Is SOPA bad?

aaajn

Silver Member
Hello Drummers and friends,

I wish I were smarter but I don't understand SOPA and the net piracy act. I suspect musicians would have a stake in this, from what I understand, Media, music and movies, that kind of thing stand to gain from SOPA, but if big business is pushing it, I am suspect.

Wikipedia went down, a few other big sites that I use. I would appreciate your thoughts. Right now, it sounds like a bad idea to me. Being 51 years old, the net was a new addition to my psyche, I remember a time when it didn't exist.

So your thoughts please. Thanks.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/index.htm
 
For the people supporting SOPA/PIPA. Enjoy your internet censorship!
It won't do anything with the pirates, but it will harm the actual consumers and users of let's say youtube, wikipedia, facebook(and other social networks) and so on.
It's been written by politicians that have no clue on how the internet works.
 
I think one of the great controversies is that so many people don't understand it, or haven't been given a chance to understand it, which obviously makes it difficult to voice concerns over it.
It appears to be a an ambiguous piece of legislation which gives the US government fairly widespread power to strangle business being conducted with parties who are involved in internet piracy. I'm not sure what burden of proof is required concerning whether a site falls foul of the law, or to what extent it can be used against individuals as a tool of censorship, ie wiki-leaks. It's certainly the first major attempt at government control over the internet.

If it helps stop music piracy and puts money back in the pocket of musicians then great, but somehow I can't see that happening.
 
It's worse than bad. For a country that claims freedom is a goal this is pretty Orwellian. Imagine you own a drum site and people want to upload videos of things they find to get help understanding the lick. (Educational purpose and fair use for courts). Now what they didn't know is they uploaded something the RIAA owns the copyright of and they suspect they're losing profit by your supposed fair use. Rather than requesting that users post getting pulled, your DNS (entire website) is automatically routed to a black hole. All of this is done at the request of the content owner, no need to get it court-approved before blocking, or realistically give the drum website owner a chance to pull it first.

The problem is the ambiguity in the writing. Once people start blocking the DNS the drum website owner can offer their own DNS router that will continue to work. It is just shy of telling everyone a centralized internet is on the way out.

By enforcing loose copyright protection at a protocol and centralized backbone it's a serious botch of someone who doesn't know what they're really dealing with.

Obligatory car analogy: Ford decides used cars are cutting into their profits and pass a bill than a used car on the road infringes and should be shut down by an automated tire trap. As cars pass by they don't bother to tell the driver, and don't really care if it's a Ford or not. People begin building private roads where Ford has no jurisdiction.
 
Since we haven't read the bill, who knows. And we all know, that follow American politics, that what is written is not always what's inacted or enforced. So we all hold our breath.
 
It's worse than bad. For a country that claims freedom is a goal this is pretty Orwellian. Imagine you own a drum site and people want to upload videos of things they find to get help understanding the lick. (Educational purpose and fair use for courts). Now what they didn't know is they uploaded something the RIAA owns the copyright of and they suspect they're losing profit by your supposed fair use. Rather than requesting that users post getting pulled, your DNS (entire website) is automatically routed to a black hole. All of this is done at the request of the content owner, no need to get it court-approved before blocking, or realistically give the drum website owner a chance to pull it first.

The problem is the ambiguity in the writing. Once people start blocking the DNS the drum website owner can offer their own DNS router that will continue to work. It is just shy of telling everyone a centralized internet is on the way out.

By enforcing loose copyright protection at a protocol and centralized backbone it's a serious botch of someone who doesn't know what they're really dealing with.

Obligatory car analogy: Ford decides used cars are cutting into their profits and pass a bill than a used car on the road infringes and should be shut down by an automated tire trap. As cars pass by they don't bother to tell the driver, and don't really care if it's a Ford or not. People begin building private roads where Ford has no jurisdiction.


AFAIK, they dropped the DNS part already.

The scary part, from what I can tell, is that it makes site owners responsible for links to content that may infringe. You think Bernhard has the time or resources to review every post and remove links?
 
Yes. It's rubbish. Like trying to "ban" anything, the criminals will always find a way round it and the only people it will affect are people who are not criminals, such as small businesses who have free wifi in order to attract customers. Personally I don't think there are a lot of things that should be banned as far from stopping criminal activity, most bans play straight into their hands...
 
SOPA is evil.
even if SOPA passes i'll give away all my downloads for free.
already know people with servers hooked up in eastern europe so my stuff will be OK.

sometimes you have to take a stand against something, because it's that important.
 
Last edited:
SOPA is fucking evil.
even if SOPA passes i'll give away all my downloads for free.
already know people with servers hooked up in eastern europe so my stuff will be OK.

sometimes you have to take a stand against something, because it's that important.

I might move away from the UK sometime soon if this sort of thing carries on. I feel as if we are just America's bitch sometimes.
 
I might move away from the UK sometime soon if this sort of thing carries on. I feel as if we are just America's bitch sometimes.

I moved to london not long ago, but I'm already preparing to move to berlin and then onwards from there to switzerland if necessary.
todays generation deserve my music for free out of respect for all the stuff I "stole" when I was a kid. don't want to be a hypocrite, not my style.
companies, well they can and will pay a premium.
 
sopa.gif
 
It is strictly our government feeling the need to regulate everything we do. I have written my congressman, How about you?
 
I hate to ask this question but here it goes...why does this matter? There was life before all of this technology. Actully, I got a lot more sleep before it!

Maybe since the majority of my life has been spent without the relatively new phenomenon called the internet, I'm not too considered. There was a time when we wrote letters, made phone calls, got married, gigged, and had social lives before the WWW. It wouldn't be the end of my world if the whole friggin' thing completely went dark for good tomorrow.
That being said...I would in-fact miss our beloved Drummerworld.
 
It's been written by politicians that have no clue on how the internet works.

I think they know what the internet is like, it is great anarchical computer construction that is great for bringing people together through ease of communication...

...now in the minds of these law makers we surely we cannot have that.

Leave the internet alone.

Freedom of communication is surely more important than any regulation to "protect intellectual property".
 
Back
Top