Writer's Block: Stop Online Piracy Act

[eowyn_315]

Today, Congress holds hearings on the first American Internet censorship system.
This bill can pass. If it does the Internet and free speech will never be the same. [Learn more here.]

Do you support this bill?

First, let me say that this question is absurdly biased.

Second, yes, I support the bill, and not just because I'm being paid to. :) I generally

Comments

[boot_the_grime]

I've said before, and I'll say it again - I'm not going to lecture anyone about how downloading stuff illegally is wrong. For one thing, I'd be a hypocrite, because I'm not totally innocent on that front, either. But that's a moral decision that has nothing to do with the bill. My moral stance is that illegal downloading is not just *not wrong* but right and absolutely necessary

[eowyn_315]

How exactly will artists suffer? Any artist is allowed to put their own work online for free - that's how MySpace has operated for years. They can offer downloads or streaming on their own websites, or distribute free copies to blogs for promotional use. Nothing in the bill restricts distribution by the copyright holder in any way.

But just because some artists want to distribute their work for free, why should artists who want to get paid for their work have to suffer? Why shouldn't they be allowed to protect their intellectual property from people who want to make money off someone else's hard work?

And, you know, free advertising only works to a point. People aren't going to just keep making things for free without any compensation. Eventually, they will have to pay their bills.

[snickfic]

Thanks for the informative post! I saw that LJ question and went, 'Buh?' I hadn't heard a thing about it, so I'm glad you came along to educate me. Panic averted.

[eowyn_315]

Heh, glad to educate! It's frankly absurd the scare tactics I've seen over this.

[gabrielleabelle]

I've only just started reading up on the whole thing, but it appears that there are some potential unintended consequences that have people (and I mean companies, not just tumblr users) concerned. This site has a PDF link to a letter sent to the House by Google, Twitter, Facebook, Mozilla, and a bunch of other big-name companies. That concerns me more than various fan protests cause, you know, those guys have lawyers who can actually decode the bill and see where there might be some problems (I tried to read through the bill, but I just don't speak that language).

I'm still researching. I've yet to find an outline of where these potential unintended consequences are. I'd like to see that.

[eowyn_315]

Yeah, a lot of Silicon Valley is opposed to it. Frankly, for a lot of them, it's simply about the bottom line. Google doesn't want the bill to pass, because if it does, it means they would lose a lot of ad revenue from all these infringing sites that they're no longer allowed to do business with. Visa is opposed to it because they want the transaction fees from all the credit card payments on the infringing sites. You get the idea

[eowyn_315]

Hahahaha, I can totally count, I swear.

I didn't leave out a fourth argument - I combined the first two into #1 and forgot to change the "four" to a "three." Oops.

[gabrielleabelle]

Thanks for the info. I tried to look at a link to the fact sheet on the site you linked to, but I got a 404 error.

One of the things I've found, though, is that the opposition tends to deal in hypotheticals - "well, this MIGHT happen, or this COULD be used the wrong way" - without any evidence that it WILL hurt anyone.

Okay, but honestly? I can see the concern there. After all, my objection to that annoying personhood amendment in MS was over what COULD and MIGHT happen as a result. And even though the supporters of the amendment tried to assure everyone that it wouldn't, that doesn't exactly assuage my concerns. This is a similar thing, and that's why I'd really like to find something that breaks down the language in the bill so I can see exactly what it might be opening things up to. I'm not impressed with the random protest articles that just make wide claims that I'm supposed to take on faith, but I'm not impressed either with refutations that I'm also supposed to take on faith.

Thank you...

[13masquerade]

For the clarity.

We will abide with what is proper and right! :)

Re: Thank you...

[eowyn_315]

Glad to be of service! :)

[owenthurman]

Yes, let's censor the internet at our borders. It will improve our relations with Red China by harmonizing our freedom of speech policy on the internet with theirs.

Putting this kind of tool in the hand of prosecutors and expecting them to use them with rationality and decency is crazy. Just like the current DNS blocking policies, it will be used to shut down unrelated sites and political bias in the censorship will soon slip in.

This is a dangerous law for a nation that is dependent on sites like WikiLeaks for any chance at reducing corruption and erosion of basic rights and freedoms.

[eowyn_315]

Okay, and how would you suggest we combat online piracy?

[owenthurman]

Online Piracy

[eowyn_315]

We fight it the ordinary way; track abusers, get a court order to obtain identifying information from ISPs, and prosecute.

Who do you mean by abusers? The site owners? The people uploading the content? Or the people who are doing the downloading? Because experience has shown that attempting the latter is wildly ineffective - all you do is get a bad reputation for suing college kids. It doesn't work as a deterrent, because it's impossible to take action against everyone who does it, nor does stopping one user do anything to stop the distribution of the content to other users.

The whack-a-mole approach has proven to be a failure. Instead, this bill goes right to the source of the illegal activity and creates a deterrent by cutting off the revenue streams so that sites shut down on their own because it's no longer profitable. We can't actually prosecute site owners, because they're not domestic websites so they don't fall under the jurisdiction of federal court. This is the next best thing.

Today, piracy is a tiny part of the