Thread "SOPA, copyright, censorship...?" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 8:01AM, Jan. 22, 2012

Heya.
Aything more to say on this?
SOPA appears to have been killed now, but they'll rework it for another try.

I think most people agree that piracy is wrong but the measures enacted to combat it were crude, overly broad and quite dangerous to the legitimate uses of the web.

A great example of the difficulties with the approach is the recent take down of Megaupload, a massive file sharing service. This site was taken down and the founders arrested using currently existing legal powers, without the need for a special new bill.
But while Megaupload was used by many people to host copyrighted material and stream copyrighted films it was also an entirely legitimate file sharing service that people used to upload project files they were working on, store images, file backups etc. Paying extra to access and host more.
Thanks to the US government action against this site many of these people have lost important work as well as the money they paid in good faith for that hosting service.

And can the founders of the site really be held responsible for the actions of users? It's almost like punishing Colt because their guns were used in murders or robberies.
They did provide the means for copyright holders to search for their material on the site and they did take movies and files down when they had a complaint. WHat else could they do?

If they had personally scrutinised every file on their sites, it would not have been workable. WE here at Drunk Duck have this problem to a much, much smaller degree, but even in our teeny, insignificant little case there is no way known they we could scrutinise every page of every comic as it was added to the site, and then check that out and try and investigate and follow up each case. That's beyond insane. To do that sort of work any hosting site of any reasonable size would need a dedicated staff of hundreds, if not thousands.
No one can really afford that.

Is that what the world's largest copyright barons want? I think this is the route of the issue: they do not know what they want, they don't have any idea of the further implications of what they propose or much of an idea of the changes the world has seen and the sort of world they live in now. These are old ways of dealing with new problems.

Posted at 2:01PM, Jan. 22, 2012

To me I think the United States Supreme court said it best during "The BetaMax case" : "a product is not liable for contributory infringement as long as the product is "capable of substantial noninfringing uses". Then it was VTRs now the product in question now is the at risk technologies being questioned possibly even the Internet itself.
While many think our curent laws are too permissive and others say they're too restrictive I think the foreign arrest of MegaUpload.com's staff and seizure of its international assets is proof enough that there arlready ways to run down and prosecute violators whether foreign or domestic.
I don't think the members of the "Creative America" alliance have much to worry about. In 2011 the entertainment inudstry companies were the only ones to enjoy consistent rises in revenue and job growth.

Posted at 3:01PM, Jan. 22, 2012

I guess the new thing thats being thrown around now is ACTA. Though the agreement isn't really new. I'm still looking into what it is, but from what I've seen so far it isn't good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement
It's similar in what SOPA was designed to do, but on a much grander scale. From what I've gathered it wants to limit what we can do online. It also limits the ability for people to come out with cheaper, generic brands of products, as well as a slew of other things.
Additionally, it isn't a legislative thing. Since a trade agreement, it's pretty much been handled out of the public eye has already been signed by quite a few nations.
At any rate, I'm gonna continue to look into it, but im not optimistic about what it is gonna do.

Posted at 10:01PM, Jan. 22, 2012

Wow that's good that that SOPA thing is pretty much over with. I'm glad things are still being solved by what the majority want.