SOPA - web blackout coming?

[Phoenix]

Wow.

I frigging HATE SOPA and would not mind at all if this blackout happens. In fact, CZ should join the protest


In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinationshttp://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/30/will-google-amazon-and-facebook-blackout-net/#.


No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing.



The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that is intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. HR 3261 would require ISPs to block access to sites that infringe on copyrights -- but how exactly it does that has many up in arms. The creators of some of the web's biggest sites argue it could instead dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies -- and reshape the web as we know it.


A blackout would be drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.

Full article:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/30/will-google-amazon-and-facebook-blackout-net/
​

 

[YosemiteSam]

People should "occupy" the politicians homes that support / created this bill.

 

[MonsterD]

Need to stop SOPA it is a ruse to stranglehold the internet.

 

[iceberg]

Wow.

I frigging HATE SOPA and would not mind at all if this blackout happens. In fact, CZ should join the protest


In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coordinated blackout of their sites, some of the web’s most popular destinations.


No Google searches. No Facebook updates. No Tweets. No Amazon.com shopping. Nothing.



The action would be a dramatic response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill backed by the motion picture and recording industries that is intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. HR 3261 would require ISPs to block access to sites that infringe on copyrights -- but how exactly it does that has many up in arms. The creators of some of the web's biggest sites argue it could instead dramatically restrict law-abiding U.S. companies -- and reshape the web as we know it.


A blackout would be drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.

Full article:​

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/30/will-google-amazon-and-facebook-blackout-net/​

http://www.dailytech.com/Congress+P...y+Day+Pirates+Porn+by+Night+/article23625.htm

they should clean up their own house first.

 

[StanleySpadowski]

How dare Congress try this? We should be able to steal other's intellectual property at will.


No wonder this country's going to hell in a handbasket...the sense of entitlement is stunning at times.

 

[iceberg]

How dare Congress try this? We should be able to steal other's intellectual property at will.


No wonder this country's going to hell in a handbasket...the sense of entitlement is stunning at times.

this has nothing to do with entitlement, but control.

i pay for all i take from the net and be fair about it. but if you think for a moment the government is doing this for the good of you or i - realize congress is one of the worst offenders.

i do internet radio and i pay bmi every year for the right to do so. i will fight for what is fair to the bitter end.

if you're a *******, i'll fight that till the bitter end too and the government is a ******* here. they already fell for the RIAA and their crap. they're not smart enough to understand this, much less pass it.

 

[MonsterD]

this has nothing to do with entitlement, but control.

i pay for all i take from the net and be fair about it. but if you think for a moment the government is doing this for the good of you or i - realize congress is one of the worst offenders.

i do internet radio and i pay bmi every year for the right to do so. i will fight for what is fair to the bitter end.

if you're a *******, i'll fight that till the bitter end too and the government is a ******* here. they already fell for the RIAA and their crap. they're not smart enough to understand this, much less pass it.

Absolutely right, and guess who told and provided all the filesharing software and reviewed it to tell us how to download everything? Don't be naive the corporations made money on one end by distributing the filesharing software then lobby for the bill. And also as a person who has never illegally downloaded anything off the internet, I do not look forward to the future if the internet when they decide to use this as a crutch to force out websites for little reason resembling pirating.

 

[YosemiteSam]

The PROTECT IP vote (ie, SOPA) is happening on January 24th 2012.

You can contact your congressional reps here if you are interested in trying to stop SOPA. I highly recommend everyone step up and try to stop this garbage from going through. It will have serious implications on the Internet as a whole.

If you are not sure what SOPA is, I highly suggest you Google it. It could easily cause CowboysZone to shutdown if some company (ESPN, Dallas Morning News, etc) decided it wanted to shut CowboysZone down.

 

[Khartun]

The PROTECT IP vote (ie, SOPA) is happening on January 24th 2012.

You can contact your congressional reps here if you are interested in trying to stop SOPA. I highly recommend everyone step up and try to stop this garbage from going through. It will have serious implications on the Internet as a whole.

If you are not sure what SOPA is, I highly suggest you Google it. It could easily cause CowboysZone to shutdown if some company (ESPN, Dallas Morning News, etc) decided it wanted to shut CowboysZone down.

Thanks for the link Sam, I just sent my letters.

 

[silverbear]

Wow.

I frigging HATE SOPA and would not mind at all if this blackout happens. In fact, CZ should join the protest

So, you're OK with online piracy, then??

 

[rkell87]

So, you're OK with online piracy, then??

so you are OK with internet censorship??

 

[YosemiteSam]

So, you're OK with online piracy, then??

I'm not sure you understand the implications envolved with SOPA. It isn't as simple as just preventing piracy.

 

[Hoofbite]

I'm not sure you understand the implications envolved with SOPA. It isn't as simple as just preventing piracy.

And can stretch much further.

Say a site has thousands of useful articles and videos that comply with SOPA but one item pops up that violates SOPA.

Then what? A warning?

Expand it to hundreds of thousands and of those a few non-compliant pieces of material?

How many warnings?

I think it's a horrible bill.

Here's a little piece on lifehacker

This means that if Lifehacker happened to have an article or two that could be interpreted as piracy-friendly, our domain could be blocked so it's unaccessible by visiting lifehacker.com.

What the bill can't do is block numeric IP addresses, so you could still access Lifehacker, or any other site that could be censored, if you knew that address.

This is important because it means this bill can't do much to stop downloaders of pirated content. If a domain name is blocked, everything will still work via the numeric IP address. Basically, the bill will be no good at stopping piracy—what it was apparently designed to do—but excellent at censoring any web site capable of providing its users with the means of promoting pirated content or allowing the process.

And not only does it shut down the offending sites, it can shut down sites that link to offending sites. So any random blog or community driven site is at risk of they post links to sites.

Stop piracy all you want, but to say that a measure like this needs to be in place is just ridiculous.

This bill essentially gives the government the ability to shut down a site if it is deemed offending or contributing to offending websites.

Don't know about you but I don't trust any person or entity with such power.

Forget watching highlight videos on CZ. Or full games, those will all be gone. YouTube will be all but forced to become more strict in order to prevent getting hammered themselves.

As will CZ. You think Reality is gonna take that risk so someone can post a highlight video here? Who the hell would?

If you think newspapers won't have a problem with even snippets being posted, you're out of your mind. They'll see how it works and they'll bar people from posting anything that belongs to them.

It may not happen immediately but as soon as people get a grasp on the power this bill provides, it will be abused. I have zero doubt about that.

And seriously, online piracy? The record and movie companies can claim all they want they are losing billions but the simple fact is, not everything that is downloaded would be purchased if it weren't downloaded.

It's a bull**** law, plain and simple.

In the grand scheme of free and open information, I really don't care about someone's intellectual property. If piracy is the fart smell we have to sniff in order to have free and open information, so be it. Sometimes you have to tolerate all the crap and garbage that comes attached to vast reward.

And lets just live in some make believe world for a second and pretend that SOPA could actually stop online piracy. What happens to the price of a CD, DVD or download?

 

[arglebargle]

Anyone who is worried about losing control over their information should be worried about this. It will be abused. It is designed to be abused.

 

[windward]

From what I've gathered this sounds like a horrible, horrible bill.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

A horrible bill that will be enforced by a group of people who want to manage all information. Franky, this piracy needs to be policed by the industry itself but with significant penalties for those who violate copyright laws. Further, I am all for penalties to individuals who download (read steal) intellectual property.

 

[Cythim]

A horrible bill that will be enforced by a group of people who want to manage all information. Franky, this piracy needs to be policed by the industry itself but with significant penalties for those who violate copyright laws. Further, I am all for penalties to individuals who download (read steal) intellectual property.

The major problem this bill is trying to deal with is the foreign websites that offer copyrighted material. YouTube takes care of their content but search engines are not held responsible for the websites they provide access to. I do not think the bill is as bad as it has been made out to be, but it is not a good solution to the problem and needs to be taken back to the drawing board.

 

[Hoofbite]

A horrible bill that will be enforced by a group of people who want to manage all information. Franky, this piracy needs to be policed by the industry itself but with significant penalties for those who violate copyright laws. Further, I am all for penalties to individuals who download (read steal) intellectual property.

I don't even support that.

Have you seen some of the fines that have been levied to people who download stuff?

Here's a lady that was ordered to pay almost 2 Million.

That's absurd. On what planet is that even legitimate?

The whole issue is overblown. It's not like the industries will see all that "lost" money. They'll probably get a good amount of money if they were successful in stopping piracy but a lot of the stuff people download, they download just cause they can. It's not like the college kid who downloads a thousand songs per semester would go out and buy all those albums.

It's a stupid issue. You can't stop it. It's like the war on drugs, a waste of time and money.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

I don't even support that.

Have you seen some of the fines that have been levied to people who download stuff?

Here's a lady that was ordered to pay almost 2 Million.

That's absurd. On what planet is that even legitimate?

The whole issue is overblown. It's not like the industries will see all that "lost" money. They'll probably get a good amount of money if they were successful in stopping piracy but a lot of the stuff people download, they download just cause they can. It's not like the college kid who downloads a thousand songs per semester would go out and buy all those albums.

It's a stupid issue. You can't stop it. It's like the war on drugs, a waste of time and money.

Good. 2 million. So what? It's illegal. Don't do it. It's pretty straight forward.

As for the "kids" downloading them because they would never buy that many, let's apply that to other things.

They probably wouldn't buy a few dozen new Cameros so why not go to the Camero dealer and just take them off the lot.

I mean, it's not like the dealer would get that money from them anyway. Oh wait, it's because it's not theirs.

Oh and BTW, I love the sig pic. Hilarious.

 

[rkell87]

Good. 2 million. So what? It's illegal. Don't do it. It's pretty straight forward.

As for the "kids" downloading them because they would never buy that many, let's apply that to other things.

They probably wouldn't buy a few dozen new Cameros so why not go to the Camero dealer and just take them off the lot.

I mean, it's not like the dealer would get that money from them anyway. Oh wait, it's because it's not theirs.

Oh and BTW, I love the sig pic. Hilarious.

your point is somewhat valid but your view is very myopic and not looking at the broader impact of what the bill could bring.

but if you want to use the 'this is illegal do what you want to stop it' then someone can easily come back with the illegality of taking away our rights as Americans because that is what has to happen in order to accomplish what they want to accomplish