American Censorship Day

[diligentcircle]

How many others have heard of the "American Censorship Day" event that happened yesterday?


http://americancensorship.org/


It's about a bill, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (related to the "Protect IP Act"), which had hearings yesterday and, if passed, would essentially allow the U.S. government to block any website that allegedly has material infringing copyright, removing the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. The main problem with this is for sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, which rely on a safe harbor status. With this act, sites like these would be forced to severely tighten control over their websites (i.e. make absolutely sure that no potentially infringing material can ever possibly be posted), which would be needlessly expensive and/or less attractive to users, or risk being blocked by the U.S. government, which would severely cripple them (considering that a huge amount of potential users are going to be in the U.S.).


I fear another potential impact, if this bill gets passed, is that it would make it more likely for other countries to follow suit and start their own internet censorship laws. I also fear as an American citizen that internet censorship could easily extend to things outside of IP infringement. Like por-- uh, portals.


A giant chunk (majority?) of users here are in Europe if I'm not mistaken, but I was curious as to how many people here have heard of this event and/or SOPA, and what your thoughts are.

 

[DaMummy]

this doesnt stand a chance of seeing the light of day, this is the one thing america can fight sitting down

 

[WizardStan]

(considering that a huge amount of potential users are going to be in the U.S.).

The USA is the second largest consumer of the internet in the world, but even so it is barely 10% of the total. If Google decided that it could no longer serve youtube to the USA because of stupid laws they could conceivably simply pull out of the US entirely and move to another country to continue supplying the rest of the world. It would suck (especially for the Americans) but it wouldn't destroy Google or anything like that. In fact, a piece of me is kind of hoping that this does pass and that companies like Facebook, Google, etc... do simply pull out of the US, just so everyone can point to the people that voted for it and go "this is what happens when you make decisions on things you don't understand".


You can tell a child a million times not to touch the stove because it's hot, but until they actually do put their hands on that element they don't fully understand that their actions have consequences. Your government is currently being run by a bunch of children and they won't learn until they've burned themselves at least once.

 

[diligentcircle]

Your government is currently being run by a bunch of children

Very true, unfortunately...

 

[Mr Rob]

For some reason, I've always seen this legislation aimed more toward government control of the internet as a whole. It's viewed as a "Piracy is bad, let's stop Piracy guys!" bill which is why the MPAA and friends are funneling so much money into the law, but the government would be more interested in it as it can be twisted to block things like Wikileaks.


On a different note, I'm always amazed at the alliance opposed to it. Seeing Google and Mozilla and 4chan on the same list makes me chuckle.

 

[diligentcircle]

For some reason, I've always seen this legislation aimed more toward government control of the internet as a whole. It's viewed as a "Piracy is bad, let's stop Piracy guys!" bill which is why the MPAA and friends are funneling so much money into the law, but the government would be more interested in it as it can be twisted to block things like Wikileaks.

Yeah, I tend to agree with that. I'm also very sure it won't stop piracy.

 

[Blue Protoman]

No, it'll just screw over legitimate users instead. I signed this last night.

 

[TitanUranus]

Why do people who believe in democracy keep voting for arseholes? Personally, I believe most people don't know the first thing about politics, the governing of countries or financial implications and shouldn't have the vote. Imagine if we had a majority vote of non specialists about what medical treatment was appropriate and ignored the trained medics for example?


Overthrow your shitty government and install me as your benign dictator. I'd be less destructive and much fairer than any democratic government ever elected.

 

[Mr Rob]

Because money talks. All the good people either don't have the financial resources for political office, or refuse to sell their soul to companies to get the required money needed to run.


Go out and buy a public image for yourself through campaigns, advertisements and 'independent' groups and you can get an office.


The other problem is people don't want to hear the truth. Guess what, no one can fix an economy in six months. Most economic initiatives take years and years before they have any concrete effect on the economy as a whole. But people hear garbage like Michelle Bachmann saying she'll fix the economy in six months, and people buy it. I don't know why, but they do.


Something has to give eventually. It'll be interesting to see if the nation makes any progress in 50 years.

 

[Phelsumania]

Why do people who believe in democracy keep voting for arseholes? Personally, I believe most people don't know the first thing about politics, the governing of countries or financial implications and shouldn't have the vote.

I completely agree with this and has always been my argument for when i get asked who you voting for during elections. And then when i say am not voting you always get those people whome think its a cardinal sin not to vote, and just vote for the sake of it when in reality know jack. If everyone stayed out of it except the people whome follow politics and know what there on about inevitably the best candidate for the job sould get elected.

 

[WizardStan]

If you don't vote you have no argument of complaint when things don't turn out the way you think they should. If you want things to be better it is your duty to make yourself informed of the politics going on. You're absolutely right, people who don't understand politics shouldn't vote, but that is not a sign that fewer people should vote, it means that more people need to be made to understand politics and what their vote actually means.

 

[vcoleiro1]

I think they need to address some of the copyright laws, because at the moment its very difficult to post a video on youtube without technically violating copyright.


For example: If you have a song playing on the radio in the background when you shoot a video, technically by putting that vid on youtube your breaking copyright by broadcasting copyright material ie the background music that was playing on your radio.


For me, If I make a model of an arcade machine in miniature, I am breaking the copyright on the artwork.


I think there time would be better spent concentrating on clearly outlining fair use for copyright material.

 

[diligentcircle]

Overthrow your shitty government and install me as your benign dictator. I'd be less destructive and much fairer than any democratic government ever elected.

Unfortunately, history shows that doesn't work. Even if the dictator is amazing at first, once he dies, some later dictator will be terrible.

I think they need to address some of the copyright laws, because at the moment its very difficult to post a video on youtube without technically violating copyright.

No kidding! And SOPA and related bills would just make it even worse.

 

[Stradian]

Just more motivation to get dual citizenship status...

 

[T.T.]

Your government is currently being run by a bunch of children and they won't learn until they've burned themselves at least once.

they have been burned multiple times, they just don't learn from it.


also we have idiot citizens who keep voting the politicians back in.


government is an evil necessity.

 

[Blue Protoman]

My AP Comparative Government and Politics teacher refused to sign this. <_<

 

[mcobit]

Some thing like this was suggested in germany last year.


But there it was child pornography why they wanted to block sites.


But it didn't went through because the government saw, that taking down the servers and not blocking the dnsentrys is a much better and safer practice.


Also there was talk about that every website should have some code, like a usk rating.


That would bring the same problems you have because of usercreated content.


But that was ditched,too apparently.

 

[elinscheid]

I just signed! Thank you for posting

 

[Mr Rob]

And don't forget to check with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org) for all the latest news.


Personally, I think the EFF is one of the most under-rated organizations out there; it's amazing what they do.

 

[WizardStan]

The internet censorship they are proposing is just like DRM. It's designed to make the actions of one group impossible with the unfortunate side effect of imposing on another group slightly. Unfortunately, like DRM, whatever measures they put in place will be circumvented leaving only the normally law abiding citizens without their access. When you try to restrict the freedoms of the whole in a noble attempt to bring the few to justice the only people that will be hurt are those who abide by the law.


There's a saying "if you outlaw guns then only outlaws will have guns". It's frequently incorrectly applied, making the assumption that only the "bad guys" will have guns and that normal law abiding citizens need these guns with which to protect themselves among other false implications, but it does somewhat apply in this case. To draw a slightly different line, in an attempt to curb obesity and help cookie addicts, cookies are banned: "if cookies are outlawed, only outlaws will have cookies". If a cookie-addict is wanting cookies, they will find a way no matter what the law says, and thus the only people truly affected by the anti-cookie bill are the common people who ate cookies in moderation and didn't really consider cookies as part of their regular diet, but now they have no access to cookies at all. Thus, the cake industry soars while the cookie industry goes underground.