Stop SOPA - A Free Internet

krzysiek · 24-12-2011, 05:33 PM

Hey guys,

Not many of you probably are aware at all, since I doubt many of you hang out in internet marketing / online forums too much. Maybe some of you do, but that is just my opinion. No offence meant.

Therefore, I've decided to share a little something.

The US is trying to introduce the 'SOPA' bill which will basically allow the large entertainment companies to take down websites, almost immediately - without any type of judgement/hearing/system. Literally, if it passes - they will have the power to take websites offline.

They would be able to take websites off for almost any reason. If it looks like it might be promoting 'piracy' - then they could take it off the web. From my knowledge, they would only have the power to do this in the US, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize the effects it would have even on us, in Australia.

For example, if someone on this forum had, at any one stage, linked to a file / website that was/is believed to be related to piracy, they could just take this whole forum down. Literally, it would be up to them.

Chances of that actually happening? Not too high, since for the most part this forum is automotive and doesn't deal much with music, videos etc. But would it be possible? Certainly would be, if this new law comes in.

For more information, just Google "what is the SOPA bill" and you can do some reading on it.

Now, what is the MOST interesting:

It is the entertainment industry that is really trying to fund this new SOPA bill. You know, the music and movie industries that seem to be the most 'damaged' by 'online piracy'.

Well, take a look at this video below and you'll learn how it is actually the entertainment industry itself, that distributed all of the software that most/all of you would have at least heard of. Limewire, Kazaa, Bit Torrents, etc.

Without further delay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7DkrsCCQ_A

Edit: Not interested in some flame wars or debates. I am just doing my bit for the internet

|Nate · 24-12-2011, 05:35 PM

And this relates to Ford Australia/ automotive chat how?

krzysiek · 24-12-2011, 05:40 PM

You're right, it doesn't relate to anything specifically automotive. It does however relate in the sense that this forum is a part of the internet.

I thought it might be good to give some of you guys an honest heads up. If you're not interested, that's fine - but keep it to yourself. I am sure the mods will come and close/delete this as soon as they see fit, and if that is how they want to handle it, then that is fine by me. But let's leave it up to them to decide, maybe they will realize some importance too.

Anyway, thanks for your comment.

Nikked · 24-12-2011, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by |Nate

And this relates to Ford Australia/ automotive chat how?

Images, you tube etc...

krzysiek · 24-12-2011, 06:16 PM

In a nutshell. In the case of MGM vs Grokster, the supreme court ruled The person responsible for distributing the means to infringe said copyright material, with the intent to further perpetrate the copyright infringement is liable for the resulting acts of copyright by the people downloading the material.

In layman terms. The guys who give out the software are the people legally accountable for any copyright infringement.

So when a big company like Time Warner sue's some single mom for $200,000 and bankrupts her. The people that should actually be getting sued are the distributors of the software.

This guy has proof that the same company that is accountable for distributing the software is also suing the people that use it. He further details how these companies coached users in methods on how to easily download the copyrighted material.

The whole premise for this was to introduce a "copyright violation culture" so they can easily implement crazy, radical laws that allow huge companies to basically control the internet.

charles_wif_xf · 24-12-2011, 07:02 PM

The legislation only applies to the US.

atec77 · 24-12-2011, 07:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charles_wif_xf

The legislation only applies to the US.

Initially yes but how long do you think that will last ??

mik · 24-12-2011, 07:19 PM

if someone powerful can see a buk in it.....it will probably spread.

xisled · 24-12-2011, 07:51 PM

who cares, its America, not Australia.

Road Games · 24-12-2011, 08:35 PM

I care .. thanks for the info mate.

Streets · 24-12-2011, 09:57 PM

For all those saying "it doesn't matter because it's the US", think of how much of the internet's physical infrastructure (servers and so on) are located there

charles_wif_xf · 24-12-2011, 10:18 PM

Think of how many of these forums reside on servers in countries that give zero about the US and its quest to be the world's 'moral beacon'...

xisled · 24-12-2011, 10:27 PM

Basically all they are trying to do is stop people stealing there property. I agree with them, if it stops people stealing movies, tv shows and programs good on them. Think of it this way, if another person stole your car, you would be angry. There are currently laws in place to protect you, from people stealing your property, why cant these creators of movies and such have the same protection.

Every day I see people post in the stolen thread on this forum and other forums saying these people are scum, dogs etc, but people who steal movies are no different.

Only people who lose out are going to be people who steal movies, tv shows and programs etc, from the net.

Yes I know how to download movies, TV shows and such, but I would rather buy them.

If you do not like what the internet has become, there is always an off button on your computer.

charles_wif_xf · 24-12-2011, 10:34 PM

I had a rather good look at the SOPA bills and I must say, I was quite alarmed by what I read. For those who think that they are there to stop intellectual property theft, wrong. It is but a pretense (and a reason) for the 'authorities' to control what can and can't be posted on the 'net. It's net censorship, pure and simple. Anything that goes against Govco policies and is critical of the "Establishment" will be shut down without any notice.

krzysiek · 24-12-2011, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xisled

Basically all they are trying to do is stop people stealing there property. I agree with them, if it stops people stealing movies, tv shows and programs good on them. Think of it this way, if another person stole your car, you would be angry. There are currently laws in place to protect you, from people stealing your property, why cant these creators of movies and such have the same protection.

Every day I see people post in the stolen thread on this forum and other forums saying these people are scum, dogs etc, but people who steal movies are no different.

Only people who lose out are going to be people who steal movies, tv shows and programs etc, from the net.

Yes I know how to download movies, TV shows and such, but I would rather buy them.

If you do not like what the internet has become, there is always an off button on your computer.

While I agree with you completely about theft and it being wrong, I can't help but think that you didn't watch the video. I do not even slightly mean to be disrespectful, but the video addresses exactly what you are talking about.

The companies who are suing people for 'piracy' and for stealing movies/music are the SAME people who gave us, the masses, the actual means and software to do so. That's why this is a BIG issue, because this was all premeditated. The bill itself is a nightmare, but to think that the people who are PUSHING for the bill (read: pushing to control the Internet) are actually the same people who basically guided us to stealing the music and movies is just mind boggling.

They give us the software to perform the illegal activities, then they sue us (as they have done many times) and now they are literally trying to take large control over the Internet because of all of the 'piracy', the piracy that they THEMSELVES initiated through putting the software out there, THEMSELVES. That there, my friends, is why this is a big issue.

FURTHER, to those who say "this only affects the US so who cares". I understand where you come from, and while it might make logical sense to say something like that - when we dig deeper, it's actually a fairly silly statement to make.

I can bet my life on the fact that you more than likely use several American based websites regularly. Popular ones include Google (hosted here but also in US etc), YouTube and many many others. Believe me, you will feel the impact - there is absolutely no doubt.

SM1DY · 24-12-2011, 11:23 PM

Does that mean youtube can be shut down??? I know you can grab songs straight from the site and create MP3's. There is even sites that will convert youtube videos to MP3, I imagine they will be stomp on?

krzysiek · 24-12-2011, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charles_wif_xf

Think of how many of these forums reside on servers in countries that give zero about the US and its quest to be the world's 'moral beacon'...

Unfortunately, we're not just talking about forums. We're talking about the WWW, the whole world-wide-web - which a lot of it is US based/hosted.

Edit: sorry was posting on mobile and did not yet read your post where you said you looked into the bill. I'm glad you looked into it, it's not as good as govco would have you believe, is it! I hope more people have a bit of a read

ltd_on20s · 24-12-2011, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SM1DY

Does that mean youtube can be shut down??? I know you can grab songs straight from the site and create MP3's. There is even sites that will convert youtube videos to MP3, I imagine they will be stomp on?

yup.

goes back to the other thread we were discussing what governments do, but that was arbitrarily closed.

krzysiek · 24-12-2011, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SM1DY

Does that mean youtube can be shut down??? I know you can grab songs straight from the site and create MP3's. There is even sites that will convert youtube videos to MP3, I imagine they will be stomp on?

Anything that is US hosted, can be taken down under the proposed law. If YouTube is US hosted, which it likely definitely is, then yes YouTube could just as easily be taken down. Although, that wouldn't be a very good idea of they're trying to keep relatively quiet about their powers to take websites offline with no warning.

YouTube already allows the big entertainment companies to immediately take videos off of YouTube. That is, these big companies have the power to remove a video without needing to ask YouTube. They can remove anything they want. Reason is, due to current existing law, if YouTube 'interferes' (or anyone for that matter) with copyright infringement - then there are huge fines to be handed out. It is the sensible option for YouTube to just allow the companies to take off whatever they might say is 'copyright infringement'.

But let's not get sidetracked with YouTube, because this thing has the potential to affect a whole lot more.

FGII-XR6 · 24-12-2011, 11:51 PM

it won't stop much, those that are infringing copyright will move to servers in other countries. some contries don't care what goes through it's servers making them havens for illegal activity

pauljh74 · 25-12-2011, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by au3xr6

it won't stop much, those that are infringing copyright will move to servers in other countries. some countries don't care what goes through it's servers making them havens for illegal activity

There's already a couple of Firefox add-ons that get around the proposed law.

While this is going on in the US, the next time Australia has trade talks with the USA, this sort of legislation may be raised and Australia "encouraged" to implement it's own version. The alarming thing about this new law is sites that have been ACCUSED of copyright infringement can be shut down. That's right - accused, not proven. The music/movie industry have been seeking the power to be the police, judge and executioner for years. They've called for levies (payable to them) on audio cassettes, then it was blank CDs. Then they tried making examples of average people with large lawsuits that are grossly out of whack with the "damages" they caused.

krzysiek · 25-12-2011, 02:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pauljh74

There's already a couple of Firefox add-ons that get around the proposed law.

While this is going on in the US, the next time Australia has trade talks with the USA, this sort of legislation may be raised and Australia "encouraged" to implement it's own version. The alarming thing about this new law is sites that have been ACCUSED of copyright infringement can be shut down. That's right - accused, not proven. The music/movie industry have been seeking the power to be the police, judge and executioner for years. They've called for levies (payable to them) on audio cassettes, then it was blank CDs. Then they tried making examples of average people with large lawsuits that are grossly out of whack with the "damages" they caused.

Spot on mate.

Plus, someone above said that if they take down the site - the people will just take their site and move it else where. However, that might be a little hard.

From my knowledge, when they take down a website - it isn't just the hosting. They remove the DNS information & domain name completely. That is, you will no longer own the 're-possessed' domain name. I have not confirmed this, but I am quite sure this is how it works. If true, it makes the idea of 'moving to non-US hosting' impossible, as you wouldn't even own the domain apparently.

In either case, it's not something we want to happen. It should not be like that. I am not supporting piracy or stealing - but the video above has opened my eyes in terms of how piracy really came about, and how it became so popular.

It is just so wrong of these companies to encourage people to steal, then to SUE them for it & then later (now) try to control the internet on the basis of piracy, when they're the ones who have pretty much started the whole thing themselves.

FGII-XR6 · 25-12-2011, 08:15 AM

so you transfer your domain name registry off shore too. anyone who thinks they can control the internet is delusional it's called the world wide web for a reason.
the US can only control what happens in the US all that will happen is web hosting and domain registries in the US will go broke due to loss of market share

**cs123** · 25-12-2011, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by au3xr6

so you transfer your domain name registry off shore too. anyone who thinks they can control the internet is delusional it's called the world wide web for a reason.
the US can only control what happens in the US all that will happen is web hosting and domain registries in the US will go broke due to loss of market share

The US owns the root servers. They own the lot. The US govt will extend this to other countries by twisting the arms of other countries.

They also plan to interrupt the finances of "offending" websites though financial controls such as banning paypal, visa payments. Think about what they did to wikileaks to get an idea of what sort of powers they will have.

SOPA is pretty much condemned by the tech industry including companies that have nothing to do with copyrighted material.

charles_wif_xf · 25-12-2011, 10:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cs123

The US owns the root servers. They own the lot. The US govt will extend this to other countries by twisting the arms of other countries.

They also plan to interrupt the finances of "offending" websites though financial controls such as banning paypal, visa payments. Think about what they did to wikileaks to get an idea of what sort of powers they will have.

SOPA is pretty much condemned by the tech industry including companies that have nothing to do with copyrighted material.

You raise a very good point cs123. Most of the core infrastructure of the internet does reside in the continental US. Should SOPA become "law" (there is a reason I have put law in quotation marks), GovCo essentially has the ability to cripple the internet in a single motion.

flappist · 25-12-2011, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cs123

The US owns the root servers. They own the lot. The US govt will extend this to other countries by twisting the arms of other countries.

They also plan to interrupt the finances of "offending" websites though financial controls such as banning paypal, visa payments. Think about what they did to wikileaks to get an idea of what sort of powers they will have.

SOPA is pretty much condemned by the tech industry including companies that have nothing to do with copyrighted material.

Well the root servers only have any influence of systems that use the root servers.

It is not difficult to set up your own and there are already many, many networks running across the internet that do not care about "." name resolution.

Paypal runs out of Switzerland and they are the ones who control the money not the yanks.

USA has a long history of going off at a tangent doing silly things only to back flip a few years later when they wake up to themselves.

e.g.
Prohibition
McCarthyism
Support for Hitler (Time magazine man of the year)
Support for bin laden/taliban (Sen. Charlie Wilson & CIA started the whole mess off back during the cold war).

Just to name a few recent examples.

The most ironic fact about all this copyright pontification is that the reason why Hollywood is the movie capitol of the world is that California did not enforce patent laws so the emerging film companies most of which are now multi national could get away without paying royalties to Thomas Edison for use of his moving picture and sound recorrding technologies.
Hollywood is the birthplace of media piracy.......

Remember Yanks banned internet gambling OUTRIGHT in 2008 as it interfered with their casino profits. Last time I looked Centrebet was still running.

**cs123** · 25-12-2011, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by charles_wif_xf

Most of the core infrastructure of the internet does reside in the continental US

It gets worse though. SOPA will probably also outlaw circumvention software like FF add ons and TOR. Ironically TOR was created by the US so Chinese citizens could bypass the China firewall.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57...target-on-tor/

krzysiek · 25-12-2011, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

Well the root servers only have any influence of systems that use the root servers.

It is not difficult to set up your own and there are already many, many networks running across the internet that do not care about "." name resolution.

Paypal runs out of Switzerland and they are the ones who control the money not the yanks.

I do think all the points you raised here are very good. However, I want to make clear just how ridiculous this law might be (as I think you may have overlooked this one point).

You know how you said PayPal runs out of Switzerland and they control the money not the US, well in the case of WikiLeaks - they were actually stopped from taking donations or working with WikiLeaks at all.

Further, I believe VISA/MasterCard also stopped processing payments for them.

Kind of scary, if you ask me - that technically, you'd be able to stop those types of things. They also took off the WikiLeaks website itself, from memory.

Finally, you make a good point about the root servers only making an influence on those who use the root servers. Valid point completely. But, as a general internet user myself - I am definitely using a lot of US based websites.

It's not like AFF is going to be taken down, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't raise eyebrows. If you've ever read blogs, online new sites, any type of 'freedom' or 'conspiracy' websites etc - you can expect a fair bit of those (statistically) to be US based, and they could all be affected.

It would be good if a lot of the underlying infrastructure wasn't in the US, then we wouldn't really need to worry about a law like this. I'd be alarmed though, that if it passes in the US then other countries will soon follow (and not necessarily voluntarily).

xisled · 25-12-2011, 12:37 PM

Basically it is already happening in AUS, but here in AUS it is going to be a bit different.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...127-1o1hc.html

ltd_on20s · 25-12-2011, 12:58 PM

how many politicians have come out in fully attacking the government and conroy for the web filter and blacklist?

how many were willing to put their careers on the line by saying that this reeks of the very thing we complain other countries do and actually putting some of their obscene perks towards fighting it?

interesting to note, no one will know what websites have been blocked, or for what reason.