what happens if SOPA passes?

i'm pretty curious about what will happen if SOPA passes. part of my job involves clearing use of academic articles for professors & the guy who oversees copyright stuff is pretty concerned about it

Hmmm:

In a move the technology sector will surely see as a victory, a controversial antipiracy bill being debated in Congress will no longer include a provision that would require ISPs to block access to overseas Web sites accused of piracy.
Rep. Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the biggest backers of the Stop Online Piracy Act, today said he plans to remove the Domain Name System or DNS-blocking provision.
"After consultation with industry groups across the country," Smith said in a statement released by his office, "I feel we should remove DNS-blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the [U.S. House Judiciary] Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision.
"We will continue to look for ways," Smith continued, "to ensure that foreign Web sites cannot sell and distribute illegal content to U.S. consumers."
A watered down SOPA means Smith improves his chances of getting the bill through Congress. Smith's move comes a day after a backers of a similar bill in the Senate, known as the Protect IP Act, began to backtrack on the issue of DNS.
Without the DNS provision, SOPA now looks a great deal more like the OPEN Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), which was created to be an alternative bill to SOPA.

Lol it was so obvious that was going to happen

I'm not getting angry about this because I don't think it is manifestly wrong? I mean, I am not holding delusions about artists magically making more money out of a more tightly-controlled Internet or anything, but on balance I've never read or seen anything to make me question the idea that unsanctioned free filesharing isn't stealing, and as a result I'm not super bothered when governments try to stick enforceable penalties on it.

Having said that, attempting to push the entire industry back to what it was in the 80s is regressive and not going to happen, but not because of any major uproar; it's because we now have a generation of first world Earth who think music is economically worthless and any market based solely upon it is pretty much doomed for the next 30 years regardless of what shape it takes.

so fucking well put & otm

I dunno, as a musician in a pitifully unknown band, I really welcome file-sharing. Anything that gets people to hear what we've done is cool by me. Yeah, I definitely hope that this will result in them either coming to a gig or actually buying the record, but I'm under no illusion that those will be the actual results. I still don't feel like I'm being stolen from, though.

I haven't even read this yet, but here's what the White House has to say.

Obama sez I'm president and I ain't payin $12 to hear Lil Wayne rhyme "Machiavelli" with "jelly"

Mostly it's the tying in with HOMELAND SECURITY that is upsetting to me.

Why is that upsetting?

I like that the white house's statement tries to get beyond the simplistic x vs. y argument. Its like theyre telling us to grow the fuck up lol

lol yeah it's like they're on a whole different level from us dumbasses. hard to stand in the glare of their wisdom

lol

sad lol

it's because we now have a generation of first world Earth who think music is economically worthless

I agree 100%; also, the industry had the power to take control of this in the fallout of Napster and didn't. Here we are more than 10 years later and the industry is still trying to shut everything down rather than just make content available. If it weren't so hellbent on retrofitting its antique structure into the 21st century we would already be well on the way to a non-SOPA solution imo.

by 'take control' I mean sell its content via the new medium instead of being Victorian-era dicks

lol yeah it's like they're on a whole different level from us dumbasses. hard to stand in the glare of their wisdom

― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, January 14, 2012 4:43 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol you cant even praise the tone of a letter ?

frankly i think they have a point. it would be nice if ppl didn't just rally to protect their free mp3s, but rallied around coming up w/ solutions for overseas piracy. i'd think you'd agree with that

I wouldn't, and I'm presumably one of the "victims."

solution for overseas piracy = destroy all boats

the industry had the power to take control of this in the fallout of Napster and didn't. Here we are more than 10 years later and the industry is still trying to shut everything down rather than just make content available. If it weren't so hellbent on retrofitting its antique structure into the 21st century we would already be well on the way to a non-SOPA solution imo.

this is what "the adult in the room" would actually say btw

otm

I don't know whether that's a compliment or a zing

and now, a lol break

http://torrentfreak.com/images/rupert.jpg

complete with 'you are hurting the artists'

One day all of the artists will just decide not show up to work and stop making art and then we'll be sorry!

solution for overseas piracy = destroy all boats

― Neanderthal, zondag 15 januari 2012 0:05 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well the lulzboat, surely

the industry had the power to take control of this in the fallout of Napster and didn't. Here we are more than 10 years later and the industry is still trying to shut everything down rather than just make content available. If it weren't so hellbent on retrofitting its antique structure into the 21st century we would already be well on the way to a non-SOPA solution imo.

this is what "the adult in the room" would actually say btw

― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, January 14, 2012 5:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

completely disagree. didnt you just otm rudolphus tarantino, who said exactly what i did?

you're confusing 'music' with 'piracy.' if we can all get free films from overseas it essentially guts an industry that relies on a lot more investment. The tipping point for films hasn't been reached the way it has w/ music but I think it's just as reasonable (and obviously w/ services like Netflix studios are hoping to head off the worst of it better than the music industry did)

sorry for using djp's real name, i wasnt thinking. a mod can edit that

shit wasn't even heated

just make content available.

what the fuck does this even mean?

lol @ rudolphus tarantino

SOPA dead, PIPA still in progress. Wikipedia's blackout day still going ahead iirc.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petition-tool/response/combating-online-piracy-while-protecting-open-and-innovative-internet

can I just point out that when I said "this isn't going to happen", I was OTM

and i'm perfectly happy to say you were right!

maybe next I'll play the lottery, clearly the world is temporarily bending to my will

I always liked Canada's solution of accepting that piracy will occur but just charging an extra tax on CD-Rs and CD burners that goes to the industry.

that's what they do in the US too

i mean i totally agree with the "industry should have done something in 2000 instead of just pretending the internet would go away" comments.

the thing that struck me about sites like oink is that cost aside they were so much easier and better than any legal alternative. I mean I was one of those guys who would pay $30-40 to import discs or buy OOP stuff on eBay (of which the industry sees not one dime) and the whole time I was just thinking "I would definitely pay for this service if I could!" Look at what Nintendo has done with the "virtual console", now they're making tons of money with no effort by just screwing over the resellers, which is the way it ought to be.

i was talking to a guy recently who produced a Japanese band and was learning about the whole music/entertainment industry over there and how generally just the whole idea of music piracy never caught on over there that much and people are happy to pay for music just like they always have, makes me feel like things like Napster kind of sensationalizing the whole phenomenon and getting people excited about the act of 'stealing' music is really how we got where we are and really could've gone down much differently

The whole "if only the music industry had figured out a way to charge me money for digital files earlier I wouldn't want them for free" argument strikes me as JUST A BIT po faced.

there should just be one private tracker w/ all the music in the world

i'm not saying THAT per se, hurting, just that cultural attitudes and the sequence of certain events contributed to the current situation much more than just "once music could be free people only wanted it for free, end of story"

I dont think the attitude shifted so much toward "I want everything to be free" as it did "I want everything to be available".

I mean, mp3s don't really have any value on their own so the whole issue gets complex. For example, I think it's fair to say that a person who gets three new albums in a month should pay $10 a piece for them, but if someone downloads a thousand albums every month it's not really fair to say that they owe $10,000 monthly or that he's getting $10k worth of "value" from those mp3s.

it has never mattered how much 'value' someone actually gets out of ownership of an object. that's not how our society works.

So if I decide I want to eat a thousand loaves of bread per month instead of two or three, I should only have to pay for three because I'm more efficient at getting "value" out of my bread?

I mean horrible analogy aside, I don't think consuming anything in bulk means you shouldn't have to pay per unit. Sure, economies of scale to buy things in bulk but music doesn't work that way unless you are going to download four thousand copies of the same Max B mixtape.

I mean, mp3s don't really have any value on their own so the whole issue gets complex. For example, I think it's fair to say that a person who gets three new albums in a month should pay $10 a piece for them, but if someone downloads a thousand albums every month it's not really fair to say that they owe $10,000 monthly or that he's getting $10k worth of "value" from those mp3s.

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 17, 2012 11:44 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

why on earth would you think this was fair to say

i've seen some right-on/cynical commentary putting the backlash against SOPA in the context of the non-backlash against the PATRIOT re-up, detention bills, etc.

lolcats have a bigger constituency that 'terrorists' i guess...

So if I decide I want to eat a thousand loaves of bread per month instead of two or three, I should only have to pay for three because I'm more efficient at getting "value" out of my bread?

its a totally different situation because someone still has to make the bread. you don't have to make copies of an album. the analogies to physical materials don't work on the same level. would an artist prefer to have someone buy one song for $5 but not buy anything else, or an entire album for $10?