We have failed. The internet will still be censored.

[BobTD]

I hope that the title of this thread go a lot of you to read this, I just wanted to say Im disappointed by how many people seem to think the crisis is averted. If thats really what you believe then this was all for nothing.

Sadly, the truth is we have achieved nothing.


I Hope SOPA Passes (http://maddox.xmission.com/)
(warning strong language)

We have yet to address the real problem. The same intent will be reworded into a hundred other bills until one of them passes, so long as the people who proposed the bills, and the companies pushing to get them passed are not addressed. It might be the only reason public opinion won out this time is because we are so close to an election. We treated the symptoms without addressing the cause.

" They're going to try again, and again, and again until some mutation of this legislation passes"

[Trunks]

SOPA already failed, also even if it didn't they're are so many against sopa it would never hold even if it did pass. I can never see SOPA or PIPA working even if everyone in congress wanted it too.

[EpsilonX]

I agree with this article. We were watching some politicians talk about this in class the other day and the supporters had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.


SOPA already failed, also even if it didn't they're are so many against sopa it would never hold even if it did pass. I can never see SOPA or PIPA working even if everyone in congress wanted it too.

I think you missed the point. It's saying that as long as the idiots who came up with SOPA are still in power, they will continue to come up with these dumb bills until one of them eventually slips through. Stopping SOPA is like....well i can't think of any witty comparisons

[BobTD]

SOPA already failed, also even if it didn't they're are so many against sopa it would never hold even if it did pass. I can never see SOPA or PIPA working even if everyone in congress wanted it too.

It wont be called SOPA next time. Read the article, consider the argument. Then post.

I already know it failed. So does the the owner of that web page. But they are still actively pursuing boycotts of the actual supporters of such legislation.

Your only contribution here now is to falsely tell people the danger has passed.


Stopping SOPA is like....well i can't think of any witty comparisons

Killing one rat and leaving the nest?
Shooting the negotiators and expecting the army to turn around?
I cant do it.
Those are bad, this is actually pretty hard. =/

[CraeSC111]

I agree with the article. As politicians have done before they'll just rebrand the bill and keep trying to pass it.

[Trunks]

It wont be called SOPA next time. Read the article, consider the argument. Then post.

I already know it failed. So does the the owner of that web page. But they are still actively pursuing boycotts of the actual supporters of such legislation.

Your only contribution here now is to falsely tell people the danger has passed.

Hard to say falsely told people when you have no idea what's going to happen. You can guess and assume, but you don't know. With all the huge companies that doesn't support it, I can't see the government doing it. The website said, that a few people can't make a difference, but in the way our country and economics work, people or companies that are huge and have a lot of power in the world can. That's what's going to stop it and it's already starting too. You have to remember this is one persons opinion on the matter, he looked through everything he could find to put "facts" up about it. But in reality there isn't any facts about it.

To an extent, there needs to be some stop against piracy, they need to crack down on illegal downloads. Sure censoring the internet isn't the way, but piracy has to stop. I bet the kid who wrote this site is one of those people who do download things illegally and that's why he's freaking out so much.

[CraeSC111]

There are still a good deal of large companies that support SOPA. And the larger companies that don't probably wouldn't leave if it was passed. With lobbying and a lack of public attention I'm sure a bill like SOPA would pass

[xLykos]

Lack of public attention? Pretty sure almost everyone has heard of SOPA brah
And since it has already feel through in the senate because no one supports it anymore, I'm not worried about it in the least bit

[Trunks]

There are still a good deal of large companies that support SOPA. And the larger companies that don't probably wouldn't leave if it was passed. With lobbying and a lack of public attention I'm sure a bill like SOPA would pass

Some companies would be force to leave because of SOPA which would cause thousands and even millions of people to lose jobs. Another obvious reason why a bill to this extent won't pass.

[BobTD]

Hard to say falsely told people when you have no idea what's going to happen. You can guess and assume, but you don't know. With all the huge companies that doesn't support it, I can't see the government doing it. The website said, that a few people can't make a difference, but in the way our country and economics work, people or companies that are huge and have a lot of power in the world can. That's what's going to stop it and it's already starting too. You have to remember this is one persons opinion on the matter, he looked through everything he could find to put "facts" up about it. But in reality there isn't any facts about it.

To an extent, there needs to be some stop against piracy, they need to crack down on illegal downloads. Sure censoring the internet isn't the way, but piracy has to stop. I bet the kid who wrote this site is one of those people who do download things illegally and that's why he's freaking out so much.

The "kid" (33 year old Maddox, owner of the "BestPageInTheUniverse") linked you to the sources of his research, and presented a sound and well thought out argument.

Your argument is, let me sum it up here "we dont know for sure what will happen". Good job.

Your right in pointed out that people are still going to want to change the way things are, what with some major companies loosing money from pirating. But pirating is not the real issue, a few select companies would profit from major internet censoship, limiting the American consumers access to what the rest of the world essentially has on had. While crippling the fastest growing economic sector in the country.

If some companies are upset about thier current system not working, and people resorting to pirating then they should adapt. New more convenient services like Netflix, Hulu, any of the myriad music providers and even STEAM to an extent have proven this works.

The fact is that our country supports internet freedom as a global policy, while takinga stance of secondary liability for websites for what they link to. Thats essentially like holding general ford accountable for all property damage inflicted with the vehicles they sell. SOPA and PIPA where akin to the great firewall of china. The rest of the world is mocking our hypocrisy and yet some people still cant see the real problem.

As long people delude themselves into thinking that piracy is a problem that can be solved without adopting better alternatives, you have left yourself with censorship. And a bill similar to SOPA/PIPA will eventually pass.

Pirating is an unfortunate reality, but its being overcome with newer services that account for reality. Simply proving a reasonable alternative works. You probably wont ever stop pirating, but you can dramatically cripple our tech industry by attempting to do so. Its irresponsible and negligent to put the profit of big business before the well being of the country as a whole.

[thedeparted]

lol this guy isn't even relevant to todays internetz, is a contrarian and a drama queen. Also this is old.

[Trunks]

The "kid" (33 year old Maddox, owner of the "BestPageInTheUniverse") linked you to the sources of his research, and presented a sound and well thought out argument.

Your argument is, let me sum it up here "we dont know for sure what will happen". Good job.

Your right in pointed out that people are still going to want to change the way things are, what with some major companies loosing money from pirating. But pirating is not the real issue, a few select companies would profit from major internet censoship, limiting the American consumers access to what the rest of the world essentially has on had. While crippling the fastest growing economic sector in the country.

If some companies are upset about thier current system not working, and people resorting to pirating then they should adapt. New more convenient services like Netflix, Hulu, any of the myriad music providers and even STEAM to an extent have proven this works.

The fact is that our country supports internet freedom as a global policy, while takinga stance of secondary liability for websites for what they link to. Thats essentially like holding general ford accountable for all property damage inflicted with the vehicles they sell. SOPA and PIPA where akin to the great firewall of china. The rest of the world is mocking our hypocrisy and yet some people still cant see the real problem.

As long people delude themselves into thinking that piracy is a problem that can be solved without adopting better alternatives, you have left yourself with censorship. And a bill similar to SOPA/PIPA will eventually pass.

Pirating is an unfortunate reality, but its being overcome with newer services that account for reality. Simply proving a reasonable alternative works. You probably wont ever stop pirating, but you can dramatically cripple our tech industry by attempting to do so. Its irresponsible and negligent to put the profit of big business before the well being of the country as a whole.

I was speaking the the truth lol, No one knows what will happen, good job at missing the whole point of my post and focusing on that one thing that I said that really isn't relevant to the rest of my post. GOOOD JOB


Also why should companies have to adapt from people stealing their property? that doesn't even make any sense. They shouldn't have to, if everyone would act sophisticated a not steal there wouldn't be a need for any of this this. Companies complaining isn't the problem it's the people doing it lol, you sound like one of those people who illegal download.

You're right, we'll never stop piracy, just like people never stop stealing physical objects. But right now, piracy there really isn't any punishment for it, that's why their is so much of it compared to stealing physical items. Piracy should be more closely, but just the other parts of the bill that hurts social network sites and you tube, things like that are what make sopa and pipa bad. Not the stopping of piracy.

[xLykos]

Why is this listed under serious news?

[thedeparted]

Indeed, some dudes blog shouldn't be serious news

[xLykos]

I guess it's serious if you have no life

[EpsilonX]

I was speaking the the truth lol, No one knows what will happen, good job at missing the whole point of my post and focusing on that one thing that I said that really isn't relevant to the rest of my post. GOOOD JOB

I TYPE IN BIG LETTERS SO PEOPLE KNOW THAT ITS IMPORTANT





Also why should companies have to adapt from people stealing their property? that doesn't even make any sense. They shouldn't have to, if everyone would act sophisticated a not steal there wouldn't be a need for any of this this. Companies complaining isn't the problem it's the people doing it lol, you sound like one of those people who illegal download.

So your solution to stopping piracy is, instead of companies seeing a problem and adapting in order to counter it, people should just stop doing illegal things? GENIUS! Never would have thought of it myself.

Also, thanks for pointing out that people pirating things is the problem. I wasn't aware. I thought the problem was dogs. They pee on things.


You're right, we'll never stop piracy, just like people never stop stealing physical objects. But right now, piracy there really isn't any punishment for it, that's why their is so much of it compared to stealing physical items. Piracy should be more closely, but just the other parts of the bill that hurts social network sites and you tube, things like that are what make sopa and pipa bad. Not the stopping of piracy.

Once again, thanks for pointing that out. I'm sure nobody knew that.


Bring on the negative rep >.>

[Trunks]

I TYPE IN BIG LETTERS SO PEOPLE KNOW THAT ITS IMPORTANT

I KNOW ME TOO, THAT'S WHY I DID IT ROFLLOLOLOLOL



So your solution to stopping piracy is, instead of companies seeing a problem and adapting in order to counter it, people should just stop doing illegal things? GENIUS! Never would have thought of it myself.

Too bad I didn't give a solution, I was just pointing out that companies shouldn't have to make huge changes because of theft when it can be lowered by have some type of punishment. NICE TRY THOUGH


Also, thanks for pointing out that people pirating things is the problem. I wasn't aware. I thought the problem was dogs. They pee on things.
If you would have read bob's post you would see why I said that. Try using your brain and put two and two together.



Once again, thanks for pointing that out. I'm sure nobody knew that.
Once again read Bob's post or the article, you'll understand why I said it, but thanks for pointing out stuff that makes no relevancy to what I said.

LOL YOU SO MAD

[Exentenzed]

" They're going to try again, and again, and again until some mutation of this legislation passes"

GOOD! Im all against piracy, but the SOPA and PIPA bills would have given the private sector enough power to cripple the internet.. It would be like allowing private military corporations and then giving them WMD's.
To me those bills seems alot like "We in the government don't want to deal with this, so we'll just give all the power to those affected by the problem and let them do whatever they want."

I hope they find a just way to reduce piracy.

[Trunks]

" They're going to try again, and again, and again until some mutation of this legislation passes"

GOOD! Im all against piracy, but the SOPA and PIPA bills would have given the private sector enough power to cripple the internet.. It would be like allowing private military corporations and then giving them WMD's.
To me those bills seems alot like "We in the government don't want to deal with this, so we'll just give all the power to those affected by the problem and let them do whatever they want."

I hope they find a just way to reduce piracy.


Exactly the way I feel, and that's exactly why those type of bills won't pass.

[thedeparted]

Well they won't ever stop piracy because they aren't going after the problem. The problem is themselves. It's the endless sequels, remakes, crappy movies. Them charging 20 bucks for a new dvd/br movie, them trying to stop netflix by raping them, the charging 9 bucks for a movie ticket. If they want to end piracy or at least nip it in the rear they will have to come to an understanding, we are not going to take their bs. We are the reason they are here! They will have to listen to us, also their profits are soaring as it is, they are just greedy. Another point I would like to make, If they want bigger margins how bout easing the budgets eh? It feels like budgets are ridiculously bloated budgets, starting with actors and actresses.

[Exentenzed]

Well they won't ever stop piracy because they aren't going after the problem. The problem is themselves. It's the endless sequels, remakes, crappy movies. Them charging 20 bucks for a new dvd/br movie, them trying to stop netflix by raping them, the charging 9 bucks for a movie ticket.

That might have been part of what started the problem, but piracy have become too common. Alot of work have gone into creating programs and systems to accomodate easy downloads of just about anything nowadays and as such i don't think it will be that simple to remove piracy all togheter anymore. I think it's just to late for that even though i think it would help greatly.

[Sunsetforgotten]

This is the problem with a large government that dictates way too much of individuals lives. I understand the losses amongst companies with piracy, yet I find it hard to pity them. 40 years ago, gas companies were happy getting 20 dollars every two months for gas. Now they want 20 a week. The same goes for gaming. They suddenly raised the bar on how much games cost, yet offer nothing more expansive than what is already out there. Many games are based on the same engines as others, just with updates (Madden, NBA2k, CoD, Battlefield, GoW). They can't expect people to continue to pay ridiculous prices for entertainment and not try to find a means of deterring the expense.

[LemonRising]

Companies aren't losing money because of piracy, they're losing money because they refuse to adapt to a changing society.
Oh and they're also losing money because they're paying politicians to support things like SOPA and PIPA. lol

SOPA and PIPA aren't made to protect artists and the people that create things, they're made for the companies who are already rolling in money. They're made to control the internet, a thing that the government has no real control over, and that scares them.

I respect steam so much, because instead of making it harder to play game by adding anti-piracy ****, they simply said "we'll just make something easy to use for gamers". They adapted, and for that they have a huge user base, and people buying games.

[paecmaker]

I respect steam so much, because instead of making it harder to play game by adding anti-piracy ****, they simply said "we'll just make something easy to use for gamers". They adapted, and for that they have a huge user base, and people buying games.

Technically isnt steam also an anti piracy thing(apart that you can buy games online) You can only have the game on your account witch means you NEED internet to play and install also it means that you cant borrow or even buy games together, and so on, Steam may be good but its still a disguised anti piracy thing, Im not saying its bad cause I also like steam, there are many things you cand do but still. At least thats what I think.

[BobTD]

Im proud to say that this topic has sparked enough interest to validate itself. The thread is not about a single blog post, rather the importance of being informed and taking a stance on an issue. The blog post I felt summed up an important point that would have taken me a very long time to make myself, on a limited time schedule.


Why is this listed under serious news?

Its under serious news because opinions about the issue even after the bills have failed is clearly relevant to our daily lives. Do you see how many posts this thread generated? And most people actually contributed to it, unlike you. =/

Here is the thing. The bills that where proposed at their heart where put forward and backed by companies with an agenda. The real issue was never pirating. Thats almost an entirly different issue, one that was clearly never addressed by either bill.


But seeing as thats all some members can seem to think about when it comes to this topic I feel its fair to address the problem, I think this sums up my opinion about illegal downloading pretty well:


That main issue, we're told over and over again, is "piracy" and specifically "rogue" websites. And, let's be clear: infringement is a problem. But the question is what kind of problem is it? Much of the evidence suggests that it's not an enforcement problem and it's not a legal problem. Decades of evidence from around the globe all show the same thing: making copyright law or enforcement stricter does not work. It does not decrease infringement at all -- and, quite frequently, leads to more infringement. That's because the reason that there's infringement in the first place is that consumers are being under-served. Historically, infringement has never been about "free," but about indicating where the business models have not kept up with the technology.

Thus, the real issue is that this is a business model problem. As we've seen over and over and over again, those who embrace what the internet enables, have found themselves to be much better off than they were before. They're able to build up larger fanbases, and to rely on various new platforms and services to make more money.

And, as we've seen with near perfect consistency, the best way, by far, to decrease infringement is to offer awesome new services that are convenient and useful. This doesn't mean just offering any old service -- and it certainly doesn't mean trying to limit what users can do with those services. And, most importantly, it doesn't mean treating consumers like they were criminals and "pirates." It means constantly improving the consumer experience. When that consumer experience is great, then people switch in droves. You can, absolutely, compete with free, and many do so. If more were able to without restriction, infringement would decrease. If you look at the two largest contributors to holding back "piracy" lately, it's been Netflix and Spotify. Those two services alone have been orders of magnitude more successful in decreasing infringement than any new copyright law. Because they compete by being more convenient and a better experience than infringement.

Finally, even if you disagree with all of that, and believe that the problem is enforcement, SOPA and PIPA, won't be effective in dealing with that. The internet always has a way of routing around "damage" no matter how hard people try to stop it, and the approach put forth by these bills is a joke. It's hard to find anyone with technology skills who thinks that they will be effective. Every "blockade" has an easy path around it, and the supposed "anti-circumvention" rule in SOPA will never deal with the more obvious paths around things like DNS blocking (use a different DNS or a perfectly legal foreign VPN system). The private right of action efforts are also mistargeted. They're based on the premise that infringement is done for monetary reasons. It's amusing that just a few years ago, these same industries insisted that music and movie fans never wanted to pay anything any more, but now they're claiming that these same people are paying for cyberlockers all the time? That's simply not credible. And if there's so much money to be made, the studios and labels would be opening their own cyberlockers. Either way, we've watched this game of Whac-a-mole for over a decade. It doesn't work. Every site that is shut down leads to half a dozen new ones that spring up. This is not how you tackle a problem: by making the same mistake made over and over again in the past.

Why SOPA are bad. (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111122/04254316872/definitive-post-why-sopa-protect-ip-are-bad-bad-ideas.shtml)

[Trunks]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Steam is an example of a system that stops a good amount of piracy and actually works. I personally am not a huge fan of steam, I rather have the disc. Though I do register my games through steam that way, if i lose the disc or cd key or something I'll be able to play still.

[LemonRising]

Technically isnt steam also an anti piracy thing(apart that you can buy games online) You can only have the game on your account witch means you NEED internet to play and install also it means that you cant borrow or even buy games together, and so on, Steam may be good but its still a disguised anti piracy thing, Im not saying its bad cause I also like steam, there are many things you cand do but still. At least thats what I think.

Well really, to be an internet pirate you need internet too ;p So I really don't think thats an issue.
Also, some people still share their games on steam, they'll give someone their username and pass, let em download and play a game. So not being able to borrow isn't much of an issue either.
Some people just prefer having the physical copy, and those people probably aren't 'pirates' unless maybe they're a thief who steals physical copies from stores.

And on borrowing, Neil Gaiman made the point that piracy is kind of like sharing/borrowing books. For some people that's all it really is. Sharing. A huge digital library. They're just borrowing something, and if they really like it, they'll buy it.
Lemme link the Neil Gaiman thing..
http://youtu.be/0Qkyt1wXNlI

“When the web started, I used to get really grumpy with people because they put my poems up. They put my stories up. They put my stuff up on the web. I had this belief, which was completely erroneous, that if people put your stuff up on the web and you didn’t tell them to take it down, you would lose your copyright, which actually, is simply not true.

And I also got very grumpy because I felt like they were pirating my stuff, that it was bad. And then I started to notice that two things seemed much more significant. One of which was… places where I was being pirated, particularly Russia where people were translating my stuff into Russian and spreading around into the world, I was selling more and more books. People were discovering me through being pirated. Then they were going out and buying the real books, and when a new book would come out in Russia, it would sell more and more copies. I thought this was fascinating, and I tried a few experiments. Some of them are quite hard, you know, persuading my publisher for example to take one of my books and put it out for free. We took “American Gods,” a book that was still selling and selling very well, and for a month they put it up completely free on their website. You could read it and you could download it. What happened was sales of my books, through independent bookstores, because that’s all we were measuring it through, went up the following month three hundred percent

I started to realize that actually, you’re not losing books. You’re not losing sales by having stuff out there. When I give a big talk now on these kinds of subjects and people say, “Well, what about the sales that I’m losing through having stuff copied, through having stuff floating out there?” I started asking audiences to just raise their hands for one question. Which is, I’d say, “Okay, do you have a favorite author?” They’d say, “Yes.” and I’d say, “Good. What I want is for everybody who discovered their favorite author by being lent a book, put up your hands.” And then, “Anybody who discovered your favorite author by walking into a bookstore and buying a book raise your hands.” And it’s probably about five, ten percent of the people who actually discovered an author who’s their favorite author, who is the person who they buy everything of. They buy the hardbacks and they treasure the fact that they got this author. Very few of them bought the book. They were lent it. They were given it. They did not pay for it, and that’s how they found their favorite author. And I thought, “You know, that’s really all this is. It’s people lending books. And you can’t look on that as a loss of sale. It’s not a lost sale, nobody who would have bought your book is not buying it because they can find it for free.”

What you’re actually doing is advertising. You’re reaching more people, you’re raising awareness. Understanding that gave me a whole new idea of the shape of copyright and of what the web was doing. Because the biggest thing the web is doing is allowing people to hear things. Allowing people to read things. Allowing people to see things that they would never have otherwise seen. And I think, basically, that’s an incredibly good thing.”
— Neil Gaiman on Copyright, Piracy, and the Commercial Value of the Web

So there's an interesting look on things.

[CraeSC111]

I would have to concur with the author. About half of the books I have were originally ones I had borrowed or found for."free". I buy the book to support the author.