I consider SOPA a huge issue, but I see it more as a whistle blowing exercise to alert internet users that their free reign will be shortened soon if they don't stop acting like everything is online for their amusement and need to pay for what they read, watch, listen to and quote. Pure propaganda and it's all stupid because the internet is all about free-flowing information, not putting a muzzle on the online community.  It's just as ludicrous as companies charging for software when it's all 0's and 1's.  

Because you and the mods would have to clean house, as well as anyone else running reputable websites across the globe, this SOPA horseshit will NOT pass and if it does, by some incredibly heinous act, mark my words:

THERE. WILL. BE. RETRIBUTION. 

I'm so glad to be Canadian, and immune to this to a significant extent. But I fully support my American colleagues in their drive for freedom, and any actions they take to receive that freedom.

I would suggest, as a protest, should deletion of content be required, that all posts be preserved in any fashion possible. Even if it cannot be allowed to be accessed, it should not be destroyed. Perhaps someday it can be brought back in another country, where the US has no sway. I'd be willing to host it if I had the tools to do so. I'm sure there are others as well.

I would also like to help from Canada.  This sounds pretty scary we have our CRTC blocking web content that US offers freely, so we have a precedent here.  

 One of the most stifling parts of this bill is how the government will be able to force companies like google and amazon to exclude certain sites from participation in their marketing revenue.  Many of you know that RRS uses both.  You probably notice that many other independent bloggers use the same revenue streams.  Many of these people are able to justify the hours of spreading their message online because of advertising.  

I do wish the problems weren't so rampant, but I certainly would rather have freedom on the net with people stealing my content than have my content protected.  I am the victim of copyright abuse and I don't want this.  The RRS radio show was pirated, content from our site has been reposted in full without attribution many times.  There are sites that merely steal content and put ads on their sites.  Individuals deal in the civil lawsuits against such sites all the time.  We don't want the government to step in and decide what is what.  Atheists particularly are at risk with a government that is notorious for ignoring American ideals and inserting god belief. In this case they don't need to insert... they can just restrict.   

Do something about it before it becomes law.

I agree with Sage Override -- this smells of a warning that the days of stealing intellectual property on the Internet are going to stop, or else.

I'm still on the fence about SOPA.  On the one hand, companies invest billions of dollars in producing information and they have a right to control how their property is used.  Sure, it is just 1's and 0's, but a book is just ink and paper, and a movie (these days ...) is just plastic and a thin layer of aluminum ... with 1's and 0's on it.  Someone still had to be paid to develop that content and without revenue from the sale of it, we wouldn't have it.  On the other hand, the massive amount of piracy points to something many people have been saying for years -- much of the pirated content is either grossly over-priced in the minds of consumers, or it wouldn't have been bought anyway, at any price.

Can Congress do better?  Sure.  But Congress can also do worse, either by doing nothing or by giving corporations a lot more power.

 I'm with you 100%, I find it extremely disturbing the number of elected officials who are so cavalier about exerting government control over the internet and the number of Americans who don't seem to give a shit about it. And it isn't a partisan divide in the traditional democrat/republican sense politicians who have come out publicly one way or the other are almost 50/50 on both sides. 

http://projects.propublica.org/sopa/

Is a good site to see if your representative publicly supports or opposes the bill. Fortunately we have an election coming up so we can throw some of these corrupt, power hungry slimeballs out, hopefully before they have enough support to pass it. I hope that Bama would veto it, but given his administrations aggressive efforts against pirate internet sites and online poker I wouldn't bet the farm on it.  

Combine this with the National Defence act, and you got one powerful government.

uh oh now you're in trouble O.O

Please see this important about SOPA:

This CNET article includes an analysis by internet forefather Vint Cerf who now works at Google.  

_________

I WOULD NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE MAKING A POST LIKE THE ABOVE IF SOPA HAD PASSED. (copyright violation fear)

I didn't notice the post from Pineapple who was thinking right along the lines in my previous post.  

I certainly would never link to http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/how-sopa-pipa-can-affect-you/ if SOPA passed.  

Honestly, if SOPA passes I probably would have to create a policy of no outbound linking.  It would just stop us right in our tracks here.  I would have to eliminate my project to promote all atheist websites in the world in the Atheism United list of atheist sites.  Everything would change for us.  There would be excessive moderation on the website.  I would have to urge my moderators to "when in doubt, delete it."  Moderating here has always been "when in doubt, leave it."

Free exchange of ideas here and on any online forum that tries to stay within the law would get cut off.  Strangled.  

I asked our server admin what he thought about having a blackout on January 18th.  He said he was going to ask me the same thing.

Someone tell me they called and wrote a politician. 

If you can rightfully call those rich buddies slime balls, then you should understand what I have been telling you all along in other threads. If you continue to undermine the value of the worker and make the cost of living harder for them it makes it harder for the worker to fight things like this. Money equals power and unless you are willing to face that, you do not know that eventually that money will affect you too.

The corruption exists because money is polluting politics. A healthy middle class and poor class that can pay it's bills will be much more affective at fighting these things than simply supporting a government that creates more poverty by only protecting the rich. THIS is an example of abuse created by wealth and monopolies.

The free market is needed, but it cannot left alone to create a monopoly on politics. MONOPOLIES have been my problem and the only voice our government listens to are the corporations who want a monopoly on information. Congrats, this is what you have unwittingly supported by siding with the rich blindly all the time.

Where have I referred to politicians as anything other than slimeballs? The wealth and monopoly is actually on our side in this issue. It doesn't get much richer or more monopoly oriented than Google......

I have supported this? Where do you get that bullshit. I am constantly bitching about one government regulation or another and people laugh at me. "It isn't that bad, you have to have some regulations, what do you want no seat belts..." etc. This type of thing is what happens when people blindly accept that the federal government should be regulating. I find it ironic that many of the people most upset about this bill also are the same ones who vociferously call for more regulation in other areas. Government is fine and dandy until it affects you. This is precisely the type of thing I have been screaming from the rooftops about on a daily basis on these forums. 

I didn't vote for any of those fuckers that support the bill. In fact, the people who support the bill is pretty much a whos who hit list of politicians the tea party has been trying to remove and to the extent they want to remove the incumbents I have been supportive even though I'm not always crazy about the replacements. Note tea partiers out there... your darling Rubio is on the wrong side. Only idiots trust professional politicians.

Regulations should be judged on a case by case basis.  If you can read an article for free, you should be able to copy it for free.  It should be legal to critique the articles too -- democracies are for debating!  We're supposed to analyze and evaluate information in democracy. 

Look at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; he goes beyond critiquing material and makes fun of it -- satire.  It's no big deal.  What are the comedians going to do?  Maybe this won't extend to all satire.

Fair use laws would still exist meaning it won't extend to any satire, however that decision might rest in the hands of someone not equipped to make that distinction fairly.

I disagree with "if you can read it for free, you should be able to copy it for free".  Many websites these days, including this one, receive large amounts of ad revenue.  "Free" material is a way to get you to go to that website and view the ads, no matter how much you hate them, and earn some money for the website owner.

These types of bills have been a long time coming.  There are countless websites around the internet that would likely not exist if they didn't violate copyright laws.

Copyrights should be illegal. You can't own an idea or a fundamental property of the universe.

I don't mind the ads.  It's a fair deal.  Even when I watch a clip at Colbert Nation I don't mind watching the 30 second commercial.  Or at South Park Studios when I watch a whole episode, I don't mind watching the three commercials.  They even tell you when they're going to pop up -- you can see the lines on the bar.

P.S.  Now they're going to read this and double the commercials.

A copyright doesn't cover an =idea=.  It covers a =work=, which is a specific instance of an "idea".  Not sure where you came up with the "fundamental property of the Universe", but very few "natural" things can be protected by any form of intellectual property law.  There are some weird things going on with genetics and patent law, but patent law is weird to start with.

For example, consider the Star Wars franchise.  You could go make your own movie series about some kid who discovers that his father is the source of all evil in the Galaxy and has to kill him (or be killed trying) in order to restore harmony.

Movie critics would likely compare it -- favorably or not -- to Star Wars, but there is nothing in copyright law that prevents you from doing just that.

The problem with abolishing copyright law is that it is what provides the incentive for "original works" to be produced in the first place.  For example, if someone spends a million dollars to produce a video game, how else would you propose that million dollars be recouped, if not by sale of the software?  And if the software can be freely copied, how is the person who spent that million dollars going to get the money back?

To get this back on topic, I think many people who produce "original works" would agree that something needs to be done to protect their ownership rights.  The issue with SOPA / PIPA seem to have gone horribly wrong, somewhere along the way.  DMCA doesn't seem to have stopped the problem, and my guess is that's why the enforcement aspects of SOPA / PIPA are so nasty.  At the same time, there are entire websites dedicated to violating intellectual property rights, so it's not like there's not a problem in need of a solution.  What I would like to see happen is clarification of "Fair Use" with a more gradual enforcement mechanism.

 Obama Administration joins the ranks of SOPA skeptics.  

Also check this guy out who shows how companies that are trying to get SOPA passed were actually perpetuating file sharing software.

YET ANOTHER POST THAT WOULDN'T EXIST IF SOPA PASSES

                         They should copywrite that New England shallacking of Denver and pass a law that no one can shallack  like St.Thomas, ever again.

This comment has been moved here.

SOPA has been shelved (probably so they can try to pass something like SOPA in some other bill when nobody is looking).  Wikipedia has decided to participate in the blackout.  We will also take part in the blackout.  Now we must speak up against PIPA.  Spread the word, post about it everywhere, talk about it, get informed.  

Here is an easy page to write and call your Senators about PIPA right now.

 More information on PIPA

• For an in-depth analysis of PIPA, read this blog post by PK Deputy Legal Director Sherwin Siy.
• Read about why prominent Internet engineers are against PIPA.
• Read this letter from 13 public interest organizations in opposition to PIPA.
• Read about why the New York Times and LA Times came out against PIPA as written.
• Read this letter from 100+ law professors opposing PIPA.
• Read this letter from 50 venture capitalists expressing concern with PIPA.
• Read the letter from NetCoalition concerning the Private Right of Action in PIPA.
• Read the text of PIPA yourself.

 So RRS is shutting down at midnight tonight, assuming EST and come back online 24 hours later.

Will there be a banner page during the outage?

How about a picture of self immolation?

I haven't formed an opinion about SOPA. I just have a question for those of you opposed.

How do should the people that write, make music, movies and software be protected so they can get paid for their work?

Actually it'll be more like midnight PST- midnight PST.  

The site will have a nice and simplistic design.  A link will lead users to http://americancensorship.org/

Please spend RRS time writing and calling your politicians.  Sign some petitions.  Also agree that you will vote on this issue: http://voteforthenet.com/

Tell someone about it.  Speak up.  The noise on this must be loud and clear or we're only months away from this being lumped into another bill.

Existing copyright laws need to be enforceable, and judgements against infringers need to be easier to collect.  Right now there is no way someone in the U.S. can collect against an infringing site in another country, even if all the money originates in the U.S. and is processed by payment processors located in the U.S.

At the same time, companies that are claiming damages need to show that they have =actual= damages and the damages need to reflect =actual= losses, with a reasonable multiplier that discourages infringement.  Right now a college kid who downloads 100 songs from an illegal website can wind up being sued for tens of millions of dollars, for what amounts to hundreds of dollars of lost revenue, at best.

We also need an education campaign so that people don't view information as this thing that should be "free", just because they can click the "Save" button on a web browser, or the "Start" button on a file sharing application.  There are real people, with real expenses, being paid real salaries, producing that information.  I think there is so much contempt for people who produce "information" that we'll keep seeing these legislative proposals until the general public realizes that the only difference between buying a CD or DVD, or downloading it from the Internet, is the pennies worth of manufacturing to actually press the physical media.

To reduce contempt against content produces, how about reasonable periods of "exclusive rights" (a.k.a. a monopoly).  Copyright was intended to encourage production of content to benefit the public domain.  We started with a reasonable time frame, and extended it to what amounts to corporate welfare.  How can anyone have anything but contempt against this perpetual monopoly, especially when laws are passed that protect these unnatural rights at the detriment of our natural rights such as due process and responsible damages?  How does perpetual "periods" of exclusive rights encourage the creation of new works and is it worth our giving up our natural rights?

This sounds much more like a misunderstanding of what copyright actually =does=.

The only thing protected by copyright is a specific "expression" or "work", not a class of ideas.

In a free market system, the solution to exclusive ownership of a protected "work" is the creation of new "works" which then freely compete for consumers.  That is, if Bob (or Bob Music, Inc. or Bob Filmworks, Inc) owns a work, or his heirs and assigns owns the right to that work after his death, and Bob doesn't agree to reasonable terms, Bill (or Bill Music, Inc. or Bill Filmworks, Inc) is perfectly free to produce a competing "work" and price that competing "work" more favorably.

What is being objected to really is, in a moderately indirect manner, the =failure= to produce new works.  When someone cuts and pastes entire articles, whether from a website run by Brian Sapient, or CNN or the New York Time, they are =failing= to do exactly what they are supposed to do within a Free Market economy -- produce new works which then compete, and through competition, reduce prices.  In essence, consumers are demanding to pay less, without doing what Free Markets have as the natural mechanism for producing lower prices.

Here's a section from the Copyright office on Fair Use --

It is NOT the case that quoting a brief passage of a news article about SOPA can be stopped by the company producing that news article.  For example, there is no indication that this quote from a CNN article would be banned --

In particular, what the media industry has gone after has NOT be quotes of the size and scope as provided above.  Media companies have sued individuals and organizations which provide "free" downloads of entire works, not limited segments -- a few lines, a few seconds, a few frames -- of a work.

What's needed (IMHO) for a "successful" SOPA-without-the-bugs is more clarity in the relevant "Fair Use" sections of existing Copyright law, as well as better enforcement tools so that infringers can be forced to cease infringing on what is not "Fair Use".

I think you did the socially responsible thing. The discussion about copyright is limited almost exclusively to the harm that's done to copyright holders by infringement, which may often be exaggerated. There's little discussion about the harm that can be caused by copyright law to freedom of expression or the public domain. When sites like Google start to be threatened it becomes "serious" and gets attention but people with smaller websites should get involved too and it made a lot people aware of the issue.

I found this a great presentation. Funny too.

To what cost to society as a whole? I own a house. I also have been writing poetry for the past 20 years. I consider BOTH of those my property. Property rights ARE NOT LOST on the people who object to these proposed laws. It is the extent of power that government could have that would over reach any normal expected and reasonable protection.

It was always illegal even with a blank tape to record an LP. But if no one was mass producing that tape to make money off of it, simply making a copy of the LP to give to your neighbor, no one cared.

There are far to many innocent people who merely want to share something with someone else, who are not out to make any money by steeling something, that will get hurt because these laws will turn them into criminals in the interest of protecting big business profits.

We are NOT talking about theft by organized criminals who ARE out to make money. We are talking about the ambiguity of the law that will get the individual lumped in with the criminals.

And as others have pointed out, I don't want one person, or one agency having that much power. Who polices the police?

We post links to everything here from videos to news articles  and talk about famous people and sports all the time. These laws could make that simple non profit link sharing intent the same as mass production for profits that the real criminals do.

I think the idea of our Constitution and the precedence is it is better to let the guilty go free than to convict the innocent. This smacks of Orwell and presumes guilt.. And it gives government too much power over speech, and the only "property rights" it would protect would be those of the corporate mentality.

 DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!

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