The censors are coming: SOPA and Protect IP

[W. Rabbit]

Maybe the best route for all is to read the bill and send SUGGESTIONS to your representative, daddykata.

That is how a representative democracy is supposed to work.

If you want to Just Say No to everything, the Republicans need fresh blood.


:problem:

[It is Fake]

Thanks, another example of the failure I'm talking about. I'd rather say no to everything than deal with a clustefuck like the war on drugs that America lost.

Who ended up getting hurt by the Drug Kingpin laws? Low level people and regular citizens.

[Diesel_tke]

The thing I don't like first of all is that they can shut down a site, and then you have to fight to have it put back up. How is that innocent until proven guilty?

Another thing is that this may have good intentions to be used to stop companies from selling fake viagra(or whatever), but it will inevitally make it tougher on smaller sites and companies.

I personally don't like the fact that the government thinks that it has to regulate everything. That we can't make decisions for our selves. People sometimes need to face the consequences of our actions and don't need the government to protect us from ourselves.

Also, I like the one year thing. After one year we will:

shall conduct a study and report to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives

Yeah, that will take what, about 5 years?

[W. Rabbit]

Regulation, no, this is a criminal problem that is already costing the American economy quite a lot.

Funny, but there is nothing in this law about regulating speech or YOUR content whatsoever, but specifically allows the DOJ authorities if they believe you are violating the law involving OTHER people's content.

Wait...the DOJ believes you are violating the law? Then you have much bigger problems than Protect IP and SOPA, my friend.

I still don't see the point of crying fire about censorship, the purpose of this law is to go after criminals overseas by allowing action against them domestically, something that can already be done to some extent.

In the absence of laws like this it is very difficult to protect American consumers from overseas threats online, and they are legion.

[Bneterasedmynam]

Well first, while I won't argue against the potentials for abuse, I don't see many avenues for abuse in this law because the scope is very narrow...overseas sites devoted to counterfeiting. I'd be blown away if this law was ever used to censor any kind of popular, public site. But you never know...still, we need the laws. There is just so much lawlessness here already.

Second, I think in this case Protect IP and SOPA are important pieces of legislation because the targets of the law are not Bullshido (not sure where daddykata got that), but a billion+ dollar international black market of counterfeit goods.

The law authorizes DOJ action against non-US sites and is designed to allow a sort of virtual expansion of DOJ authority on the internet by giving them legal authority to force carriers, for example, to blacklist certain sites. IF this law is a burden on anyone, it would be on the ISPs and big sites like Facebook who would be forced to comply with the law on an ongoing, operational basis. That will be costly for sure.

So daddykata why don't you answer my original question, I would love to hear why YOU are so concerned about Bullshido being identified as a trader in fake viagra and utilizing hacker services to hijack freemail and Facebook accounts in order to spambomb clueless victims into visiting their fake viagra websites run out of China and Russia?

I would like to know how you think the DOJ could possibly enforce this law on any site hosted out of Russia or China. What are they going to do send in Seal Team 6 to shoot their servers?? Seriously can you see China or Russia saying anything other than **** you to he DOJ on this?? The only people this law helps are the giant media corps by giving them the power to iron fist any Internet site they dislike.

[W. Rabbit]

I would like to know how you think the DOJ could possibly enforce this law on any site hosted out of Russia or China. What are they going to do send in Seal Team 6 to shoot their servers?? Seriously can you see China or Russia saying anything other than **** you to he DOJ on this?? The only people this law helps are the giant media corps by giving them the power to iron fist any Internet site they dislike.

I don't think you read the law or understand what I meant, or what the DOJ can actually do under this law.

You need to step back, consider how internet peering works, and in that context what power the DOJ would have under this legislation over domestic providers and how that would limit your access to overseas content from Illinois.

Considering the amount of overseas internet content that poses both direct and indirect threats to you and the US economy, personally I think you might just reconsider if you are smart.

[Bneterasedmynam]

Regulation, no, this is a criminal problem that is already costing the American economy quite a lot.

Funny, but there is nothing in this law about regulating speech or YOUR content whatsoever, but specifically allows the DOJ authorities if they believe you are violating the law involving OTHER people's content.

Wait...the DOJ believes you are violating the law? Then you have much bigger problems than Protect IP and SOPA, my friend.

I still don't see the point of crying fire about censorship, the purpose of this law is to go after criminals overseas by allowing action against them domestically, something that can already be done to some extent.

In the absence of laws like this it is very difficult to protect American consumers from overseas threats online, and they are legion.

It's a criminal problem because everything in this country is criminal due to over trademarking. Hell just watch any show on tv, they have to blur out shirts people are wearing just because they are trademarked. Should pirating a movie be illegal, yes it should, however aresting someone because they made a YouTube vid that a fucking t-shirt in it because of a trademark is bullshit. Every fucking word, color, and symbol is trademarked now. How much money is enough for them?? What we should have to pay just to say words now??

[Diesel_tke]

So if you think I'm doing something wrong, come to me, ask me to justify my actions. Then if I can't, take down my site. Don't just take down my site, and then make me have to jump through beurocratic red tape to get it back up. In the mean time I lose money and have to spend more money to fight about it.

[Bneterasedmynam]

I don't think you read the law or understand what I meant, or what the DOJ can actually do under this law.

You need to step back, consider how internet peering works, and in that context what power the DOJ would have under this legislation over domestic providers and how that would limit your access to overseas content from Illinois.

Considering the amount of overseas internet content that poses both direct and indirect threats to you and the US economy, personally I think you might just reconsider if you are smart.

I'm smart enough to avoid sites that pose a threat to me, if others here in Illinois are not then that's their problem. We don't need an Internet nanny to censor us from the world. They do that kind of **** in China.

[submessenger]

The target here is generally foreign servers - the US Government cannot go after foreign servers directly, so these bills were written to give them a way to go after foreign servers by granting immunity to US servers and services who "play along," with their little blacklist. IiF said it right, that is just plain coercion, and it's not the offshore piracy sites that would be getting shut down - it's the US sites that link to the foreign piracy sites that would be getting shut down. The action taken will be taken against Americans.

Now, the mods and staff of Bullshido do a fantastic job of policing the site content based on Bullshido's (and google's) policies. Those policies are by choice of the parties involved.

SOPA and Protect IP introduce a content policy that is not by choice of the parties involved, it is by coercion. The scope of what constitutes infringing content is not defined in any way that could be considered narrow enough to not have a chilling effect on free speech. Essentially, this leaves it up the the Department of Justice to choose which content is infringing and which is not. If you don't understand how that is censorship, then I cannot help you.