Everyone who cares about their freedom should watch this vid

Spread this to your friends. Talk about it on facebook. This is the biggest load of bullshit.

Old news.

Fuck off. The SOPA bill is a current issue and it's next hearing is tomorrow. What happens tomorrow could very well affect your ability to go on the internet and post useless shit like "Old news."

Channel Awesome has strongly been urging people to contact there senators to try and rethink this bill. I strongly hope this is prevented, there might be problems with the interenet, but this could honestly make it worst.

Isn't there a way to use proxies to go beyond sealed internet borders undetected? Not saying that's a simple fix, but I figured if this shit happens, I ain't being stopped.

Wow, the states really seem to be on a ridiculous legislation streak lately. Depending on how they use it, this bill has the power to take a huge blow to the internet. It kind of reminds me of how China censors the internet, although not as extreme of course. Its absolutely absurd, but it just shows how much power lobbying groups have.

The dumbest part about the Stop Online Piracy Act is that it'd do absolutely fuck-all to actually stop online piracy.

This bill won't pass, and if it will it will get revoked in a short time. There will be a massive uproar from the people, especially since generations Y, and Z are the biggest users of the internet. You can't censor the internet, there will be sites and people who will dedicate all their time to fight it. And even if this bill gets passed and doesn't get revoked, like the above user said, It will do jack shit. There will be a way around it in a matter of days.

It's terrible. Why is this even being considered?

Because of lobbyists. They pay politicians and lawmakers millions to vote in their favor. Say hello to the American political system, where big corporations decide what goes.

You go to a lawmaker and say "Hey my organization represents a shit ton of companies that deal with music, movies, video games television, and software. We feel that piracy is cutting into our profits, which in turn means we cut jobs to keep those profits, jobs that happen to be in your district and profits that would otherwise be taxed in your district." Just because big interests have big political power does not mean anything untoward like bribery is going on, though the process can be pretty crass. The idea is that the costs are exportable to their electorate, pirates of any given media are scattered while the owners of that media tend to be in more concentrated in fewer political districts. (This is the same reason why some states in the US have a hotel taxes, the burden falls on people who don't live there.) When you look at how there interests in each side are organized there is no real surprise, anti-SOPA people have a low salience problem. You do not even need lobbyists for this kind of thing to happen, it is structural, not just because big corporations can do whatever.

I have seen a lot of media campaigns on this all ready. One ad in particular talks about foreigners essentially stealing American jobs through piracy (little lights in an office building go off as the download bar progresses, its pretty silly.)

It's not bribery. It's lobbying, it's legal. There are many documented cases where politicians take money to vote in favor of an issue/bill. Even George H. W. Bush took millions of money to support insurance companies' interests.

There is a fine line between bribery and lobbying but when it is a quid pro quo like you describe, that is bribery and it is certainly illegal. Former representative Bob Ney was sentenced to prison, and he was even "clever" enough to not take money directly. He is one of many unfortunate examples from the whole Jack Abramoff scandal. Also, the entire point of my post was that interest groups can become powerful without bribery or even lobbyists.

Point noted.

Congress returns on January 24, and the first thing they'll vote on is SOPA/PIPA. One day before that, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and several other large websites will black themselves out in protest.

Can't wait. A day before seems risky though, they should do it sooner. Facebook alone will probably wake up the world and that's still the main issue here, nobody knows about this and we can't let it slip under our noses.

Giving someone in charge of a legal duty money or other gifts in exchange for that person doing something that you want him to do is bribery. The textbook definition of bribery, in fact. Not saying that's what's happening (although it wouldn't surprise me, at least if lobbies in the US are like lobbies around here; the Spanish equivalent of the RIAA is currently under investigation and you wouldn't believe the stuff that's being uncovered), but let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

Anyway, this has a pretty good chance of passing, considering that the indefinite detention provisions of the new NDAA have passed. And those are at least as outrageous as SOPA. The difference being that SOPA won't accomplish what it is supposed to accomplish.

You're not worried about it?

I'll go ahead and assume you were asking me, since the previous post is mine and the one before is yours. I do worry, yes, but as I said it will probably do diddly squat as far as actually stopping anything (much less what they call "online piracy", a term that I find highly debatable) goes, and there are legal ways to get around its undesirable effects.

In fact, since a few days ago, we have our own version of SOPA in effect (although it will still take one or two months before it actually is implemented completely) here in Spain, thanks to the efforts of the US embassy which as we all know is always ready to serve the interests of the US citizens, and its uselessness was already proved even before it was made into law. Considering that our version is even more retarded (and probably at least as restrictive) than SOPA itself, and it's still totally ineffective, well... Let's just say there are many things that make me worry more than this. Unemployment rates, for one. Or the Government's cringeworthy plans to save money, which are pratically an insult to citizens.

It would be horrible for it to pass but at the same time yeah I can see it not really doing anything initially. Other bills and restrictive laws have been passed around like this and in other countries that aren't changing anything (like Spain's version of this as you said). You just can't stop the internet... people will find ways around it and things will probably only worsen if this actually does anything. I wish the government understood that, keep chipping away at worthless things and people will just continue to find or make new loopholes.

If this passes and doesn't get vetoed, I seriously doubt Obama will get reelected. In fact I doubt more than 18% of potential voters will vote if this goes through.

Allow me to more or less quote George Carlin: "Consider how stupid the average person is. Now, think about this: half the people are actually more stupid than that". To which I add: and most of those are what you just called "potential voters".

@Xeogred: Agreed. If governments don't understand that this is not the right way to do things, it will lead to more and more restrictions. And despite what I just said in the previous paragraph, there's a limit to what people can take, no matter how stupid they are. I pity the fools that are in charge when people have had enough.

(Not so) Funny addendum to the above: if SOPA passes, this post might be illegal, by virtue of the George Carlin and Mr. T quotes. Hell, maybe the entire MA site could be shut down for having song lyrics and album artwork and all that stuff.

Um, SOPA was introduced by Lamar Smith, a Republican; and PROTECT IP was introduced by Patrick Leahy, a democrat. There are people in both parties that are for it, and there are people in both parties against it.

That's what scares me the most about SOPA. If it's passed, it will effectively kill user-generated content. This means no more fan fiction, no more DeviantArt, no more Newgrounds, and definitely no more YouTube.

You should look at Gelal's statement above you, do you honestly think that the average American cares (or knows for that matter) that Obama is not the one that created these bill's? The only thing more rampant in America than super morbid obesity (the actual medical term) is complete stupidity, I have actually had to tell people who won the civil war... THE CIVIL FUCKING WAR!?!?!

What I mostly mean above though is that if we keep getting forced with more pressure and restrictions, it will make the people go to more extremes to fight these censorships and find loopholes. Voices will get louder and stronger and eventually things can potentially get even worse getting out of control, and in the end it's the fault of the government for pushing these kind of rules over us. This might be how it's always been though throughout American history. These stupid old fucks in office simply do not understand the internet or how life is for our generation, that is a fact. It's not set in stone as I know there's plenty of older people and some in office that actually know what they're talking about, but this system is just so stupidly broken it's insane. What we need to pass is a rule that says if you're older than 50-60 or something, get out. We need younger people leading.

Random tangent there, but that's what really irks me about all this. I'm pretty politically stupid, but that's how I see how our system works. And yeah, the focus needs to be on the economy, unemployment, and obviously healthcare, before stupid stuff like censoring [freedom] the internet, videogames, or other entertainment bullshit.

I agree with your statements, however I think the first one is irrelevant in this case: people vote with their pocketbooks, this can potentially make the stock market fall, much worse than what has happened in recent years. The reason the economy fell is in large part why Obama won the election. And if Obama simply lets it pass and doesn't veto it, he will be blamed, no matter whose idea it was.

Not always. Some take politics like a football (and by that I mean soccer, although it doesn't really matter as long as it's a sport with matches between two teams) match: they're rabid fans of a team, and will support it come Hell or high water. And of course, there's ever only two teams, and the other one always sucks balls. Some people are like that. Worst of all, they don't even know what the party they vote for says it will do. Not that it matters since none keep their word.

Then, you have those that don't give a flying fuck. And those that do, but decide to support either of the aforementioned two teams because well, the champion is always one of them. All in all, I'd say informed voters with even an ounce of common sense are, in my experience, a rare sight.

@Xeogred: Agreed again. We're saying practically the same thing, just wording it differently. Although I personally wouldn't put a rule like the one you suggest, based on age. I would just deny inept politicians the possibility of ever having power, instead giving it to those that deserve it. Of course, such a meritocracy is not easy to implement. I'm still not sure on what would constitute an "inept politician" or a "deserving" one, for example.

Just because these bills were put through legally doesn't mean that they don't violate alot of people's rights.

It also doesn't mean that putting this bill through in America won't be affecting the entirety of the world. Trying to get this to pass through American councils is completely asinine.

So is this bill law now or what? I can't seem to find anything definitive in a quick Google search.

I don't think they've voted yet.

The voting in the Senate will take place, IIRC, on the 24th of this month.

The Author of SOPA Is a Copyright Violator

Funny beans.

Good to see that the MA will participate in the blackout.

There apparently have been a few small time 'victories' regarding the SOPA act. Here's a video in which Channel Awesome's/Blistered Thumbs' Angry Joe explains it in a nutshell.

http://www.blisteredthumbs.net/2012/01/ajs-sopa-update/

He can get quite excited/over the top, but it's the information that counts imo.

This.
All great points made by everyone in here so far.

For whoever was wondering about Obama's stance, his administration condemns the bill and even though they can not stop it themselves, they are making their stance well known.

“While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet…."

Some other quotes from their speech out there as well.

I just emailed my Congressman urging him to vote against both bills.
It took less than 5 minutes and I didn't have to jump through any hoops to do it so we all have nothing to lose by doing it and possibly a lot to gain.

+1

Any site that participates in the January 18th blackout is doing something commendable and brave.

I just really hope the big dogs (Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, etc) really go through with it. That'll slap a face off.

Anyone else aware of OpSony? It's Anonymous's response to Sony's support for SOPA, and is a warning to all other major corporations who support it.