SOPA: Discuss.

[Asmodian]

"I'd include a part about how politicians/the governments have/has no right to introduce laws that take away or restrict the rights of any one person, company, organization, religion, etc."
It is the government’s role to restrict the rights of individuals, persons, etc to insure a smooth functioning of society. Who will define what the rights are, keep in mind that any definition of rights is also a restriction. The rights come in to conflict with one another, and if restrictions to those rights are not determined and enforced you have anarchy, which ultimately results in might makes right. I may believe I have the right to defecate in the middle of the public place and other people may feel they have the right not to be subjected to me doing so; there must be a mechanism that restricts my rights and enforces that restriction. As society and technology evolve rights come in to conflict in new ways, and these need to be addressed so you can not say that the rights have already been determined and no longer need to be restricted further.
"Ominous Gamer
It allows for the blocking of any site. This includes search engines, not that hard to do since Google has come under fire several times for being a search engine for pirates.
Its like America's own little version of The Great Firewall of China "

That does not really address the limitations of such approach, you can not really shut down a website unless it is in your jurisdiction. Now you can block a website from being accessed by residents of your country, I suppose you can influence a search engine to exclude the website from its data but another search engine company that is not subject to US laws will pick up the slack, and quickly become the popular engine for those seeking pirated content. Finally once you did block it you merely inconvenienced the potential pirates for all of 1 day for the website to come back up with the new domain name for the grand cost of 18 dollars. Frankly don't see this achieving anything against big popular pirate websites maybe be effective against small insignificant ones who are not motivated enough to do anything about it and are slowly dying of anyway.

[Draco]

Who will define what the rights are, keep in mind that any definition of rights is also a restriction. The rights come in to conflict with one another, and if restrictions to those rights are not determined and enforced you have anarchy, which ultimately results in might makes right. I may believe I have the right to defecate in the middle of the public place and other people may feel they have the right not to be subjected to me doing so; there must be a mechanism that restricts my rights and enforces that restriction.

Well like I said there's more to it than my simple statement and I don't have the time to sit down and write an essay length post describing it all. And of course there would be laws against such obscene acts as defecating in a public place, which would be a matter of hygiene and property rights.

The only definition of rights that are also a restriction are those that deal with murder, theft and anything else that restricts a person from taking the life/property of another.

[Asmodian]

This legislature that you seem to think wouldn't come about in your scenario falls directly in to property section, in fact you can squeeze pretty much any issue under the property/life umbrella that you seem to think is so restrictive. What about health protection, surely that falls under life or is lethality a prerequisite, basically you can reason any and all restrictions imposed by the government under the rubric of protecting property/rights of some vis. a. vis. others, therefore you can rejoice it is already functioning exactly as you want it to.

[Ominous Gamer]

Guess this is the nuclear option.

http://tampa.craigslist.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.reddit.com/
http://imgur.com/
http://arstechnica.com/
https://www.google.com/


This is kind of impressive

[Lebanese Dragon]

Google's doing a petition against SOPA and PIPA, you sign with your e-mail address. Found here: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Basically says the following:
Tell Congress: Don’t censor the Web

Fighting online piracy is important. The most effective way to shut down
pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding.
There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines
censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to
thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs.

Too much is at stake – please vote NO on PIPA and SOPA.

[Lewkowski]

Bill as written is bad however something should be done to prevent the stealing of copyrighted work.

[Ominous Gamer]

prevent the stealing of copyrighted work.

A good first step would be to understand that copyright infringement is not theft.

[Lewkowski]

A good first step would be to understand that copyright infringement is not theft.

And I disagree. Taking something that doesn't belong to you, weather it be a physical object, an idea or whatever is and always will be viewed by me as theft.

[Steely Glint]

And I disagree. Taking something that doesn't belong to you, weather it be a physical object, an idea or whatever is and always will be viewed by me as theft.

And should therefore be punished in the same way?

[Ominous Gamer]

And I disagree. Taking something that doesn't belong to you, weather it be a physical object, an idea or whatever is and always will be viewed by me as theft.

and here in lies the problem, when people want to make up their own definitions for issues that previously haven't fallen in their favor.

[Illusions]

And I disagree. Taking something that doesn't belong to you, weather it be a physical object, an idea or whatever is and always will be viewed by me as theft.

But they have two completely different outcomes. If someone steals a physical object, they have gained that object, and deprived its owner of the ability to sell it, but they also must now purchase/make another one to replace it. If someone pirates something, they have gained that object, however its owner still has whatever they were going to sell before, and does not have to spend time/money replacing any lost units. The owner of whatever was pirated has also only lost money if the person(s) who have committed piracy could have or would have spent money to purchase whatever was taken. The owner of whatever was stolen has lost money regardless of whether or not the thief could have or would have spent money on what they stole. This is in case you need a reason to answer this:

And should therefore be punished in the same way?

[Lewkowski]

And should therefore be punished in the same way?

I wouldn't be opposed to a lesser punishment for copyright infringement as long as the government is actively punishing it.

[Lewkowski]

But they have two completely different outcomes. If someone steals a physical object, they have gained that object, and deprived its owner of the ability to sell it, but they also must now purchase/make another one to replace it. If someone pirates something, they have gained that object, however its owner still has whatever they were going to sell before, and does not have to spend time/money replacing any lost units. The owner of whatever was pirated has also only lost money if the person(s) who have committed piracy could have or would have spent money to purchase whatever was taken. The owner of whatever was stolen has lost money regardless of whether or not the thief could have or would have spent money on what they stole. This is in case you need a reason to answer this:

So what punishment (if any) do you think the government you should hand out to those who steal ideas, processes, digital books, movies, ect?

[CitizenCain]

So what punishment (if any) do you think the government you should hand out to those who steal ideas

Theft applies only to physical objects, for a reason. Theft is a crime because it deprives the victim of the item stolen, not because it benefits the thief. Using an idea is not "stealing," and copying data is not theft.

And frankly, someone who claims to be a small-government, classic conservative should take issue with the very concept of "copyright" (and patents, etc) because of what "copyright" and patents are at a fundamental level - nothing more than a government imposed monopoly on an idea. So, thanks much, but I'd rather not have the government impose monopolies on the rest of society, for the benefit of its lobbyists. The actual crime here is the fact that government is allowed (and even expected by folks like yourself) to police ideas and arbitrarily dictate who may or may not make use of what ideas.

[Steely Glint]

I wouldn't be opposed to a lesser punishment for copyright infringement as long as the government is actively punishing it.

If downloading a movie is morally the same as walking into a store and making off with the same film on DVD, then why on earth should the punishment be different?

[CitizenCain]

If downloading a movie is morally the same as walking into a store and making off with the same film on DVD, then why on earth should the punishment be different?

Because you can't tell if the shoplifter is black or not when he's "stealing" with BitTorrent downloads.

[agamemnus]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...m_business_pop

Lots of broken links now...

[Hazir]

Neelie Kroes just twittered the following : “Glad tide is turning on #SOPA: don’t need bad legislation when should be safeguarding benefits of open net,” she tweeted. “Speeding is illegal too: but you don’t put speed bumps on the motorway #SOPA,” she added later.

[earthJoker]

And I disagree. Taking something that doesn't belong to you, weather it be a physical object, an idea or whatever is and always will be viewed by me as theft.

You don't take something. It is still where it was. You make a copy of it. That copy might be legal or illegal, but the original thing is still where it was. What is the more severe thing about being robbed, that the other person has the item or that you don't have the item anymore?

Edit: Downloading copyrighted stuff isn't even illegal here.

[Ominous Gamer]

Edit: Downloading copyrighted stuff isn't even illegal here.

Thankfully, there are some governments out there that understand that those that download in this sense spend more than those that don't.

[Hazir]

You don't take something. It is still where it was. You make a copy of it. That copy might be legal or illegal, but the original thing is still where it was. What is the more severe thing about being robbed, that the other person has the item or that you don't have the item anymore?

Edit: Downloading copyrighted stuff isn't even illegal here.

It's still not illegal in Holland either, what IS illegal is offering things someone else holds the copyright of. Which makes sense by the way, because the end-user is never really the one who makes money of a purchase.

[agamemnus]

It's still not illegal in Holland either, what IS illegal is offering things someone else holds the copyright of. Which makes sense by the way, because the end-user is never really the one who makes money of a purchase.

I don't think that makes sense. If someone puts money and/or effort into creating something digital, and if they want people to pay for it, they should be able to get money from it.

However, I don't think the copyright length and scope makes sense in the U.S. I also don't think that large companies should have copyright enforcement being facilitated by the federal government.


I believe that "If you are a content producer and it makes economic sense to sue someone who has been distributing your copyrighted content, you should do so."

The caveat here is that the copyright length and scope make no sense, and the current penalties make no distinction between freeloaders versus competitors or mass distributors. Plus, there's the lobbying. This all warps the "economic sense" part of the equation.

----

An even sadder commentary on the whole affair is that the patent system is even more ridiculous than the copyright system, which is why I think companies have been trying to patent things that they should be trying to copyright (eg: parts of computer programs). The patent system doesn't affect people as visibly as the copyright system, but I think the abuse and potential for abuse there in economic terms is similar.

[Lebanese Dragon]

If downloading a movie is morally the same as walking into a store and making off with the same film on DVD, then why on earth should the punishment be different?

Let's assume they are morally equivalent. The person stealing the physical copy from a store is a greater harm to society in so far, as that they are more bold daring when it comes to their crimes. There is a lot more risk involved in taking an item from a store, and the fact they're willing to undergo that risk, shows greater disregard for the authorities. I would say they are more of a menace (potentially) to society (on average). You can't assume this to be true in every particular case, from commiting the crime itself, it's worse.

On copyrights, I've always had mixed thoughts, but at the end of the day I support a "reasonable" amount of time for something to be copyrighted. This reasonable amount of time will be defined by two conditions firstly to allow enough time to profit off this idea ahead of competition, and secondly for their to be a maximum time alotted regardless the idea. That's the only reason I support copyright, because to not do so, I agree would decrease motivation to be creative. Companies may not invest in all, in such innovation, (and if they did probably be a shared burden, since they know they'll all steal eachother ideas anyhow.)

If it weren't for the fact the person spending the time and effort to come up with the idea may not be able to profit at all off it (thus discouraging doing so in the first place), then I wouldn't really be for patenting of ideas. I would be for giving credit to the creator though. If the creator sells their idea to an individual under a non-redistribution cluase then I would say the individual must uphold those terms morally, and legally.

[Hazir]

I don't think that makes sense. If someone puts money and/or effort into creating something digital, and if they want people to pay for it, they should be able to get money from it.

However, I don't think the copyright length and scope makes sense in the U.S. I also don't think that large companies should have copyright enforcement being facilitated by the federal government.


I believe that "If you are a content producer and it makes economic sense to sue someone who has been distributing your copyrighted content, you should do so."

The caveat here is that the copyright length and scope make no sense, and the current penalties make no distinction between freeloaders versus competitors or mass distributors. Plus, there's the lobbying. This all warps the "economic sense" part of the equation.

----

An even sadder commentary on the whole affair is that the patent system is even more ridiculous than the copyright system, which is why I think companies have been trying to patent things that they should be trying to copyright (eg: parts of computer programs). The patent system doesn't affect people as visibly as the copyright system, but I think the abuse and potential for abuse there in economic terms is similar.

It makes perfect sense; a copyright means nothing more or less that anybody profiting from the fruits of your work should let you share in their profits. The enduser is not one of those people, can therefore not really infringe your rights. Or steal anything for that matter.

It would be silly to organise it in any other way, because if you didn't you'd force the 'industry' to physically own every single step in the distribution, right up to the hardcopies used to view them. The sale of DVD's would be problematic because if copyrights would be the same as ownership the seller of such a DVD would forfeit his rights by selling the DVD.

With DRM the industry tried to make this warped thinking into their way of marketing their stuff. And of course it wouldn't work. Because it's not legal in the first place, but second because people don't buy stuff they can't own and third because technically they are quite inept.

The content industry should start to get to understand that this has always been the case, and that the internet merely makes their position more untenable.

What these people should do is make their products available in an extremely accessible way for a low price so that the average user will no longer bother going online with torrents or the like (why would you burden your connection with uploads to keep a system going if you can get an episode of Office for 50 cents straight from the source at the moment you want it? Tie people in with a subscription to a season and everybody will be very happy I can assure you.

iTunes shows that it can be done. And that's a bloody Apple initiative.

[agamemnus]

It makes perfect sense; a copyright means nothing more or less that anybody profiting from the fruits of your work should let you share in their profits. The enduser is not one of those people, can therefore not really infringe your rights. Or steal anything for that matter.

That's ridiculous. You're saying that if I make a nice computer game that cost me two full years of my life, say, then I cannot profit from it beyond the first customer. Someone buys one copy from me, then distributes it for free to everyone who wants one. Great, two years of my life for say $20. Yes? (Don't say that if they liked it they would pay me: that's an empty promise that the rest of the world does not live by. I can't go to a store and pay as much as I like, can I? I'd get arrested for shoplifting!)

Point is that if I see 99% of my potential profits disappearing due to copyright "theft", I should be able to sue, say, the 10 richest "thieves" of the lot.

With DRM the industry tried to make this warped thinking into their way of marketing their stuff. And of course it wouldn't work. Because it's not legal in the first place, but second because people don't buy stuff they can't own and third because technically they are quite inept.

The content industry should start to get to understand that this has always been the case, and that the internet merely makes their position more untenable.

What these people should do is make their products available in an extremely accessible way for a low price so that the average user will no longer bother going online with torrents or the like (why would you burden your connection with uploads to keep a system going if you can get an episode of Office for 50 cents straight from the source at the moment you want it? Tie people in with a subscription to a season and everybody will be very happy I can assure you.

iTunes shows that it can be done. And that's a bloody Apple initiative.

"The Office" is much different than the latest movie flick that takes $30-$200 million to make.

I somewhat agree with this, however. Guess what, though? The subscription model has been there for quite a while before anything Apple did: it's called cable TV. I can right now go and watch Comcast shows on my computer or my TV, whenever I want. The problem with this:
* It's somewhat expensive, monthly.
* On-Demand on TV is limited in both how fast you can fast-forward and, sometimes, if you can even fast-forward at all.
* On-Demand "premium" movies are usually crappy comedies/horror, relatively old movies, or action-film flops. The very best most expensive movies take 2 years or more to be seen on the "premium" channels. There are pay-per-view movies, sure, but it's simply ridiculously expensive compared to their costs, compounded with the fact that you're only paying for a few days' worth instead of the right to watch at any time.
* They don't even show many shows on-demand. When they do, they wait at least a day and sometimes a week or more.
* Don't forget the ads!

Basically, you're asking big media companies (and Comcast is now one of them in a big way) to cede both control of their content and to give up their basically monopoly pricing on their shows. Why should they when they can continue to rob people blind? It's a web of copyright protectionism and heavy-hitter power that does this. However, a world in which a copyright owner cannot at least in theory profit from a copy of their work is a world without any of that work.

[Hazir]

That's ridiculous. You're saying that if I make a nice computer game that cost me two full years of my life, say, then I cannot profit from it beyond the first customer. Someone buys one copy from me, then distributes it for free to everyone who wants one. Great, two years of my life for say $20. Yes? (Don't say that if they liked it they would pay me: that's an empty promise that the rest of the world does not live by. I can't go to a store and pay as much as I like, can I? I'd get arrested for shoplifting!)

Point is that if I see 99% of my potential profits disappearing due to copyright "theft", I should be able to sue, say, the 10 richest "thieves" of the lot.



"The Office" is much different than the latest movie flick that takes $30-$200 million to make.

I somewhat agree with this, however. Guess what, though? The subscription model has been there for quite a while before anything Apple did: it's called cable TV. I can right now go and watch Comcast shows on my computer or my TV, whenever I want. The problem with this:
* It's somewhat expensive, monthly.
* On-Demand on TV is limited in both how fast you can fast-forward and, sometimes, if you can even fast-forward at all.
* On-Demand "premium" movies are usually crappy comedies/horror, relatively old movies, or action-film flops. The very best most expensive movies take 2 years or more to be seen on the "premium" channels. There are pay-per-view movies, sure, but it's simply ridiculously expensive compared to their costs, compounded with the fact that you're only paying for a few days' worth instead of the right to watch at any time.
* They don't even show many shows on-demand. When they do, they wait at least a day and sometimes a week or more.
* Don't forget the ads!

Basically, you're asking big media companies (and Comcast is now one of them in a big way) to cede both control of their content and to give up their basically monopoly pricing on their shows. Why should they when they can continue to rob people blind? It's a web of copyright protectionism and heavy-hitter power that does this. However, a world in which a copyright owner cannot at least in theory profit from a copy of their work is a world without any of that work.

Wow, you really don't get any of this. What I said was the exact opposite of what you think I said. What I said was; that in the copyright chain ONLY people between the producer and end-user can steal. The end-user does not distribute anything thus is not obliged to pay anything wrt copyrights. A distributer who doesn't pay copyrights is the thief.

You may be able to get cable TV (which still is just the old distribution system only marginally improved) but the vast majority of people in this world can't. In my personal case that is not because of technical problems but simply because what I want is not made available to me at a time that I want it. HBO will finally come to Holland next year, but then I still won't be able to get it because they are taking their sweet time to come to an agreement with my cable company. I can't get HBO bypassing my cable company. Because they won't make their programming available in Holland through the internet. Which, if they would, would enable me to watch their programs as I have a fast enough connection.

So basically it's just stupid marketing. People want something but stupid people force them to wait months or years for no particularly good reason. And then there are pirates who will offer the same for a price too good to resist.

Copyright owners could make a lot of money by taking the market back in a smart way. They could come out a lot better even by cutting out the middle men.

[Khendraja'aro]

Not to mention that it's virtually impossible for Germans to watch any and all TV series in their native language unless we wait for them to be released to DVD/BluRay.

[Illusions]

Theft applies only to physical objects, for a reason. Theft is a crime because it deprives the victim of the item stolen, not because it benefits the thief. Using an idea is not "stealing," and copying data is not theft.

And frankly, someone who claims to be a small-government, classic conservative should take issue with the very concept of "copyright" (and patents, etc) because of what "copyright" and patents are at a fundamental level - nothing more than a government imposed monopoly on an idea. So, thanks much, but I'd rather not have the government impose monopolies on the rest of society, for the benefit of its lobbyists. The actual crime here is the fact that government is allowed (and even expected by folks like yourself) to police ideas and arbitrarily dictate who may or may not make use of what ideas.

How should we go about ensuring that persons or groups with worthwhile intellectual property are allowed to either profit from it, protect it, or distribute it in a manner they see fit? I mean this as an actual question, not a rebuttal to your statement, how would you go about this, or would you even bother in Caintopia?

[Flixy]

Not to mention that it's virtually impossible for Germans to watch any and all TV series in their native language unless we wait for them to be released to DVD/BluRay.

Yeah, but you guys really should start using subtitles instead! Which are readily available online.

[Khendraja'aro]

How should we go about ensuring that persons or groups with worthwhile intellectual property are allowed to either profit from it, protect it, or distribute it in a manner they see fit? I mean this as an actual question, not a rebuttal to your statement, how would you go about this, or would you even bother in Caintopia?

"Ensuring" is quite probably impossible, unless you want to establish a draconian rule of governments over insular and isolated patches of an "inter"net which would only be a shadow of its former self.

Let me digress a bit first: I'm currently waiting for money because regular money transfers between banks take 3 working days to complete in my country. When I last asked my bank why this was so (in the year 1995!), I got the answer: Technical limitations, computational time to clear the transfers, bandwith.
Now we've got the year 2012 and money transfers still take 3 working days. In this day and age of consumers(!) possessing hardware being several orders of magnitude faster than what we possessed 1995 while also having access to transfer rates in the Mega/Gigabit range, one cannot tell me that this is anything but a standard carried over from the olden days, now simply allowing the banks to make money with my money without it being my money while in transit. Don't even get me started on incoming transfers being stopped on the weekends - first of all, I don't believe they turn off the computers, secondly, I don't think that anyone is sitting there and approving every transfer manually, thirdly, when I transfer money away from my account it's gone instantly - even on the weekend. Not to mention that High Frequency Trading works just fine - and they shove around sums which make my measly transfers vanish in the decimal places.

One example where an established industry takes an old restraint and either fails to keep up with advancements in the sector or tries to keep the restraint in order to make money to the disadvantage of their customers. Hence the rise of agents like PayPal.

Where I'm going with this: The content creation industry is in a similar situation right now - their distribution methods are becoming outdated. And now some of them simply don't do anything about it, some of them change their distribution models around completely - and some of them try to exert an iron grasp on what they deem "their" content. The latter are most probably doomed to fail - as of yet, any and all DRM methods have been cracked wide open and/or alienated their customers to a large degree.

The point is not to bemoan the loss of the old model but to try to use the new possibilities provided. Gabe Newell (Steam) stated that he thinks that piracy is not so much a problem of price rather than convenience. Make it convenient to buy your wares. Make it easy. Don't make them jump through hoops.

Yeah, but you guys really should start using subtitles instead! Which are readily available online.

Yeah, that's gonna work...