the person who downloads maybe a couple things a year off the radar and buys (or doesn't) the rest isn't going to affect profits a great deal. The person who has a torrent list longer than the anti-SOPA petition has no intention to spend money either way. Who is this helping? Is the existing take-down process really insufficient to cover the ground in between?
As an aside... When Napster first came out, I admit I went a little hog-wild. I still have about half the MP3s I downloaded back then. The other ~50% have been converted from CD audio to AAC as I slowly chip away at the ones I'd like to own, legally, every time I get the urge to supplement my music collection. A great deal of it I would have been long since forgotten about otherwise. I know this isn't what you'd call the typical scenario, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
gets pulled apart here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/
First, the government should ask how much if any money is being lost. Switzerland did this, and they found that there was no statistically significant change in the percent of income their people spent on entertainment. So, they people who spent $100 million dollars making this garbage claim their losing huge amounts of money, but what they're really saying is that they anticipate a further erosion of their monopolies.
For Big Media, this isn't about illegal downloads at all. In fact, as technically proficient people have been shouting at the tops of their lungs, this won't prevent (or even slow) copyright infringement at all.
What it will do, however, is make it almost impossible for new entries into media industries, small cottage industry businesses, and other market participants who don't have stables of dozens of lawyers at their beck and call to compete. As the power to publish becomes ever-more democratized, this class of market participants will increasingly be made up of content creators who would like to work independently, distributing directly to their fans rather than having to go through corporate behemoths operating on obsolete business models who take 94% of the creators' profits for serving no purpose at all; they are merely gatekeepers, exacting a toll for allowing entrance to the world of publishing and distribution, when the mechanisms of publishing and distribution are essentially free now.
Yes, it's all about monopoly. Even if you believe fervently in the importance of copyright itself (which is a monopoly by definition), this isn't about copyright -- it's about the monopoly power of major corporations, allowing them to coerce creators into giving up any rights to their own work in exchange for services they should be providing for themselves pretty much for free.
What it will do, however, is make it almost impossible for new entries into media industries, small cottage industry businesses, and other market participants who don't have stables of dozens of lawyers at their beck and call to compete. As the power to publish becomes ever-more democratized, this class of market participants will increasingly be made up of content creators who would like to work independently, distributing directly to their fans rather than having to go through corporate behemoths operating on obsolete business models who take 94% of the creators' profits for serving no purpose at all; they are merely gatekeepers, exacting a toll for allowing entrance to the world of publishing and distribution, when the mechanisms of publishing and distribution are essentially free now.
Yes, it's all about monopoly. Even if you believe fervently in the importance of copyright itself (which is a monopoly by definition), this isn't about copyright -- it's about the monopoly power of major corporations, allowing them to coerce creators into giving up any rights to their own work in exchange for services they should be providing for themselves pretty much for free.
Every single figure offered by Big Media (MPAA, RIAA, big member labels) is based on obviously, patently BS statistics someone pulled out of an anus rather than any kind of meaningful analysis. By contrast, actual statistical studies conducted with methodology and data open to review (as opposed to baldly stated lies about 700+ billion dollars lost with no evidence to support them) tend to show a strong correlation between spikes in illegal downloads and spikes in revenue through legal channels. What's the most-downloaded movie in history? Avatar. What's the highest grossing movie in history? Avatar. Where's the harm to the revenue stream?
Show me some evidence -- any credible evidence at all -- that there's any systematic loss of revenue, and that it isn't more than offset by the free advertising benefits of illegal downloads. That, or stop making unsupported claims of lost revenues. Please.
Show me some evidence -- any credible evidence at all -- that there's any systematic loss of revenue, and that it isn't more than offset by the free advertising benefits of illegal downloads. That, or stop making unsupported claims of lost revenues. Please.
"Where do you get that figure?"
"Oh, that's FMA."
Saw that on House of Lies. I laughed too hard to hear what came next.
"Oh, that's FMA."
Saw that on House of Lies. I laughed too hard to hear what came next.
Go ahead, take my site down. But then I should be able to sue for damages when it's found that there is no violation. That threat would practically eliminate the "shoot first, ask questions later" aspect of the law as it exists now.
Ah, but after fighting to get your site back up (to prove that there was no violation) will you have the money to start another lawsuit? With this, the "big boys" will be able to knock down any site they want, if it is smaller than they are. The US version of the internet will become Disney, CBS, NBC, Microsoft, Sony, Google (maybe), and a few other 800 pound gorillas, and any competition to them will be online until they find it and falsely accuse it of infringement.
Can you afford two multi-million dollar lawsuits back to back with severely reduced income while you fight them?
Can you afford two multi-million dollar lawsuits back to back with severely reduced income while you fight them?
SOPA includes penalties for spurious actions, and I'm sure you could also sue for damages. But in this country, whoever can afford the most expensive lawyers is who will win, nine times out of ten. And even if you win, can you afford to be down in the mean time?
...the cases will get funded if they're good. But since there will be far fewer actions taken because of the risk, such cases should be relatively rare.
Right! The MPAA spends over $100 million/per year getting this garbage written up and put on the floor of congress. These are the people that will be taking your site down. Sure, you'll be able to sue them, but do you imagine that you'll WIN?!
There are provisions written into these bills that protect people accusing others of copyright infringement from any repercussions of mis-targeted accusations and takedowns.
Here's how it works: Someone makes an accusation. The accused is not informed. The site is blacked out, and all business relationships are terminated by force of law. The accused wakes up one day and thinks "What the heck happened to my site?" The accused gets in touch with the ISP, the service providers, and eventually a picture emerges: "I've been censored!" The person now has to figure out *who* had the site taken down. With no more revenue coming to the accused, the originator must be hunted down and dragged into court at great expense, probably versus a pack a dozen high-priced lawyers and their two or three paralegals each. If the accused wins this case, the ban is lifted, but that in no way punishes the accuser. For that, another court case is required. In this second case, it's not enough to show you weren't infringing: you have to prove in a court of law that the "mistaken" takedown was *malicious*, with foreknowledge that there was no infringement at all.
. . . and don't think the accuser is not going to countersue for thirty different spurious reasons. The point here is to destroy anything that smells like competition, and not to protect against "piracy" (which is people on boats in the Indian ocean killing and stealing and selling into slavery, not an occasional illegal download).
Good effing luck. How are you going to do this with no money coming in from your business effort?
Then, of course, there's the simple fact that you might actually be "guilty" according to the text of the law. If your site is positioned as something that could facilitate copyright infringement -- that is, if it's something where people expect from the marketing that they're allowed to say anything they want (which could include infringing content) or post links to whatever they like (including other sites with copyright infringing content), you're screwed. At that point, you not only get your site taken down with no recourse until after the fact; you also face five years in prison.
Here's how it works: Someone makes an accusation. The accused is not informed. The site is blacked out, and all business relationships are terminated by force of law. The accused wakes up one day and thinks "What the heck happened to my site?" The accused gets in touch with the ISP, the service providers, and eventually a picture emerges: "I've been censored!" The person now has to figure out *who* had the site taken down. With no more revenue coming to the accused, the originator must be hunted down and dragged into court at great expense, probably versus a pack a dozen high-priced lawyers and their two or three paralegals each. If the accused wins this case, the ban is lifted, but that in no way punishes the accuser. For that, another court case is required. In this second case, it's not enough to show you weren't infringing: you have to prove in a court of law that the "mistaken" takedown was *malicious*, with foreknowledge that there was no infringement at all.
. . . and don't think the accuser is not going to countersue for thirty different spurious reasons. The point here is to destroy anything that smells like competition, and not to protect against "piracy" (which is people on boats in the Indian ocean killing and stealing and selling into slavery, not an occasional illegal download).
Good effing luck. How are you going to do this with no money coming in from your business effort?
Then, of course, there's the simple fact that you might actually be "guilty" according to the text of the law. If your site is positioned as something that could facilitate copyright infringement -- that is, if it's something where people expect from the marketing that they're allowed to say anything they want (which could include infringing content) or post links to whatever they like (including other sites with copyright infringing content), you're screwed. At that point, you not only get your site taken down with no recourse until after the fact; you also face five years in prison.
What disturbs me most of all, besides the content of the proposed legislation itself, is the fact that the people that come up with this stuff don't appdear to have any clue whatsoever that these bandaid "solutions" will not garner any positive result.
Shutting downb a website is pointless. At any given hosting provider, a single IP address might host 200+ websites. Clearly SOPA (I hope) can't stop access to the IP address so that leaves the hostname. But the hostname needs to be exact. www.mybigserverisawesome1.com is not the same as www.mybigserverisawesome2.com, so, all a "pirate" need do is get a couple hundred of these slightly different domain names and as soon as one gets shut down, they can just copy content to the other. Or in truth, all domains can just point to the same content really, it's just a few tweaks on the web server.
I'm over-simplifying but my point is that they just seem to be too dull to think things through. On the other hand, often these things are just manueviering. Even though SOPA, perhaps they knew that would be the case but are just positioning pieces on a chess board. Now that the legislators involved know the extent of the resistance to this more extreme version of what will eventually come out, they know how to deal with that resistance effectively. SOPA II & beyond will likely be a lot harder to fight off.
So are the politicians super-smart and super-dull, I don't really know.
Shutting downb a website is pointless. At any given hosting provider, a single IP address might host 200+ websites. Clearly SOPA (I hope) can't stop access to the IP address so that leaves the hostname. But the hostname needs to be exact. www.mybigserverisawesome1.com is not the same as www.mybigserverisawesome2.com, so, all a "pirate" need do is get a couple hundred of these slightly different domain names and as soon as one gets shut down, they can just copy content to the other. Or in truth, all domains can just point to the same content really, it's just a few tweaks on the web server.
I'm over-simplifying but my point is that they just seem to be too dull to think things through. On the other hand, often these things are just manueviering. Even though SOPA, perhaps they knew that would be the case but are just positioning pieces on a chess board. Now that the legislators involved know the extent of the resistance to this more extreme version of what will eventually come out, they know how to deal with that resistance effectively. SOPA II & beyond will likely be a lot harder to fight off.
So are the politicians super-smart and super-dull, I don't really know.
Besides, users can just key in the IP address and go around DNS altogether. It wouldn't stop those who are intending to break copyright law, only those who accidentally get caught in the crossfire.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D9h2dF-IsH0I&h=_AQH-EpAF
In short, the creators are the studios. The studios know exactly how negative the consequences will be. They want to break the market for everyone so that their personal slice will be relatively larger. These are the same studios that 30 years ago would send out "salesmen" to beat you up and burn down your theater unless you agreed to buy their "blocks".
In short, the creators are the studios. The studios know exactly how negative the consequences will be. They want to break the market for everyone so that their personal slice will be relatively larger. These are the same studios that 30 years ago would send out "salesmen" to beat you up and burn down your theater unless you agreed to buy their "blocks".
Hollywood came into existence because people who wanted to get into the film business did not want to have to deal with motion picture camera and film patents (e.g. kinetoscope) or copyrights. They moved from the east coast where patent and copyright laws were enforced to the west coast where they did not effectively exist just so they could "infringe" without breaking the law. Thus, the meteoric economic rise of Hollywood, culminating in the MPAA, which is now pretending virtue by crushing all competition under the excuse of fighting copyright infringement.
Americans have no idea what happens in the rest of the world. The iStore is available in very few countries internationally. They won't let you download to for example South Africa, my country, because of a history of piracy. In the rest of the world, pirated CD's and DVD's outsell the legit product ten to one. The pirate is stealing the product to make money out of it. Americans, take a look at reality outside your own borders. Honestly, if you leave the US you won't fall off the edge of the world.
If there were low-cost channels for acquiring content legally, infringement rates would drop. It's not like South Africa is going to have zero access to content just because iTunes isn't there; it's just going to have zero access to legally acquired content for (most) iPhone users. "Because infringement rates are high," this reasoning says, "we refuse to do anything to reduce infringement rates."
It's like refusing to take antibiotics to eliminate infections because you once had an untreated infection result in the removal of a leg at the knee. "Well, hell, if infection already has a history of taking my limbs, I'm certainly not going to dignify it with *my* help trying to reduce infection rates!" The word that comes to mind is "idiotic".
I know more about politics and the legal process in South Africa than most US citizens, for a number of reasons, but I have not put specific effort into finding any information about its copyright circumstances. Given the fact that a privileged class (and, thus, more-educated class) has been subject to systemic efforts to force it out of the country, including frankly genocidal activities by certain groups being essentially ignored by those in the halls of power, the general level of Western assumptions of legal necessity do not penetrate the current culture there nearly as deeply as in countries with legal systems descended from English common law. There are definitely some downsides to this, but if it means that the oppressive current state of copyright legality has not been accepted as the norm in the general South African populace, I think at least one major benefit applies, amongst the many detriments.
That's not to say that common law has anything to say about copyright, of course. It's the bureaucratic legalities of statute that tend to go along with concepts of English common law and similar systems of Western European culture that are to blame. Thank you, Queen Anne (he said facetiously).
It's like refusing to take antibiotics to eliminate infections because you once had an untreated infection result in the removal of a leg at the knee. "Well, hell, if infection already has a history of taking my limbs, I'm certainly not going to dignify it with *my* help trying to reduce infection rates!" The word that comes to mind is "idiotic".
I know more about politics and the legal process in South Africa than most US citizens, for a number of reasons, but I have not put specific effort into finding any information about its copyright circumstances. Given the fact that a privileged class (and, thus, more-educated class) has been subject to systemic efforts to force it out of the country, including frankly genocidal activities by certain groups being essentially ignored by those in the halls of power, the general level of Western assumptions of legal necessity do not penetrate the current culture there nearly as deeply as in countries with legal systems descended from English common law. There are definitely some downsides to this, but if it means that the oppressive current state of copyright legality has not been accepted as the norm in the general South African populace, I think at least one major benefit applies, amongst the many detriments.
That's not to say that common law has anything to say about copyright, of course. It's the bureaucratic legalities of statute that tend to go along with concepts of English common law and similar systems of Western European culture that are to blame. Thank you, Queen Anne (he said facetiously).
If someone can't afford to pay their debts, put them in prison until they can.
No matter what it is you do it would appear that you would need Insurance Cover to prevent any Accusations from Bankrupting you and your Customers or at the very least causing Massive Losses.
Even Original Pictures on Web Sites can be difficult depending on where they get posted. Say you sell Heavy Earthmoving Equipment and post a picture of a bit of plant to your companies FB Page. That Picture becomes the propriety of FB and technically you are unable to use it or a similar picture anywhere else without written permission from FB.
Lets say for arguments sake you want to sell that bit of plant on a Auction site like E Bay could FB report E Bay to the Authorities and get E Bay taken down? Not to mention you would naturally have a picture of that bit of plant on your Companies Web Site and most likely the same picture as it's the best you've taken so FB could also have your site taken down as well for displaying/using their propriety.
Even if it's a different picture it could be claimed that as you posted a picture of that bit of plant on FB, FB owns the rights to everything related to that bit of Equipment so you are unable to use any other pictures of it anywhere.
Or you employ an Advertising Agency to come up with a series of adds for your Business and you use some of the Images developed on your FB Page, who then owns the Images?
The Agency who made them or FB?
The agency made them for your company to sell something and with the expectation that you would use whatever they made so could they complain that you used them and others think that they now own them?
Then there are company Logo's who owns the Company Logo's that are used on the Companies FB Page?
Probably more importantly who wants to fight a court case over something like that?
What I really find amusing is that those who originally benefited from Piracy are now so strongly complaining about it and how it is perceived to be adversely affecting them. Just goes to show that places Like Hollywood can never be trusted to do anything at all that can be considered as right for anyone but them.
Col
Even Original Pictures on Web Sites can be difficult depending on where they get posted. Say you sell Heavy Earthmoving Equipment and post a picture of a bit of plant to your companies FB Page. That Picture becomes the propriety of FB and technically you are unable to use it or a similar picture anywhere else without written permission from FB.
Lets say for arguments sake you want to sell that bit of plant on a Auction site like E Bay could FB report E Bay to the Authorities and get E Bay taken down? Not to mention you would naturally have a picture of that bit of plant on your Companies Web Site and most likely the same picture as it's the best you've taken so FB could also have your site taken down as well for displaying/using their propriety.
Even if it's a different picture it could be claimed that as you posted a picture of that bit of plant on FB, FB owns the rights to everything related to that bit of Equipment so you are unable to use any other pictures of it anywhere.
Or you employ an Advertising Agency to come up with a series of adds for your Business and you use some of the Images developed on your FB Page, who then owns the Images?
The Agency who made them or FB?
The agency made them for your company to sell something and with the expectation that you would use whatever they made so could they complain that you used them and others think that they now own them?
Then there are company Logo's who owns the Company Logo's that are used on the Companies FB Page?
Probably more importantly who wants to fight a court case over something like that?
What I really find amusing is that those who originally benefited from Piracy are now so strongly complaining about it and how it is perceived to be adversely affecting them. Just goes to show that places Like Hollywood can never be trusted to do anything at all that can be considered as right for anyone but them.
Col
... but I'm not as worried about them as I am about cut-throat companies who want to take down a competitor. With a good lawyer, they should be able to trump up enough of a semi-defensible excuse to avoid penalties when it all proves spurious, while in the mean time the site they targeted has been offline, losing out.
Apple saying that Samsung has a product that infringes on their IP and runs to the courts to stop the Galaxy being sold for Christmas?
Na that simply couldn't ever happen no matter how many times it already has.
This Proposed Legislation was written by Lawyers for Lawyers to promote Job Security for ever. Sorry but there is no other way of looking at it.
Col
Na that simply couldn't ever happen no matter how many times it already has.
This Proposed Legislation was written by Lawyers for Lawyers to promote Job Security for ever. Sorry but there is no other way of looking at it.
Col
As I said in the article, I don't think that most content producers would be able to substantially improve net income via these provisions, but it sure would make more work for lawyers on both sides.
I just posted a link to a video on YouTube. Under SOPA, since someone WILL go after YouTube, TechRepublic is in trouble because and is legally culpable for the link I posted to YouTube in their comments section.
Sounds like too much Big Brother. I have already experienced copy right infringement acusations from eBay from some yayhoo who had NO RIGHTS, no expectation of rights, over some Microsoft software. Never mind the fact I am a Certified Microsoft Partner/Reseller. Someone said boo...and there went the Ad.
This ought to prove to be very interesting to see who will regulate these rougue sites, and God forbid someone should accuse you of having a rougue site, or say goodbye to your website. Never mind if the accuser doesn't have a legal standing. I can see where this one will go.
This ought to prove to be very interesting to see who will regulate these rougue sites, and God forbid someone should accuse you of having a rougue site, or say goodbye to your website. Never mind if the accuser doesn't have a legal standing. I can see where this one will go.
... the law has provisions to undo any spurious claims, but in practice that means long periods of blackout while you fight it. And in the end, whoever has the biggest legal budget wins -- unless both sides are broke, in which case the plaintiff wins by default.
I would term these laws as the ???Death to the US Internet Acts???. For one, I could easily see that some individuals would file complaints on large organizations just to bring down their sites. Next, I would expect organized groups wanting protection money for not filing complaints against sites. Finally, I would see most businesses and people in the US start to host and view sites by going through foreign channels. All that might remain in the US are the ???clouds??? and invisible back-ends to the Internet sites without the actual viewable websites being physically hosted in the US.
The groups that are supporting these laws are not really thinking about the long term ramifications, they are just thinking about their short term profits. Many of the arguments are rehashes of the talking points against cassette and video tapes. Like the video tape, they need to figure out how to turn a profit from the new age in media and stop trying to fight it.
The groups that are supporting these laws are not really thinking about the long term ramifications, they are just thinking about their short term profits. Many of the arguments are rehashes of the talking points against cassette and video tapes. Like the video tape, they need to figure out how to turn a profit from the new age in media and stop trying to fight it.
Old Media is willing to destroy any number of societal freedoms in order to avoid having to change its business model.
Some enterprising musical artist who objects to the RIAA using their images and issues a takedown order on one of the instigators of these horrendous potential new laws. What if all the recording artists or actors, in a protest about their cut of the pie, set up a round robin routine of takedown orders on the RIAA and the MPAA and keep them constantly offline with the takedown orders.
I think that would get them running to the lawyers really quickly to get the laws changed back
I think that would get them running to the lawyers really quickly to get the laws changed back
They own their Artist Body and Soul and do as they please always to their interests and to hell with anyone else.
The Movie Industry Hollywood in Particular was setup on the Back of Piracy so that they wouldn't have to pay royalties to the then big movie houses in LA and look at them now.
Col
The Movie Industry Hollywood in Particular was setup on the Back of Piracy so that they wouldn't have to pay royalties to the then big movie houses in LA and look at them now.
Col
... I'm sure that if any such legislation ever passes (may it never be so), lots of people will be looking for violations by the MPAA and RIAA in order to hoist them with their own petard.
... judging from the track record, the only result of any infringement by them would be a few geeks like us impotently pointing out their hypocrisy.
The people who created these bills didn't do any thinking about the content or the possible effects these laws would have. After all, very few of these "public servants" even took the time to read Obama's Health Care Bill so why would they spend any time thinking through this one! If you trace the money trail of the people who initiated the bill and those who support it, I bet most of them have campaign contributors in the industries that believe they are getting ripped off.
Oh yeah, most of these elected dunderheads are themselves lawyers that when they retire after a single term in office with 100% retirement pay. I bet they see themselves making some additional big bucks from the lawsuits this bill would generate. If congress wasn't aove the law, most of them would all be criminals.
Oh yeah, most of these elected dunderheads are themselves lawyers that when they retire after a single term in office with 100% retirement pay. I bet they see themselves making some additional big bucks from the lawsuits this bill would generate. If congress wasn't aove the law, most of them would all be criminals.
Former Senator Dodd is now the chairman of the MPAA. Coincidence?
I think not.
I think not.
... for suggesting this topic to me in the ##copyfree IRC channel on freenode.net
Thanks, Chad!
Thanks, Chad!
This bill is chaos waiting to happen. It's already created disorder already. Sites that we use on a day to day basis for information, research, search, and etc went dark today. Sure, we thought that the 1980's (and before) were simpler times. However, this is not the world we live in today. Most everything we rely upon is dependent upon the consistent and constant flow of information.
Do we not have enough to do in Congress?
Do we not have enough to do in Congress?
The good old days of the studios consisted of systemic corruption and blatant approval of assualt, extortion, rape, arson, trusts, and monopolies. The Fed had to step in TWICE to break up the studios that had used terrorist tactics to own everything from production to theaters. You just didn't know because they internet wasn't around back then to explain it to you.
Nothing changes that technology doesn't change. No wonder these "people" are trying to stand in the way of progress.
Oh yeah, they have a pile of work they ought to be doing. Fixing the financial sector so it stops killing off the economy every ten years, for example.
But that's uncomfortable... and kinda difficult, too. So they're all too happy to take a buck from the lobbies to do something else, just to keep from having to tackle real problems.
But that's uncomfortable... and kinda difficult, too. So they're all too happy to take a buck from the lobbies to do something else, just to keep from having to tackle real problems.
It???s the end of the Internet as we know it
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The secret behind SOPA, the so-called anti-piracy bill which is today the target of an unprecedented backlash with Wikileaks and other major websites ???going dark??? to protest the legislation, has nothing to do with piracy or copyright theft ??? it???s about the formal effort to mimic Communist China???s system of Internet censorship.
But don???t take our word for it, listen to what Joe Lieberman, co-sponsor of PIPA, SOPA???s sister version in the Senate, said about the purpose of behind the US government???s efforts to control the Internet under the guise of cybersecurity.
Lieberman characterized fears that the US government would use such powers to censor political content as ???total misinformation,??? yet goes on to admit that the purpose behind the agenda is to mimic China???s ability to ???disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war,??? adding, ???we need that here too???.
Of course, Communist China???s ???war??? is not against foreign terrorists or hackers, it???s targeted against people who dare to use the Internet to express dissent against government atrocities or corruption. China???s system of Internet policing is about crushing freedom of speech and has nothing to do with legitimate security concerns as Lieberman well knows.
Having largely failed in his bid to use fears over cyberwarfare, bearing in mind it was the United States and Israel who launched the Stuxnet attack, to achieve the ultimate goal of Internet control, Lieberman has returned with the same agenda only under a different guise ??? the Protect Intellectual Property Act ??? of which he is the co-sponsor.
Whether the justification is cybersecurity or anti-piracy, the end game remains the ability to seize control over the Internet and shut down websites on a whim.
Indeed, the is merely the act of legally codifying what is already taking place. Lieberman himself was instrumental in having the whistleblower website Wikileaks shut down when Amazon axed Wikileaks from its servers after being pressured to do so by Lieberman???s Senate Homeland Security Committee.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has already seized dozens of websites merely for linking to copyrighted material, despite the fact that such material isn???t even hosted on the website itself, a process the Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized as, ???Blunt instruments that cause unacceptable collateral damage to free speech rights.???
The DHS has also seized websites for no ostensible reason, including a popular music blog that was shut down for over a year on charges the DHS now admits were completely false.
While the likes of Wikipedia and Google have commendably protested against SOPA and PIPA, the big ISPs and domain name companies are firmly behind it. Indeed, the global authority over all .com domain names, VeriSign, recently demanded the power to terminate websites deemed ???abusive??? when ordered to by government without a court order or any kind of oversight whatsoever.
Although massive protests by the likes of Wikipedia and Google have delayed a vote on SOPA, the bill is set to return to the House floor next month.
The ultimate end game of SOPA is not merely about handing the federal government the power to shut down websites. Once such powers are granted, the only way to police such a system would be to require all website owners, and eventually anyone who posts any form of content on the Internet, to require permission from the state to do so. This will take the form of an individual Internet ID for every user ??? again part of Lieberman???s favored Chinese-style system ??? which can be granted or revoked at the discretion of the authorities.
The so-called ???National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace,??? created by NIST under the auspices of the U.S. Commerce Department, purports to offer an ???identity ecosystem??? under which Americans will be able to protect their information not with passwords but with a ???single credential??? stored on a smart card, a cell phone, a keychain fob or some other kind of gadget. This will then be used to access a myriad of data, including tax returns, health information, bank accounts and more, amounting to a passport for your entire life.
Under such a system, the state will be able to create a far friendlier environment for controlling the flow of information, Bill Clinton???s proposed ???Internet Ministry of Truth??? will flourish, and Hillary Clinton???s concerns about ???losing the infowar??? will be addressed.
This is the true secret behind SOPA, it???s another step towards abolishing anonymity and creating an infrastructure under which, just as in the physical domain, every act of commerce, communication or exercise of freedoms will first have to be approved by an authority figure before it is allowed to take place.
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The secret behind SOPA, the so-called anti-piracy bill which is today the target of an unprecedented backlash with Wikileaks and other major websites ???going dark??? to protest the legislation, has nothing to do with piracy or copyright theft ??? it???s about the formal effort to mimic Communist China???s system of Internet censorship.
But don???t take our word for it, listen to what Joe Lieberman, co-sponsor of PIPA, SOPA???s sister version in the Senate, said about the purpose of behind the US government???s efforts to control the Internet under the guise of cybersecurity.
Lieberman characterized fears that the US government would use such powers to censor political content as ???total misinformation,??? yet goes on to admit that the purpose behind the agenda is to mimic China???s ability to ???disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war,??? adding, ???we need that here too???.
Of course, Communist China???s ???war??? is not against foreign terrorists or hackers, it???s targeted against people who dare to use the Internet to express dissent against government atrocities or corruption. China???s system of Internet policing is about crushing freedom of speech and has nothing to do with legitimate security concerns as Lieberman well knows.
Having largely failed in his bid to use fears over cyberwarfare, bearing in mind it was the United States and Israel who launched the Stuxnet attack, to achieve the ultimate goal of Internet control, Lieberman has returned with the same agenda only under a different guise ??? the Protect Intellectual Property Act ??? of which he is the co-sponsor.
Whether the justification is cybersecurity or anti-piracy, the end game remains the ability to seize control over the Internet and shut down websites on a whim.
Indeed, the is merely the act of legally codifying what is already taking place. Lieberman himself was instrumental in having the whistleblower website Wikileaks shut down when Amazon axed Wikileaks from its servers after being pressured to do so by Lieberman???s Senate Homeland Security Committee.
In addition, the Department of Homeland Security has already seized dozens of websites merely for linking to copyrighted material, despite the fact that such material isn???t even hosted on the website itself, a process the Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized as, ???Blunt instruments that cause unacceptable collateral damage to free speech rights.???
The DHS has also seized websites for no ostensible reason, including a popular music blog that was shut down for over a year on charges the DHS now admits were completely false.
While the likes of Wikipedia and Google have commendably protested against SOPA and PIPA, the big ISPs and domain name companies are firmly behind it. Indeed, the global authority over all .com domain names, VeriSign, recently demanded the power to terminate websites deemed ???abusive??? when ordered to by government without a court order or any kind of oversight whatsoever.
Although massive protests by the likes of Wikipedia and Google have delayed a vote on SOPA, the bill is set to return to the House floor next month.
The ultimate end game of SOPA is not merely about handing the federal government the power to shut down websites. Once such powers are granted, the only way to police such a system would be to require all website owners, and eventually anyone who posts any form of content on the Internet, to require permission from the state to do so. This will take the form of an individual Internet ID for every user ??? again part of Lieberman???s favored Chinese-style system ??? which can be granted or revoked at the discretion of the authorities.
The so-called ???National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace,??? created by NIST under the auspices of the U.S. Commerce Department, purports to offer an ???identity ecosystem??? under which Americans will be able to protect their information not with passwords but with a ???single credential??? stored on a smart card, a cell phone, a keychain fob or some other kind of gadget. This will then be used to access a myriad of data, including tax returns, health information, bank accounts and more, amounting to a passport for your entire life.
Under such a system, the state will be able to create a far friendlier environment for controlling the flow of information, Bill Clinton???s proposed ???Internet Ministry of Truth??? will flourish, and Hillary Clinton???s concerns about ???losing the infowar??? will be addressed.
This is the true secret behind SOPA, it???s another step towards abolishing anonymity and creating an infrastructure under which, just as in the physical domain, every act of commerce, communication or exercise of freedoms will first have to be approved by an authority figure before it is allowed to take place.
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