There's a bunch of buzz about this at the moment - the gist of it is, the US government have come up with another great plan to try to stop piracy by basically putting a gun to the Internet's head and infringing on the rights of not only its citizens but pretty much everyone else in the world.
They are doing this at the behest of entities like the RIAA and the MPAA who have effectively lobbied the American government machine into trying to take action against copyright infringement by places like The Pirate Bay.
If you have a limited attention span, just check out this infographic.
The US Congress is meeting (or has met) today-ish to discuss this. Here is the EFF's take action page and a high level overview:
As drafted, the legislation would grant the government and private parties unprecedented power to interfere with the Internet's domain name system (DNS). The government would be able to force ISPs and search engines to redirect or dump users' attempts to reach certain websites' URLs. In response, third parties will woo average users to alternative servers that offer access to the entire Internet (not just the newly censored U.S. version), which will create new computer security vulnerabilities as the reliability and universality of the DNS evaporates.
It gets worse: Under SOPA's provisions, service providers (including hosting services) would be under new pressure to monitor and police their users’ activities. While PROTECT-IP targeted sites “dedicated to infringing activities,” SOPA targets websites that simply don’t do enough to track and police infringement (and it is not at all clear what would be enough). And it creates new powers to shut down folks who provide tools to help users get access to the Internet the rest of the world sees (not just the “U.S. authorized version”).
As noted by the EFF, there is a slight conflict of interest based on who is going to be talking at the hearing:
What could have been an opportunity for the committee to hear from a variety of stakeholders has devolved into parade of pro-SOPA partisans. Scheduled to testify are representatives from the Register of Copyrights, Pfizer Global Security, the Motion Picture Association of America, the AFL-CIO, and Mastercard Worldwide—many of which helped to draft this legislation in the first place, and didn’t let anyone else into the room. The only scheduled witness in opposition to the bill is Katherine Oyama, policy counsel on copyright and trademark law for Google.
These are really big deals that, if passed, will almost certainly filter down to Australia at some level because of the Free Trade Agreement (at least, I think so - fade or some other lawyer type might have more useful information about that).
Unfortunately if you're not a US citizen all you can do is sit back and watch at this point and hope that the people that are US citizens are getting in touch with their politicians to try to stop this.
Thanks for the vote of confidence; however this is complex international trade law. It'd be like fpot being able to comment on the security detail protecting President Obama because he worked security at Melbas back in the day.
My general understanding is probably no better than yours. I am fearful that, like how the US shoved has previously copyright amendments down our throat under AUSFTA, the effect of this law, if enacted, will be felt Down Under.
Surprise surprise, it's a bunch of old men with grey hair behind it. Do old men with grey hair generally make great visionaries? I mean with everything you know about human nature, is it right to even let people like this make decisions on anything? In the natural world, such a person would be long dead, or at least incredibly unfit for carrying on with responsibilities. They would certainly not be in an alpha male type position. Why don't they just quietly wait for their death? It won't take that long, stop trying to change stuff that was invented by people half your age.
Cool, So the Americans are taking ques from China. The people opposing this in yank land need to compare it to chinese censorship and communisim, because nothing gets the Americans rilled up like communisim.
They can police my internets under free trade agreement when my games are priced equally as theirs under free trade agreement....... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
There's a pot and kettle somewhere in there
AOL, Ebay, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Twitter, Yahoo! and Zynga. They are some big fucking heavyweights in the industry (I would love to see someone add up their market caps/estimated net worth) and they certainly bring a lot of money into the US - and have a lot to lose if they're put between a rock and a hard place by this bill.
Just finished watching this vid which gave an idea of what could happen if this thing goes thru. Fuck me that's pretty scary to think of all the sites that could just suddenly disappear.
While it might stop piracy or whatever, I think it's gonna have a pretty big impact on companies. Like for example, I would never even know the existance of certain tv shows, movies and music if it wasn't for piracy. And I'm sure that's the same for heaps of other people as well. And those people may have gone out and bought the DVD's or whatever because of it. I know I've bought an assload of DVD's and blu rays because I've leeched it off the net first.
Anyway, this whole thing is really fucked up and just makes me angry thinking about it and the douchebags behind it.
That whole shit fit with megaupload should pan out to be pretty funny if it goes in their favor. I am also hoping that afact gets its arse handed to it
Shit is going down in American right now, they have the NDAA bill being passed that basically means indefinite jail time for people suspected of terrorism, they have this SOPA bill, and no one has a clue what going on because of a media blackout.
no one has a clue what going on because of a media blackout.
They are too busy watching the republican debates and cheering when anyone mentions the word god. It's quite scary indeed to think that if this passes, there will be a LOT of sites vanishing from the net. They will go nuts with this and attack any site they don't approve of.
Co-opting DNS records for major websites will just encourage the rise of alternate DNS services hosted outside the US borders surely? I don't see the point of breaking the DNS for a futile purpose.
I was watching some of the committee hearings, only 4 people knew what the bill actually meant. The guy who made the bill doesn't even know what it's about. The world is going to he'll in a hand basket.
We need a good world war to kill off a heap of idiots. Though I reckon Obama knows that if he doesn't step in, things will get hairy, and we know this is how assassinations happen.
While it might stop piracy or whatever, I think it's gonna have a pretty big impact on companies. Like for example, I would never even know the existance of certain tv shows, movies and music if it wasn't for piracy. And I'm sure that's the same for heaps of other people as well. And those people may have gone out and bought the DVD's or whatever because of it. I know I've bought an assload of DVD's and blu rays because I've leeched it off the net first.
Same deal here. I have a heap of shows on DVD I would never have heard of or bothered to buy if I hadn't have watched them without purchase initially.
Things like:
Community
Chuck
Weeds
Castle and plenty of others.
What is to stop people from posting copyrighted material all over the place to shut down websites?
Nothing. Universal is already getting stuff taken down from Youtube for no reason at all.
I was watching some of the committee hearings, only 4 people knew what the bill actually meant. The guy who made the bill doesn't even know what it's about. The world is going to he'll in a hand basket.
I doubt he made the bill just presented it for whoever is paying his current bribe money this week.
Nothing. Universal is already getting stuff taken down from Youtube for no reason at all.
I remember reading awhile ago this guy had posted a video that he created himself that was... I forget exactly but I think it was like a promo for his home town or something? Anyway it was shot in the 90s I think. He had since lost a hard copy of the ad he made through the years and it turned up on a tv show a few years back in a rerun. He recorded it, uploaded only his promo to youtube and then had his account blocked for copyright infringement from viacom, despite the fact he had made this himself, and the original tv show never asked if they could use it to begin with, they just stole it really.
Now you hear that these big studios can get anything they want taken down, even if they had nothing to do with any part of its making? After hearing how ignorant some of these people are who are going to decided the fate of an incredibly important issue, this is what I assume is going on over there.
After the spike game awards one of the companies that showed a trailer there uploaded it to youtube. who promptly took it down because of a copyright claim by spike... even though it was the offical games youtube.
I'm fairly sure that nuclear bombs don't discriminate...
It's usually meatheds who get on the front line though, the "thinkers" get to sit in safety so it's most likely the only people left would be the old people who want this to pass anyway.
Update: In a surprise development, the committee agreed to, in effect, put the bill on hold over concerns that altering the domain name registry would cause great damage. Smith said the hearing would resume at the “earliest practical day that Congress is in session”, which could be weeks.
Optus has compared digital video-recording systems, such as Foxtel's IQ, to its cloud-based TV-recording app, TV Now, in arguing that it falls within the "time-shift" provisions of the Copyright Act.
The AFL, the NRL and Telstra argue that the TV Now app, which allows users to record TV from free-to-air TV, and watch back later, either on their phones or PC, is an infringement on their copyright. According to the sporting codes, it jeopardises mobile-broadcasting deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
When a user selects to record a program, it is stored in Optus' server for 30 days. For each TV broadcast, Optus makes four copies, so that the content is compatible with iOS, Android, PC or older 3G phones
This could dramatically affect any Sports deal with Fox Sports + FreeToAir
The AFL, the NRL and Telstra argue that the TV Now app, which allows users to record TV from free-to-air TV, and watch back later, either on their phones or PC, is an infringement on their copyright. According to the sporting codes, it jeopardises mobile-broadcasting deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Wait, how is this different to VCR's that people used to record for years? Maybe they should bring that up.
edit: O I see, because they'll watch it on their tiny mobile screen instead of waiting (which they have already waited by recording it earlier) until they get home to watch it on the big screen... yer right.
they're going to be in for a real shock when they push too hard one day and everyone says "you know what? fuck it" and then pushes back
the internet is far too big, powerful and decentralised for this kind of policy to work, someone much smarter than any of the idiotic congressmen pushing for this bill to pass, will step up and write some kind of fix to make the root server pointless
big companies like google will take it on and then blamo, they wasted their time and they'll move on to the next censorship attempt
Shit's getting pretty real with this. Reddit have a 'go dark' day scheduled in protest. Other companies are talking about doing it and some people are even putting pressure on giants like Facebook to do it.
Apparently it all comes down to the fact that The Pirate Bay has a .org domain — and according to Masnick, the current version of the SOPA bill working its way through congress excludes American domestic domains from being the target of takedown notices from copyright holders. In this case, a “domestic domain” is any domain that comes from a TLD run by an American registry — and sure enough, .org’s registry is Public Interest Registry, a US non-profit based in Virginia. In other words, thepiratebay.org isn’t eligible for a SOPA-based takedown, even if its servers are based in Sweden or another country outside the US.
The developers of FireFall - Red 5, have announced they are going dark by pulling their games beta and website offline for 24 hours, as well as withdrawing from E3 this year until the ESA reverses their support for the bill.
the current version of the SOPA bill working its way through congress excludes American domestic domains from being the target of takedown notices from copyright holders
holy fuck, I didn't know that? what possible justification do they have for the distinction?
The developers of FireFall - Red 5, have announced they are going dark by pulling their games beta and website offline for 24 hours, as well as withdrawing from E3 this year until the ESA reverses their support for the bill.
The developers of FireFall - Red 5, have announced they are going dark by pulling their games beta and website offline for 24 hours, as well as withdrawing from E3 this year until the ESA reverses their support for the bill.
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