SOPA thoughts

[McJesus]

So since some people were dicks and blocked the site for a day I figure we might as well talk about SOPA. What does everyone think of SOPA? Is there anyone who actually supports it? Has anyone done anything to stop it?

I think protest is necessary in any society in order to voice what the people want. I honestly admire the SOPA protests and I thought it would have been cool if sites like facebook joined in. Facebook going offline would have brought an enormous amount of attention to the issue. I think if a protest is well executed and well thought out it is a powerful tool. We need to be able to protest if we don't want to risk becoming a police state and disturbingly a lot of protests are being met with unfair police brutality. That being said there is a line, stupid hippies shouldn't be allowed to occupy random parks for months on end. All things considered though, with how many people love forum mafia and since the site has been down twice in the past week I don't think it was a good move for sc2mafia to black out.

The fundamental problem with protests is that in a lot of cases the people who are passionate enough to protest may agree with the ideas of the protest but are crazy/stupid. Most of us aren't extremists to the point where we are actually willing to do anything and while point out the problems with society is a very easy thing to do it is much harder to come up with solutions that will work. The solutions themselves fracture people who generally have the same ideologies and agree on how broken things are. Another problem is that a lot of symbols and protest aren't thought out and are just plain stupid. I hate earth hour and refuse to support it because for 364 days of the year people don't give a shit about the environment enough to actually change their consumption habits and people just turn off their lights for hour to feel better about themselves.

As for speculation on if SOPA passes it doesn't have a chance in hell of passing before the 2012 election because of how many voters would be outraged. I think the amount of voters that would boycott Obama if he supported SOPA could single handedly lose him the election. After the election though all bets are off because the U.S government works for the best interest of huge corporations and lobbyists and not the people. However the one thing that gives me hope it might fail is the fact that we have so many huge corporations on our side. All the huge websites are with us and that gives SOPA opposition a lot of power.

[Apocist]

So since some people were dicks and blocked the site for a day I figure we might as well talk about SOPA.

You do realize that many site owner, including this one, choose to take down their websites to some extent temporarily in protest of SOPA right? Even google 'censored' their logo.

[Ubernox]

It wasn't a vBulleting; DR took it upon himself to go ahead and close the site without warning anyone. He even spelt Mafia wrong.

It was a pointless thing to do because anyone coming on these forums is already well aware of SOPA, and has probably been so for a couple of weeks. Most people already got the message when they tried to access Wikipedia, Reddit or Twitter.

[kiranearitachi]

It wasn't a vBulleting; DR took it upon himself to go ahead and close the site without warning anyone. He even spelt Mafia wrong.

It was a pointless thing to do because anyone coming on these forums is already well aware of SOPA, and has probably been so for a couple of weeks. Most people already got the message when they tried to access Wikipedia, Reddit or Twitter.

Just to say twitter wasnt down

[Ubernox]

I know. But there was a lot of anti-Sopa chatter all over twitter. Heck, I even think twitter forced a trend on it too.

[kiranearitachi]

I was so sad that this site was down, because the night was going to start last night and I was waiting for it to happen

[Ubernox]

Yeah, really inconvenient timing.

[oops_ur_dead]

It wasn't a vBulleting; DR took it upon himself to go ahead and close the site without warning anyone. He even spelt Mafia wrong.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mafiaa

[kiranearitachi]

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mafiaa

hmmm well played DR well played

[BorkBot]

A prior warning would've been nice and the downtime was rather inconvenient for the running FM's, but I actually support DR's decision to participate in the blackout (although 12 hours would've been enough, I think).

Being non-American and not taking part in the whole social media thing, I wasn't very well informed about PIPA and SOPA. Last night I decided to do some research and discovered that it could have drastic impact on my regular internet usage.

Game-related forums are often absolutely full of (links to) copyrighted music and imagery. Taking away the boundaries (read: expenses) corporations face to deal with these so-called "criminals" might actually result in some of my favourite sites being targeted and taken down. SC2Mafia being one of them. Sure, it's a small chance, but you never know. Many community made mods for games also use (edited) image material and music to improve their overall quality. I may or may not be guilty of doing this myself.

I'm glad that some people are standing up against these laws at least.

[Ubernox]

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mafiaa

Well I stand corrected my good chap.


@Borkbot But it's not like anyone who has been inconvenienced by these blackouts wasn't already going to vote against SOPA anyway.

[Goremancer]

I agree with DR's idea but it made it really, really inconvenient for me :/ SOPA is pretty stupid and I think it's not going to pass even without all this protesting because Youtube, Facebook, Google, Reddit, Hulu and many other sites are just simply too powerful.

[oops_ur_dead]

Prior warning was impossible because Rev only asked me to black out the site right before we did it.
Also, I extended FM9 night by 24h because of the blackout. Sorry about inconvenience for the M-FMs, though.

[Ash]

Fun fact: SOPA means soup in spanish. PIPA means pipe.

What is the government trying to tell us?

[kiranearitachi]

Fun fact: SOPA means soup in spanish. PIPA means pipe.

What is the government trying to tell us?

lol so true

[Raptorblaze]

Aaaaaaaannnnddddd Anonymous has taken down the DoJ site, the MPAA site, whitehouse.gov and others (I think) after the federal raid on Megaupload. The government really needs to stop fucking with the internet before they unleash netizen hell on themselves, the SOPA protests are just the beginning.

[Luna]

Typical Americans. Trying to police the internet.

(Notice that in that video they even say "The internet! fuck yeah)

At least countries like Iran and China just flat-out ban lots of sites, they don't try and shut them down.

Go on America, I'm going to link to other places on Reddit, wotcha gonna do?

[kiranearitachi]

Typical Americans. Trying to police the internet.

(Notice that in that video they even say "The internet! fuck yeah)

At least countries like Iran and China just flat-out ban lots of sites, they don't try and shut them down.

Go on America, I'm going to link to other places on Reddit, wotcha gonna do?

such a pro song lol

[Lazers]

just thought I'd share this

https://maddox.xmission.com/

[Ash]

just thought I'd share this

https://maddox.xmission.com/

I don't get it, the nigger author of that article only wants it to pass to wake up lazy niggers?

[Sumikoko]

I just think there's an overreaction to this bill. Yeah sure, I'm against SOPA, only because it affects me. But really, if you think about it, it's unlikely to affect 80% of the Americans out there, because they usually don't watch anything pirated or otherwise. It's just us net geeks that stress over this.

That being said, I feel like these protesters are forcing upon the other civilians their point of view by posting things like:
CENSORSHIP OF THE INTERNET
in big bold letters, which incites mass hysteria amongst the Americans that are intensely conservative and don't want an inkling of infringement of their rights. You could say SOPA is censorship. Or you can say SOPA is protection against piracy and guards copyright claims. And of course, most people don't take the time to read it as the latter, and just immediately join the protest.

To bring a Mafia example into this, it's like those lynch trains on people. You have two or three people bring attention to this one person, and before you know it, you have half the town voting to lynch that person with the mindset that he's evil but with a majority not even paying attention to what is being said, and is just following the train like sheep. Is the person evil? Yeah, perhaps. But it's this mindless sheep following that annoys me.

In any case, I'm not saying I'm in support of SOPA by any means. I'm adamantly against it. But only because it affects me. But considering the typical American buys everything from iTunes and probably spends 95% of their online time on Facebook and Twitter... This is a little ridiculous from their point of view.

[kiranearitachi]

megaupload.com lol

[FalseTruth]

I just think there's an overreaction to this bill. Yeah sure, I'm against SOPA, only because it affects me. But really, if you think about it, it's unlikely to affect 80% of the Americans out there, because they usually don't watch anything pirated or otherwise. It's just us net geeks that stress over this.

That being said, I feel like these protesters are forcing upon the other civilians their point of view by posting things like:
CENSORSHIP OF THE INTERNET
in big bold letters, which incites mass hysteria amongst the Americans that are intensely conservative and don't want an inkling of infringement of their rights. You could say SOPA is censorship. Or you can say SOPA is protection against piracy and guards copyright claims. And of course, most people don't take the time to read it as the latter, and just immediately join the protest.

To bring a Mafia example into this, it's like those lynch trains on people. You have two or three people bring attention to this one person, and before you know it, you have half the town voting to lynch that person with the mindset that he's evil but with a majority not even paying attention to what is being said, and is just following the train like sheep. Is the person evil? Yeah, perhaps. But it's this mindless sheep following that annoys me.

In any case, I'm not saying I'm in support of SOPA by any means. I'm adamantly against it. But only because it affects me. But considering the typical American buys everything from iTunes and probably spends 95% of their online time on Facebook and Twitter... This is a little ridiculous from their point of view.

Actually, you simply don't seem to understand the implications of this bill. From this post, I can tell you have numerous misconceptions about what it actually is.

SOPA will not just prevent you from accessing torrenting sites and MEGAUPLOAD etc. It will also prevent you from accessing nearly every site that relies on user-generated content IF any of the users do anything to promote piracy.

Think about this for a second. Let's try to name a few sites that use user-generated content.

Youtube- Has a bunch of people singing covers that are copyrighted. ALL of those covers will be removed. Youtube will be shut down if it does not remove the videos within 5 days. Remember, there are millions of videos on youtube, so this police work will inevitably cost Youtube a lot of time and effort. People like Justin Bieber will find it extremely hard to rise to fame through this site.

Facebook- You can no longer link to any site that holds copyrighted material. You cannot post copyrighted pictures. You can't even post clips of copyrighted music on Youtube. Facebook will shut down if all of the copyrighted material is not removed withing 5 days.

Reddit- Every single link cannot refer to a copyrighted item or reddit will be shut down. It has the same implications as the previous few sites I have mentioned.

Wikipedia- All of wikipedia will shut down if one guy in one article decides to edit it and post something about copyrighted material. There can no longer be articles that explain copyrighted material AT ALL. There will no longer be articles for much of the sites that promote protests against the bill.

This list goes on and on...

This affects EVERYONE, including the average user who uses Facebook. Why do you think every major internet organization has come out against this bill? It will destroy free speech, endanger our ability to protest, and stifle innovation and creativity.

[Luna]

FalseTruth speaks the TrueTruth.

You know what's hilarious? AMERICA YOU ARE NOT THE WORLD POLICE! Those websites can just have their servers moved to outside the US. What you gonna do? In England it's legal to sing a song and share it with others on the internet. Youtube moves to England, brings in a bunch of money for the country in taxes, and the U.S. Government facepalms as they watch me sing some Fleetwood Mac songs. Are they going to... extradite me? Pretty damn sure the Queen wouldn't let 'em!

[BorkBot]

FalseTruth speaks the TrueTruth.

You know what's hilarious? AMERICA YOU ARE NOT THE WORLD POLICE! Those websites can just have their servers moved to outside the US. What you gonna do? In England it's legal to sing a song and share it with others on the internet. Youtube moves to England, brings in a bunch of money for the country in taxes, and the U.S. Government facepalms as they watch me sing some Fleetwood Mac songs. Are they going to... extradite me? Pretty damn sure the Queen wouldn't let 'em!

It actually looks like the law has that covered. It says they can take down foreign hosts/content providers which are visited by American users as well (i.e. virtually every game site in existence). Or at least disconnect them from US advertisers and American pages linking to it, etc (they also wanted to remove them from the DNS, but that was retracted I believe). That's what the whole issue is about.

[Sumikoko]

Youtube- Has a bunch of people singing covers that are copyrighted. ALL of those covers will be removed. Youtube will be shut down if it does not remove the videos within 5 days. Remember, there are millions of videos on youtube, so this police work will inevitably cost Youtube a lot of time and effort. People like Justin Bieber will find it extremely hard to rise to fame through this site.

I actually did not know many of these facts, and I do thank you for bringing them to my attention. However, the interpretations of this bill are vast, and about an hour of thorough research brought me to be completely against this bill, but not against its intentions, and still thinking that some protests are ridiculous. I attempted to decipher the actual text of the legislation, but only got to confirming the timeframe before giving up on trying to read through the esoteric language completely lol.

From the viewpoints of the protesters, it is indeed as you had interpretted it. However, from CNN's point of view, for their example on Youtube censoring, it would involve the companies actually contacting them specifically asking them to remove a certain piece of content. Youtube would not be automatically shut down after 5 days. 5 days just happen to be the default time for them to resolve this issue, with the timeframe actually vaguely worded to just be "reasonable." If Youtube refuses or does not act within the time limit, then the two would go to court. Granted, this would cause trouble and extra expenses, and yes, the worst scenario being that Youtube shuts down (but this is unlikely to happen as the government would not dig themselves this hole), but my point was, that the protesters have a significantly different viewpoint from that of the neutral or supporter. And of course, the legislation itself is so vaguely worded, it can be interpretted from anywhere to a harmless thing, to censorship on the level of communist nations. Yes, while it would cost Youtube its share of money and time, in some of the media sector's defense though, how much money are they losing? $135 billion. Which, considering our economy... But of course, as the majority of Americans go, we don't sympathize with the business sector.

My point in all this? False, you've convinced me that SOPA needs to be done away with, as the opportunity cost exceeds the benefits. However, the message this bill is trying to communicate has been skewed completely by avid protesters. And the worse thing is, some of them (not all) are screwing with the views of society's sheep that can be deemed as nothing more than "yellow journalism." The point of this bill is not censorship of free speech. The point is protection of copyright claims. Censorship is the unfortunate side effect, granted, a big one at that. But that isn't the part people ought to be focused on. This is the government genuinely trying to eliminate infringement on copyright and protect their nation's market. It may not be the right step, but it's a step of some sort, and I hail progress of any kind. Whether it'll work or not is another debate in itself, but at the very least, I don't believe the intention was bad, unlike what some of the protesters claim and are leading the masses to believe.

It's like my classmate's inexplicable fear of Communism. It's bad practice has lead them to connect it directly with the word "evil" without knowing its original intent of equality for all (and that's another argument in itself).

Also, it's this kind of "resilient opposition" attitude by both politicians and regular citizens alike that is ruining the US's economy and domestic political affairs. Because everyone would rather just kill the bill and not have to deal with it, rather than help the government try to fix it and come up with a better, more feasible solution. This obstinacy. It'll ruin this nation, it will.

That said, I'm actually a complete hypocrite because I actually hate this bill because it would cut my free anime lol. In consideration of the jobs and income lost, I have to think otherwise.

And Luna, lol, don't even get me started on how the US needs to stop playing as Sumidoc of the world. I will probably start a 30 minute rant on how conceited the US is.

tl;dr - I am now opposing both the SOPA bill and the protesters at the same time. Grrr.

[wolfcheese]

You know what's hilarious? AMERICA YOU ARE NOT THE WORLD POLICE!

This. I am ashamed of my congress. At least let the bill focus on stuff in our own damn country.

Also, I am not convinced that this bill is actually about piracy. I mean, sure, it has the word "piracy" in the title. But where the hell was this kind of bill when cassette tapes came about? VHS tapes? Recordable DVDs? Those mediums have been spreading piracy for forever but the only thing they care about is the internet. Why? I don't know for sure but I bet certain corporations feel pretty obsolete because the internet is something they are not in direct control over. Of course my response to that is "too fucking bad". Redefine your company or get out of the industry. A lot of the punishments and stuff in the bill is drastic enough to prove that control takes precedence over stopping piracy.

[McJesus]

this is probably the funniest anti sopa website I have seen

https://theoatmeal.com/sopa

[Jester]

How is The Pirate Bay Still around and never getting shut down?

Those websites can just have their servers moved to outside the US. What you gonna do?

^ That's how.

But seriously, the world has to side with us because it will affect them too. Honestly, so much american music and videos are played in every country, and it would be SO much harder to access, find, or hear about new and good music if this was passed. I think anti-piracy laws should be in state, but they haven't figured out a way yet. Back to the drawing board.

[Necrolord]

I was talking with people in Mafia about it, and saying about how a few dozen old men (and a few women) will decide the fate of the internet, which will affect the world. Why can't we all just lynch the members of Congress? "Because town's retarded", one guy said lol.

But it's true, it's funny how things have become. Thousands, if not millions of people are going to ask the U.S government not to pass this stupid bill, saying "Please don't wave your imaginary power wand and impose a terrible law on us that police will have to enforce!" Because without the police to enforce it, the courts would be a joke.

If it weren't for the existence of the police, those who come to your door when you refuse to obey the law, politicians would look like the Westboro Baptist Church. How many times does the public say "This is fucking bullshit!" and the government's like "Well tough fucking shit."

[Luna]

It actually looks like the law has that covered. It says they can take down foreign hosts/content providers which are visited by American users as well (i.e. virtually every game site in existence).

That's fucking retarded, pretty sure that America could be sued for that (though once again... how would they do it? Would the Government hack into your website and take it down? HOLY CRAP THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS ANONYMOUS).

It's like shutting down a bar in Britain because a 20-year old American tourist bought a beer there.

[Guardian]

I am SOOOO againts SOPA.

the bill is just so vague, and basically just "assumes you are guilty until proven innocent"

with this bill, any corporation can shut-down any other corporation effortlessly.

just spam copy-righted links on it and watch as the intire web-site gets CENSORED....

i think this bill is really to kill websites that are not in the corparation's best interest.

i mean, if you can go and delete face-book or google at your own LEISURE, you can say good-bye to the internet, free-will, freedom of expression and freedom of speech. It is irony indeed that the U.S.A supposedly stands for these values.

[Guardian]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ine_Piracy_Act

lets BOYCOTT everyone in the supporting category!!!

[Zane]

I think people would spent less time on the internet aka being a nerd. it sounds quite ok for me

[Sumicocko]

lol america
what a bunch of tools

[Random]

lol america
what a bunch of tools

The majority of people who know are already opposed to this. Others just don't know and therefore can't care.
The older generation has no idea what this is. (Isn't covered by major news stations)
Somehow, my classmates didn't even know what SOPA was until this blackout.
So I guess the blackout was a success in drawing attention esp. because Google and Wikipedia participated.
A lot of people were probably scratching their heads wondering whats up with the Google logo.
Kind of funny how people are expressing their opinions on SOPA the day of the blackout. Others have been worrying since months ago. Slow-poke America.

[Raptorblaze]

That's fucking retarded, pretty sure that America could be sued for that (though once again... how would they do it? Would the Government hack into your website and take it down? HOLY CRAP THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS ANONYMOUS).

It's like shutting down a bar in Britain because a 20-year old American tourist bought a beer there.

They can't physically take down the sites, here's their "toolkit" according to SOPA/PIPA:

Force US-based DNS services to block the website's DNS resolution. (This is the part that will cause security problems, by fracturing the DNS hierarchy you won't stop pirates, they'll just use different DNS services OUTSIDE the US, which could easily be less-scrupulous about their security practices.)
Force US-based ad services to stop doing business with the site.
Force US-based payment processors to stop doing business with the site.
Force US-based search and index companies to stop returning links to the site.

Mind you this is all without any due process on the matter. Does anyone else think it's incredibly stupid that the government is assuming all these "rogue" websites are using US-based services for everything? God my government is full of tards.
You know what they say, Pro is the opposite of Con, So what's the opposite of Progress?

[Ash]

You know what they say, Pro is the opposite of Con, So what's the opposite of Progress?

Idiotgress

[mrzwach]

FalseTruth speaks the TrueTruth.

You know what's hilarious? AMERICA YOU ARE NOT THE WORLD POLICE! Those websites can just have their servers moved to outside the US. What you gonna do? In England it's legal to sing a song and share it with others on the internet. Youtube moves to England, brings in a bunch of money for the country in taxes, and the U.S. Government facepalms as they watch me sing some Fleetwood Mac songs. Are they going to... extradite me? Pretty damn sure the Queen wouldn't let 'em!

Prevent them from having any sort of business with Paypal, prevent them from being accessible from major search engines (ie GOOGLE), so on. So uhm yeah, they'd probably fuck over those sites too. Also they'd lose the entirety of the United States in viewership, which would be fairly brutal (probably around a third of their visits)

Granted, youtube wouldn't get taken down. The people with tons of money (ie Hollywood) wouldn't want to take it down, because it can be used to generate revenue for them via advertising. So yeah.

ALSO: for you eurofags who think "lol we are su good, lol dumb amurikans and their censorship laws," I'd like to remind you of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Co...rade_Agreement
hey look at that. the EU is going to be a part of that shit too.

[Zane]

lol denying that americans are dumb

[Jester]

lol denying that americans are dumb

American's aren't any more dumb than any other human. They just get publicized more lol.

[mrzwach]

lol denying that americans are dumb

nice strawman, faggot.

i only implied that europeans were dumb. I made no assertions nor implications on the intelligence of americans, although I do suppose that it would be rather foolish for me to call americans dumb in comparison to people like you

[CmG]

Humans are constructed to be dumb. No nationality excluded.

Don't be mean to Zane he is German. Germans kill Bolceviks and Russian people alike!

[Zane]

[Zane]

I'm not german btw. I live in germany, but I was born in Banana Island.