SOPA

[Erik Franzén]

Direct translation of SOPA to Swedish means "Garbage"

Yeah, imagine the shit storm that would come if they tried to pass that bit of legislation over here ;-)

 

[Erik Franzén]

The internet, like space, shouldn't be allowed to be governed or controlled by any singular nation or be claimed as 'sovereign'. SOPA essentially says "hey, let's take over the internet because, you know, freedom and all that isn't all it's cranked up to be."

Sure, we have Chinese censorship and so on but really -- this is the west. I thought we were supposed to play role model for other nations, if not much then just a bit? Are we really at the point were we're regressing towards a totalitarian state?

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea needs to think again. I don't like half of the garbage the internet spouts out, but introducing censorship like this is wrong on so many levels.

 

[Paul Russell]

really, SOPA is like trying to play Whack a Mole. It'll never get anywhere in the real world.

 

[Stephen Gentle]

It's such a stupid piece of legislation. I'm all for some copyright protection (although the US's length of something like 95 years after publication is ridiculous - works should go into public domain after more like 25 to 40 years...), but there is literally no effective way that you can combat people copying data. That's simply the case and the big content producers that have spent millions of dollars in lobbying to get this bill written need to get that into their heads.

You take away a site that's distributing material's domain, and they get a new one in hours. You block their site by DNS and they move to a different server within a day. You block their paypal or cut their online advertising and they get a new account. You put DRM on files, and it will be cracked (I'm serious about this - the only un-crackable DRM is one that doesn't actually let you view the content. Otherwise it's just a matter of time, and technology advancements just make it easier as time goes on).

People who are making pirate DVDs can be taken down, but I think there's never going to be a way to stop peer to peer sharing. And bringing in laws like SOPA that have so many places for abuse, and censoring the internet is not the answer.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

the very companies who are in support of soap and have spent millions in lobbying for this bill are the very companies who distributed the tools used for pirating such as Vuze, Lime Wire, kazaa.. so on..

example.. CNET, download.com .. owned by CBS/Viacom which had the exclusive download rights to the fore mentioned Bit Torrent/ P2P share programs..

this very company distributed the tools.. then came after the users and sued them, and are now lobbying for this bill to pass which undoubtedly will give these mainstream media corporations, who are owned by a very small few bunch of people highly involved in the political arena, control of the internet..

your propaganda.. I'm sorry.. "News" will be dished out soley by these means and most likely your alternative media sites with REAL investigative journalist will be shut down..

this forum might even be shut down just because we have a trailer for the hobbit on here.. or if someone used copyright music in their video and wants to show off the video BAM! shut down for copywrite infringement,
post a video on a forum of your wedding reception, and a song from WHAM! is playing in the background.. BOOM! shut down