what happens if SOPA passes?

ct: yeah, it will just encourage govts to clamp down harder to stamp out the terrorists (and take us all down with them).

my this thread has gotten exciting

We are getting a taste of what happens if SOPA passes imo

yup. There's no way the MPAA can hire -all- of these 'hackers' in time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4hQnI7gMnc&feature=related

well I was reading this as 'SOPA obviously not gonna pass at this point, megaupload / prob some other big busts are the consolation prize'

Yesterday I was thinking how short-sighted it was of the RIAA to belittle Wikipedia, given the sheer number of people who learn about the artists and albums they purchase by going straight to the Wikipedia pages. It's so daft. It's like if Sega were to write off EB Games as a waste of space.

referring to this (thanks to Ned who put me onto it)

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2012/01/xlarge_2f76ed225a8572989bb77300a2bc8e98.jpg

Okay, if we can focus SOPA so that it specifically targets The Oatmeal and nothing else, I would encourage my rep/senator to vote for it

Really tired of the convential wisdom that Wikipedia is a terrible resource plagued by constant errors and made up "facts". Yes, of course any student or anyone that uses it as a sole source for any sort of professional research is an idiot and deserves what they get, but its a great resource to begin with and branch off from there.

its a great resource to begin with and branch off from there.

Fucking otm. As with any resource, it's important to know how to use it, and how to use it includes checking the provided citations to ensure that facts are indeed facts.

i've been telling some of my students: don't copy and paste, don't quote it, but you can use it to signpost you to stuff on the net that's perfectly solid

the literal "right to copy" starts to break down when the ability to copy becomes so trivial and low-cost. that's basically the whole deal we're trying to talk about.

this is what i was driving at upthread! duplication is so cheap, and so immediate, that it has inherently devalued the original product. which, in the case of movies, is something that's been a long time coming. mega-budget SFX aside, there is really no reason for movies to be as expensive to produce as they are right now. the economics are archaic, and built on the assumption that films require armies of people and materiel, and can only be shown in purpose built structures, etc. etc. digital technology hasn't just up-ended the distribution of media, it's also done the same to the actual production.

cross post with the apple thread re: FCP moving to a completely digital workflow. yeah ok some people still work with tape and need to conform to certain broadcast standards and yadda yadda yadda. who cares: we're all gonna be watching stuff digitally soon if we aren't already.

yeah, a close friend of mine was a teacher and always blasted wikipedia for being shoddy and i was like uh some of those articles have bibliographies with like 50 references. just because your stupid idiot students copied it doesn't make it a bad resource, it makes them bad researchers

But today's extreme raid on Megaupload will?

i don't consider the raid on megaupload "extreme", at least not yet

and wikipedia is probably the best single information resource humanity has ever devised

probably

they raided on snowboards that were dropped from helicopters

pretty extreme if you ask me

Xtreme.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

i don't consider the raid on megaupload "extreme", at least not yet

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), vrijdag 20 januari 2012 0:39 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You don't think it's extreme to raid and arrest them, instead of sueing them?

Meanwhile, at Hulu Plus headquarters, non-stop high-fives are still being given.

http://i1.dealtwith.it/i/n/4a542a8c3960231b64b190267e32859d/eH0a3.jpg

You don't think it's extreme to raid and arrest them, instead of sueing them?

given the laws they're accused of breaking, no

i'd expect anyone making a substantial profit by deliberately facilitating illegal activity to be arrested rather than sued

given the laws they're accused of breaking, no

― Little GTFO (contenderizer), vrijdag 20 januari 2012 0:50 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Uhm, by that logic you will agree every raid by a government on people, just because they are accused of breaking a law.

people accused of breaking laws are typically arrested, yes. i have no problem with this, so long as the laws are reasonable, no excessive force or coercion are involved, and due process is upheld.

Shouldn't a judge say if they broke a law or not? Is it not common practice to leave the website up until a judge rules it is illegal? Even if a judge would rule it wasn't illegal, the website's ruined already. If you think that is fair or common practice, good luck.

It's Orwellian

So is this a full internet hacker war now? Anonymous et al. taking down sites? RIAA, MPAA, BMI, etc?

http://i1.dealtwith.it/i/n/c78847643b5aebea1326f4c641ded426/kimble3.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM72ozezNsg&feature=related

Anon saying they have 27,000 people participating now. I wouldn't call it a "full internet hacker war" though, the websites will be up again after the storm. But the size of the legion has surprised me; or rather, how dead simple it seems to be to bring down government websites like this.

china wishes it could do it

Shouldn't a judge say if they broke a law or not? Is it not common practice to leave the website up until a judge rules it is illegal? Even if a judge would rule it wasn't illegal, the website's ruined already. If you think that is fair or common practice, good luck.

― I certainly wouldn't have, but hey. (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:57 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

while I completely agree with your sentiment, the fact that an indictment has been unsealed means (as far as I understand it, not being a lawyer) that a judge has signed off on whatever warrants were required for the actions taken - also note the high level of international cooperation here.

that arsnova article is really good, thanks for posting that

We're assuming a lot here. Perhaps there's incontrovertible proof that the Megaupload people were actively facilitating copyright infringement for profit. It's definitely out of step to go arresting a load of the people concerned, so imo it's worth at least seeing what comes out of this (xp cheers sleeve)

Ok, thanks sleeve, I didn't know a judge had decreed it (not too familiar with US law as it's different from here ~ ie. this wouldn't be possible to do in The Netherlands)

the megaupload thing kinda demonstrates why SOPA/etc is an overreach, since it's already obv perfectly possible for content industries to bring a case before govt authorities to physically shut down sites they want to shut down (the justice of this particular case which i am not versed in aside) without actually having to be able to terminate sites remotely the instant they see a kanye album.

Here's what Anonymous is up to: http://gawker.com/5877707/the-evil-new-tactic-behind-anonymous-massive-revenge-attack

Shouldn't a judge say if they broke a law or not? Is it not common practice to leave the website up until a judge rules it is illegal? Even if a judge would rule it wasn't illegal, the website's ruined already. If you think that is fair or common practice, good luck.

― I certainly wouldn't have, but hey. (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, January 19, 2012 3:57 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, if a suspected bootlegging or counterfeiting operation is raided (with a judge's authorization), it is not typically allowed to continue to operate until a conviction is obtained. businesses that are suspected of not just breaking the law but of being intrinsically criminal enterprises are routinely shut down.

jonathan lamy of the RIAA misspells "blackout" as "blackrout" which makes me think that he talks like scooby doo

putting aside entirely the ethics of either anonymous attacking fbi.gov or the fbi shutting down megaupload... it's pretty exciting to watch!

Thanks for the background Contenderizer

Holy shit @ Schwantz link tbh

warner music group? come on down

Low Orbit Ion Cannon
just wanted to say that.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

thanks for this post, Le Bateau Ivre. yeah there was enough in here to take them down for sure.

Other messages appear to indicate that employees knew how important copyrighted content was to their business. Content owners had a specific number of takedown requests they could make each day; in 2009, for instance, Time Warner was allowed to use the abuse tool to remove 2,500 links per day. When the company requested an increase, one employee suggested that "we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels"— implying that if growth had not been so robust, takedowns should be limited. Kim Dotcom approved an increase to 5,000 takedowns a day.

Low Orbit Ion Cannon
just wanted to say that.

― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Thursday, January 19, 2012 4:25 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sure sounds cooler than "ping"

it was also alleged they used the abuse tool to take down a bunch of links they had no ownership of whatsoever.

abused the abuse tool

Aaaaaand fbi.gov is down

wow