what happens if SOPA passes?

I think gbx's last paragraph is key

sorta lost my train of thought there but q e fukkin d i guess??

:-/

gbx's philosophical argument is interesting, but i'm not sure it's convincing. we might argue that since a new thing (a duplicate digital copy) is necessarily created in the process of downloading a file, if the data being copied is someone else's intellectual property and they have not granted permission, then a form of infringement must have occurred. unauthorized copies of owned intellectual property have been manufactured and distributed. crucially, they have been "manufactured" not by a single bootlegger, but instead by everybody who has downloaded them. the closing ontological non-materiality argument is defeated by the same general logic we use to protect patents, trademarks and copyrights.

Man, have I ever missed ILX.

Have we talked anywhere about how downloading shit illegally is fraught with all kinds of spyware risks?

Embarrassed to say that I just got around to signing that petition

patents, trademarks and copyrights are about preventing someone else from profiting off yr intellectual/creative labor - the bigger picture problem is that nobody will be able to profit from some forms intellectual/creative labor

xp to ct

forms of

another take, not necessarily one I endorse but:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/internet-regulation-the-economics-of-piracy/

Megaupload shut down, employees indicted!
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/worlds-largest-file-sharing-sites-megauploadcom-shut-company-15396031#.TxhxZ_m9YqR

^^^ Just coming in to post that.

zappi beat ned! neds lost it!

Investigators said there was no connection between arrests in their two-year investigation and the political firestorm that erupted this week over a pending vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act.

Seven people have been charged with online piracy crimes in an indictment unsealed in northern Virginia. Four of those suspects are already in custody, authorities said.

The four were arrested in New Zealand. Federal agents and other law enforcement agencies simultaneously moved to search bank records and server farms in multiple locations around the globe, authorities said. The charges include conspiracy to commit racketeering and criminal copyright infringement.

zappi beat ned! neds lost it!

Even I get caught up in work sometimes.

its Neds internet, i just post in it

always interesting to read Jason Lanier

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/opinion/sopa-boycotts-and-the-false-ideals-of-the-web.html

I join my colleagues in criticizing the bills. But our opposition has become so extreme that we are doing more harm than good to our own cause. Those rare tech companies that have come out in support of SOPA are not merely criticized but barred from industry events and subject to boycotts. We, the keepers of the flame of free speech, are banishing people for their speech.

last paragraph of that is devastating, I'd copy and paste but your first impression of it should be in context after the build up

been seeing a lot of people coming out against lanier on twitter - here's marc's take (@disquiet):

--

I have come to believe Jaron Lanier's opinions are less opinions than reactions. Here's his @nytimes piece on #SOPA: nytimes.com/2012/01/19/opi…

He says Google & Wikipedia have "stated nonpartisan missions"? Huh? Google has lobbyists and Wikipedia's open model is a political act.

Lanier: "The result is a chilling atmosphere, with people afraid to speak their minds." Reality: Internet thick with tweets/posts/memos.

Lanier (re: pro-SOPA corps): "We...are banishing people for their speech." Reality: (1) SOPA curtails speech. (2) Boycott is free speech.

now this is confusing, i thought the megaupload/rapidshare type sites were exactly the ones where they needed SOPA to pass in order to shut them down.

that was not the Megaupload news I was expecting to see, I only just heard about this one:

http://www.factmag.com/2012/01/19/swizz-beats-is-the-ceo-of-megaupload/

FWIW I've never been against the shutting down of websites whose sole or primary purpose is pretty clearly infringement -- sites that do nothing but stream tv shows, torrent sites, etc. The law already provides significant weapons against these, although I guess their are limitations, e.g. difficulties of enforcing against non-US located websites. Strengthening the ability to go after those kinds of sites alone would be fine with me.

What it seems like the industry wants, though, is to push the costs of IP enforcement against individuals -- those who use non-infringement-exclusive sites -- onto the sites themselves. I don't really see why a site like youtube, which is not really designed with infringement as its primary purpose, should be the sole or primary bearer of enforcement costs of someone else's intellectual property rights.

fuck i use megaupload for work and music projects quite a bit

I have come to believe Jaron Lanier's opinions are less opinions than reactions.

Well, yes of course. Lanier is a natural contrarian. But a very thoughtful and helpful one you can't write off. A boycott is a kind of free speech, and energizing when it's truly grass-roots and consumer based, but Lanier's more talking about Silicon Valley level business-to-business ostricism, not internet tweets. Marc's tweets are all reactions and don't address Lanier's final point.

I was all for the blackout because that is literally what it took to prevent SOPA -- even though support for it was already crumbling, I was pretty horrified by the list of people in the Senate still supporting this bill even yesterday morning. And it was interesting to see the people against it -- Tea Partiers leading the charge.

I just love how this bill doesn't fit neatly into the current political narratives, it's bigger than that

The wave of opposition to this bill is probably a great thing for the future of internet law, actually, because it seems like it means an end to that play-dumb "my grandkids use it" attitude of the old guard in congress. Internet legislation may finally have to get smarter.

(an animated gif as an illustration on nytimes.com oped? surely that's a first)

what does 'open' mean when there are natural monopolies for various internet services? that's a good point. but ultimately his view of the future - "what if ordinary users routinely earned micropayments for their contributions?" - is fun to think about and it's an interesting philosophical argument, but I think it falls apart if you try and build an economic model out of it.

(for the same reasons why you can't really come up w/ a 'right price' for a beatles mp3)

swizz beatz running megaupload has broken my brain so completely. i hope they make this whole fiasco into a science fiction movie

WSJ scoops the NYT on the FBI shutdown of megaupload:

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204616504577171060611948408-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwOTExNDkyWj.html

wtf is the legal basis for arresting the owners of an online storage co.

among other things, the WSJ article notes that megaupload is incorporated in hong kong, and the four arrested were in new zealand!

The indictment calls the company "a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale.''

going after foreign nationals (and actually arresting them!) for distributing fucking ~movies~ on the internet seems...messed up.

those sites generally respond to c&d's too, they're just too high volume to police without someone requesting it

statement from the US department of justice on megaupload, which lists the names of all seven who were indicted:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/January/12-crm-074.html

wtf is the legal basis for arresting the owners of an online storage co.

well, speaking generally, knowingly facilitating illegal activity is often held to be a crime in itself. hosting a gambling den in your house, even if you make no money doing so and aren't directly involved, is going to get you in no less trouble than gambling illegally.

this is more akin to owning an 80-storey apartment block and getting arrested cos some of your tenants have got stolen goods under the bed

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16642369

good old Berne Convention, they can just come and hoik you wherever you may be for infringement in the US.

xp one of the charges is that they're not eligble for safe harbor because they didn't comply with DCMA takedown notices.

here is a link to a PDF of the entire 72-page-long indictment:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment

this is more akin to owning an 80-storey apartment block and getting arrested cos some of your tenants have got stolen goods under the bed

― the smell of Whiney's cheap perfume (Noodle Vague), Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:03 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the counterargument is that this is more like building and running a warehouse for storing stolen goods, even though some people stored goods they legit owned there too

I didn't realise MegaUpload was the 13th biggest site on the internet. It's a bit scary that it can be so big and so fragile simultaneously.

fuck i use megaupload for work and music projects quite a bit

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

Came to cry about Megaupload ;_;

in any case, this seems properly insane and like some sort of weird counting coup.

RIP. I just downloaded something from Megaupload...a =Byrds bootleg.

the counterargument is that this is more like building and running a warehouse for storing stolen goods, even though some people stored goods they legit owned there too

fair enough. the truth, i guess, is that storage space is storage space and if your space is big enough then policing its use is gonna be an inexact science. it wd be very naive to expect megaupload or rapidshare to have become so big on the back of solely legal content but the idea of criminalising sites simply because they allow the possibility of illegal content storage looks pretty laughable at this stage in the game.

Four people in New Zealand aren't laughing.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0OHbv2-K8mA/TmYXUU8M-bI/AAAAAAAAHxE/VR4XveJ2vZU/s400/406hobbit-group-lord-of-the-rings-over-sized-posters.jpg

see?

Four people in New Zealand aren't laughing.

No, but they haven't been convicted of anything yet either.

fair enough. the truth, i guess, is that storage space is storage space and if your space is big enough then policing its use is gonna be an inexact science. it wd be very naive to expect megaupload or rapidshare to have become so big on the back of solely legal content but the idea of criminalising sites simply because they allow the possibility of illegal content storage looks pretty laughable at this stage in the game.

doesn't seem "laughable" to me at all. the prosecution seems pretty sensible, really.