what happens if SOPA passes?

Way early in this thread I commented on the Homeland Security connection in all this, and how it was upsetting. Nobody really gave a shit then.

We gave many shits, we just didn't have a fresh quote to back it up.

btw I was thinking baout that guy being from something called the British PHONOGRAPHIC Industry

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-fights-shutdown-with-former-bill-clinton-attorney-120121/

Yesterday one of the “Mega” employees informed TorrentFreak that MegaUpload has hired top attorney Robert Bennett to lead the defense.

Bennett is best known for defending President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.

The New York attorney also represented other big names including Senator John McCain and President of the World Bank Group Paul Wolfowitz

“We intend to vigorously defend against these charges.” was Bennett’s only comment thus far, but fireworks can be expected in the weeks to come.

Agreed. Given that the US charges were based entirely on the fact that some MU servers were on US soil, I'm curious as to whether their legal counsel will argue that all activity of servers outside the US cannot be entered as evidence in the case. Legal geekdom aside, this case promises to be more colourful than that for the Pirate Bay.

from what i understand, if someone (esp if that someone is a foreign entity) is given a subpoena to provide documentation (server logs etc), they must provide

brb downloading popcorn

DennisThePerrin#
Sen. Al Franken supports SOPA. He wins the Michael O'Donoghue Steel Needles With Real Sharp Points Plunged In His Eyes award.

‎"All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files you have uploaded personally."

My current project is on Dropbox, worried tbh

End of days for the mp3 blog.

"All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files you have uploaded personally."

― I Love Pedantry (D-40), Sunday, January 22, 2012 1:40 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

!

Dropbox should be okay for now (at least I really hope so, I use it for work all the time) since it never really seemed to catch on with filesharing blogs like filesonic and megauplaod did.

I can't even access filesonic at all now.

They're likely running the digital equivalent of flushing the powder down the toilet.

ha ha!

End of days for the mp3 blog.

I pray they don't take down mediafire, which is what I use. Over the years I've built a collection of dozens of my recordings and hosted them there, and I'd be super pissed if it all went away.

the advantage mediafire has is that they don't allow particularly large files.

So does this concentrate around searchable upload sites? For instance, wetransfer.com has become really popular (well, in my circle at least), but there you upload something and get a link through email. Others can't search through the files. Is that the new distinction?

Neither filesonic nor megaupload were searchable. Links to files on those sites were posted by the uploader (and frequently reposted) to filesharing blogs. Those links were picked up by the search engines, google, filetram, filestube, etc. Wetransfer links could be treated the same, though given the low profile of the host, probably wouldn't be picked up by the engines.

Wow. All this without new legislation.

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/65920166.html?thread=11378137254#ixzz1kECktCvF

Pretty big win for the RIAA and MPAA anyway, huh?

Damning:

Chris Dodd went on Fox News to explicitly threaten politicians who accept MPAA campaign donations that they'd better pass Hollywood's favorite legislation... or else:

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"

Pretty big win for the RIAA and MPAA anyway, huh?

Huge, but temporary imo

Shutting down Megaupload would have been a short-term win. Getting most of Megaupload's competitors scared enough to shut down their own sites looks like something more. It won't stop torrenting or the low-key sharing of content but it's not going to be as easy for my next door neighbour to type "adele album .rar" into google and be listening to it five minutes later. Dedicated filesharers will continue but it might stop a percentage of the people doing it because it's convenient and hassle-free.

can't they just move the servers to senegal or something and not have to worry about the Feds?

xp yeah, it'll stop one distribution channel. As long as the demand exists, other channels will be developed.

Temporary or no, its pretty huge for them to knock down one of the giants hard enough to scare a number of their peers into hiding.

Oh, definitely. Arguably the biggest shock wave since Napster.

sharivari otm

it's not going to be as easy for my next door neighbour to type "adele album .rar" into google and be listening to it five minutes later.

this is probably for the best. the past few years of file-sharing have been at times glorious but also fucked up and excessive. the amount of music i was able to get a hold of in a small amount of time on something like soulseek ~5 years ago was incredible, and is still more than i could ever need. it'll be hard to see the new heights in convenience/speed reached by mediafire, megaupload, rapidshare go, but it's not as if music nerds don't have a vast cornucopia to fall back on

True dat. Completely coincidental, I bought two CDs last week.

fwiw, I think the scariest portent of SOPA was/is the implications for sites like wikileaks. one could reasonably conclude that the internal memos of a corp are protected by copyright, and that a hosting site would be targeted for releasing them

otfm, and most likely one of the main reasons the US govt was prepared to toe the SOPA/PIPA line for so long.

(censor the internet, claim it's about protecting jobs)

also some agent provocateur could easily bring an otherwise legit site to its knees just by sneaking in some copyrighted media. It's a kill switch for any site with user generated content

fwiw, I think the scariest portent of SOPA was/is the implications for sites like wikileaks. one could reasonably conclude that the internal memos of a corp are protected by copyright, and that a hosting site would be targeted for releasing them

(isn't this what Scientology did?)

This US govt petition link appears to work: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/investigate-chris-dodd-and-mpaa-bribery-after-he-publicly-admited-bribing-politicans-pass/DffX0YQv?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

I bet there are a lot of people frantically downloading and burning stuff they weren't going to bother with just now, just in case.

i wondered why slsk was a little busier than usual

slsk is still a thing? haha

i'm not worried about adele.rar disappearing from a filesharing site, i'm fine with that. but this really freaks me out because, as noz pointed out on twitter, of all the music legally uploaded by its creators (including myself here) that can potentially just completely disappear when these sites go down, especially in corners of the musical landscape less interested in permanent archiving.

^^^

I'm bummed that this is, more than likely, also going to signal the death knell for legit blogs sharing perfectly legal music.

Looks like the Daily Show and Colbert Twitter feeds might have been hacked? Wait, yep, definitely have been.

TheDailyShow The Daily Show
We are not anonymous, however we do respect @anonops and @poisanon we are however twitter.com/ashpluspikachu <3 #stopACTA
2 minutes ago

TheDailyShow The Daily Show
Please ignore the previous tweet about ignoring the previous tweet. #ashpluspikachu @ASHplusPIKACHU That is all.
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

TheDailyShow The Daily Show
Ignore our last several tweets. #HackedAgain
14 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

i heard something about the person who uploaded the file would be able to access it?

also rev, dont you have backups of your original music on your computer you could just put somewhere else?

i'd imagine it would suck if he's got blog posts/links etc going to several years worth of material either way.

hope this doesn't put an end to the blogs sharing rarer albums, but then I'm intrigued by the idea of music becoming rarer again... still free, but something you'd have to actually have to put a little time into hunting down. and perhaps music blogs might become more oriented around writing/reviewing again, serving as guides for torrent searches elsewhere

everything old will soon be old again

flopson: of course, but that's not the point

hard drives fail bro