SOPA Protest

[TalonNYC]

What, it's the truth. The distributers of Avatar can have the site blocked because of copyright infringement.

[SleepingUgly]

Is this true??

Well, if it passes, someone send me a PM reminding me to change my avatar. That would make me sad, though, because I really like my avatar... Also, I personally have a tough time keeping track of the folks here who change their avatar frequently (and no offense, but the cat-avatar-people and the dog-avatar-people run together in my mind). I might forget who I am (even more than I already have...) <single tear slides down cheek>

[TalonNYC]

It's unlikely they would actually get the site blocked, because we're not really on their radar, but they COULD based on the language of the bill. ResMed and Philips could also shut down the site if someone posts links to clinician guides, etc.

I want a solid anti-piracy law, but this ain't it.

[xyz]

johnnygoodman wrote:
> Is anyone else tracking SOPA and really worried?

Couldn't the official "moderator" of this forum have put an "OT" in front of his post?

What's he worried about? Is cpap.com is going to play a copyrighted Roy Orbison song while we browse their webpages? (e.g., Dream Baby, Dream, In Dreams)

To answer his question, yes I'm "really worried". I'm worried that the music industry as we've known it is going to be destroyed by people continuing to steal music off the internet.

Young people, for years now, have grown up with a sense of entitlement to steal all the music they want. That's a fact, not a rumor or belief. They hardly ever buy music. They steal it. From websites that make it available.

If you don't know many young people, and don't knonw what they're doing these days, you don't have an informed opinion. Or possibly you, also, believe in stealing content from the internet.

Say that for some reason cpap.com could not lock their doors when they go home at night. So some people came by and stole products from them. Would cpap.com have a problem with this?

Instead of just saying "no", say how you would halt the theft of music (etc) on the internet.

I'm not saying that this bill is perfect. It clearly needs further refinement. But the overall intent, to deter theft of peoples' work, is correct. Those who "just say no" are not part of the solution.

[SleepingUgly]

Young people, for years now, have grown up with a sense of entitlement to steal all the music they want. That's a fact, not a rumor or belief. They hardly ever buy music. They steal it. From websites that make it available.

I didn't know one could still steal music off the internet (since Napster shut down, anyway). Could you post a link to such an existing website?

If you don't know many young people, and don't knonw what they're doing these days, you don't have an informed opinion. Or possibly you, also, believe in stealing content from the internet.

Is this a trick question?

[Paul56]

Couldn't the official "moderator" of this forum have put an "OT" in front of his post?

We are all human... I'm not going to berate anyone for that. Lighten up.

If you don't know many young people, and don't knonw what they're doing these days, you don't have an informed opinion. Or possibly you, also, believe in stealing content from the internet.

Sure, blame the young folks. Don't blame them... blame those doing the offering.

I'm not saying that this bill is perfect. It clearly needs further refinement. But the overall intent, to deter theft of peoples' work, is correct. Those who "just say no" are not part of the solution.

Saying yes to a flawed solution may cause more trouble than exists now.

[TalonNYC]

johnnygoodman wrote:

What's he worried about? Is cpap.com is going to play a copyrighted Roy Orbison song while we browse their webpages?

While I agree it should be OT, SOPA and PIPA would allow ResMed and Phillips to have this site blocked because we openly share clinician information about their machines. So, unfortunately, if you're saying it's just about music piracy, you are part of the problem too.

The bill is too broadly worded, and will endanger our ability to exchange information about our therapy and devices. I will "just say no" until such time as our government creates a real anti-piracy bill that doesn't trample on the first Amendment.

[chunkyfrog]

The law could also block all open source software, and negatve comments about products, companies, and politicians.
This is where freedom dies.

[TalonNYC]

Actually, open source is safe. However, distributers of open source could get knocked offline if a corporation accuses them of using closed-source code.

[Paul56]

Some news...

http://www.informationweek.com/news/gov ... /232400473

[TalonNYC]

Stalling, but not dead, and there's still PIPA to worry about.

[Goofproof]

Stalling, but not dead, and there's still PIPA to worry about.

Nothing dies as long as some can profit from controlling the masses. Jim

I don't Pirate, I just download 1's and 0's, in a special order and recombine them to meet my needs.

[jnk]

Any news about what could shut down this site one day is as ON topic a post/thread as a post/thread could possibly be, in my opinion. Especially from the owner of the site.

As far as music, who needs to steal music anymore now that we have Grooveshark?

[TalonNYC]

There are two mass protests, one is all day tomorrow (Wikipedia, Google, my own sites, many others) - the other is Jan 24th, the day SOPA is up for a vote. Who's participating in the Jan 24 one is unconfirmed.

[archangle]

johnnygoodman wrote:
> Is anyone else tracking SOPA and really worried?

Couldn't the official "moderator" of this forum have put an "OT" in front of his post?

What's he worried about? Is cpap.com is going to play a copyrighted Roy Orbison song while we browse their webpages? (e.g., Dream Baby, Dream, In Dreams)

To answer his question, yes I'm "really worried". I'm worried that the music industry as we've known it is going to be destroyed by people continuing to steal music off the internet.

Young people, for years now, have grown up with a sense of entitlement to steal all the music they want. That's a fact, not a rumor or belief. They hardly ever buy music. They steal it. From websites that make it available.

If you don't know many young people, and don't knonw what they're doing these days, you don't have an informed opinion. Or possibly you, also, believe in stealing content from the internet.

Say that for some reason cpap.com could not lock their doors when they go home at night. So some people came by and stole products from them. Would cpap.com have a problem with this?

Instead of just saying "no", say how you would halt the theft of music (etc) on the internet.

I'm not saying that this bill is perfect. It clearly needs further refinement. But the overall intent, to deter theft of peoples' work, is correct. Those who "just say no" are not part of the solution.

If SOPA or PIPA passes, it will not slow down music or video piracy one "bit." OK, maybe just a little. The pirates will figure out how to work around this stuff. They've always done so before.

You simply haven't been paying attention. Under SOPA or PIPA, a company can shut down another website with no proof whatsoever. If your web site gets shut down, it's up to you to prove your innocence. Guilty until proven innocent. No proof to any government agency is needed.

Big companies can use this to shut down websites they don't like and never have to prove a darn thing. For instance, if someone here mentioned that you can reprogram your own CPAP machine, even if they didn't provide any information about how, a company could claim that this site is promoting piracy of their copyrighted manuals.

The feds are already doing this to websites, many of which do NOT actually do any piracy.

Maybe the site could win in a court battle, but it would take time and money to do so.

If you were on some local restaurant review web site and complained that Sam and Ella's Restaurant's $11.95 RootemTootem burger was garbage, they could claim copyright infringement and shut down the web site.

Politicians could shut down sites if they quote things they said.

If someone here posted how to make Windows 7 run that Windows XP device driver you need despite the code Win7 has to lock it out, the site could be shut down, and criminal charges could even be filed.

The law is so poorly written, and the protections for the accused are so bad that a big company could shut down almost any small web site and would be unlikely to suffer any repercussions of doing so.

All with no due process. All with no recourse other than to sue.

This law is like saying that because some people are using drugs, the police should no longer have to have search warrants, and the accused should not have the right to a jury trial, and you no longer have to prove your case "beyond a reasonable doubt."