PIPA & SOPA

[-Ezekiel]

Alright you lot, most of you are American. That is important to me, the only times that is important is when I wish to sleep with you, when you are have elections (Miss Conservative America Pagent is way too much fun for me.) and when your stupid government does shit like the Protect Intellectual Property Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. OR they do some other stupid things.

I'd just like to take this time to point out to you that if these acts get passed, DF dies. We borrow heavily from other material, in everything we do. From our personal writing, to the images and classes. Everything on DF will go if these acts are passed.

So as I, Kit and Destiny can't do anything about it. I'm going to say this once and only once. Find out who you Senator (Senior and Junior) and who your congressman is. Write them a stern email, letter and phone call (do all three, especiall writing the stern phone call) and tell them that you do not support these Acts in any way shape or form.

Do this, not for me but for DF. And if you say you don't want to or feel that I am wrong for opposing these Acts or have not heard about them, then that's fine. But come January 25th (they vote on the 24th), DF will die. And it's because you did nothing.

So write, call and shout at your Congressmen and Senators until you are hoarse. Don't be rude about it, just tell them that if they vote for these acts, you won't vote for them nor will you donate to them. In fact, ask who is running against them and tell them that you are going to donate to that person.

Thanks for your time,

Ezekiel.

[-Luthe]

I've done just that on numerous occasions throughout their mulling over of the different variants of anti-piracy laws that they've been pushing (and failing to pass) lately. I will continue to do so. The wording that's used it far too dangerous to free information sharing, and certainly including legal information sharing if they ever decided that they didn't want us to see something.

Even in spirit, it's a jackassed idea to think that one can take on the internet or internet piracy. The means that are available to combat those forces now aren't quite enough, granted, but what's being proposed is closer to outright censorship of whatever off-the-cuff bit of information that the government might not approve of than it is to a viable way to fight piracy.

This is the next layer after television and radio censorship if it passes. The heinous targeting will not stop at piracy, opening up a whirlwind of censorship demands from every other political and ethical agency. It actually is a dark dark threat to the freedom of speech and free enterprise.

EDIT: "Funny. If you post a song of Michael Jackson, on youtube. Under SOPA you would get 5 years of jail time........................................................................... 1 year more than the doctor that killed him got." ~Random Internet Person

I may as well wantonly quote while I still can, ya?

[Kit]

I dislike being English sometimes. This is one of them.

This is simply the old guard caving under the pressure. I anecdotally heard that they used the term.

"Internet Nerds" to describe the users of the internet. That should speak REAMS about who these people are. The authour of SOPA is 64 years old. Do we really want someone old enough to be our grand daddies telling us what we can and can't do on OUR interwebz.

This is like being told not to play on the lawn all over again.

[-Dory]

*Raises her hand* On it. And have been, for a while.

There are a few internet based petitions to stop it going around.

Mozilla Firefox has one Here.

Google has one Here.

If I find more, I'll post them here.

Some notes: The original bill was supposed to pass or deny last month. According to the random news article which came up when I did my google search, the president has already stated that he will not support the bill unless it's target is significantly narrowed down; and that's why it's going back to court on the twenty fourth.

I don't know about the validity/truth of the argument. I also heard that the bill has already passed-- which, clearly, is not the case.

[-Destiny]

I do agree that this bill is just insane, more or less going to destroy the internet if it passes which in my personal opinion theres only going to be 2 outcomes of this. Either it does not pass, which considering the global outrage and protests against this seems like the more likely option, or by some miracle is does pass, the entire world gets up in arms against america and fights back the only way the internet knows how, with a big fat fuck you.

I can already see every agency responsible for enforcing these obscene rules getting hacked into the ground and demolished, the companies fight back and shut off half the internet and everything goes to hell, what follows is a few months of chaos and then Google rebuilds the internet v2.0 as an independent entity over which no government or agency has any control, effectively creating Skynet except without the end of the world apocalypse side problem. They certainly have the resources, knowledge and money to do this and if shit hits the fan... well you heard it here first

[-Luthe]

Viva la revolucion. Goodness knows we're due for one after decades of political stumbling.

[-Destinysend]

old farts in the government believe they know how to deal with online piracy. Friend of mine asked, do they even know how to get ON the internet?

Average age of congress is something like 50-60 or so. Old white men with money.

[-Alucard]

Careful Luthe under this act you could be tracked down and arrested for treason.....

[-Roush]

See what I mean? When the Imperials ban our Internet worship for thier greater good, we all go Stormcloacks!

But seriously, been on this for a while. Luckily I live in a red state, and it's pretty divided by party lines. Republicans are against it, democrats are for it. Like I said, that's just here. I've done what I can, but since when to politicians listen to the people? If it does pass, the best thing to do will be to institute some major turnover come November, and support candidates who value individual freedom *coughronpaulcough* and vote others out.

Here's a list of staunch supporters and opponents.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legis...rt_SOPA_or_PIPA

[-Chime]

Yeah this is pretty bad though I heard the President has vetoed the bills. Among them there are millions of gamers out there fighting it, hundreds of companies are also protesting against this bill. There are people that have been crusading and gathering support to stop Sopa and Pipa in its entirety and if the Government actually thinks they can pass this with all this protesting...well...

I don't think I have to remind you why the internet is a "Hate Machine" nor that by passing these bills this hate machine will literally focus all of its efforts on the government.

If I recall correctly we've already had people from here hack into places like the FBI and the Pentagon so if they pass these bills I almost feel sorry for the government, their families, and everyone directly related to them...especially the ESA.

[-Roush]

If the president Vetos it there's no way they are getting 2/3 to overrule him. Hell, I'm not even sure it'll pass at this point.

[-Dory]

Even if it does somehow miraculously pass, I seriously doubt it'll stick. Censoring the internet comes dangerously close to censoring free speech; and a good portion of the nation seems to like thinking that we still have constitutional rights. Yeah, the better portion of those people don't see the correlation; and are primarily looking at "ooooh shiny new job market!" but once it happens... Well, it's not hard to spot an inquisitor. It's the guy shoving bamboo shoots up your virtual fingernails; and I'm a fan of the second amendment too.

On top of that..... -google- says no. You know what google runs? Fucking everything; straight down to whether or not a droid will send/receive a freaking text. If THEY say "No", I'm inclined to believe that political demographic would be better served to listen.

My point in a nutshell: Pushing Sopa through would be political suicide. I may not have faith in much, but I do have faith in the president to not do anything which would piss too many people off; this late in his term. Especially with mr. "Make the people happy yaaayyy!" campaigning in his yard; and I do have faith in the congress to be lazy about something that's gonna wind up costing their paycheck in the long run.

[-Alucard]

I have faith in one thing the ability of mankind to fuck itself and everyone around it...That said....Internet to congress "If you strike me down I shall become more powerful then you can imagine...."

[-Dory]

"Dog eat dog" is human nature.

So is outrage.

[-Raeliron]

This man pretty much says it all here.

Sopa isn't Dead by Darnell.

[-Kilik]

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=§ion=&q=sopa#/d4jr2wc

honestly, poor ole kilik has been contemplating such thing Luthe. We're long over due especially since the trickle down theory is more like a piss on theory and the wealthy don't want to say such things.

[-Akio Fairchild]

http://imgur.com/a/M5a2O

Normally, I am not the touchy-feeley type... I almost began to cry, had to literally fight back the tears, when I read through it, imagining that this man was myself.

[-The Gunslinger]

Part of me hopes it passes. While I'd rue the loss of Dark Forest and other great internet sites, the American government is irreparably fucked up, but nobody really wants to admit it. The only way the system is going to be fixed is if the system no longer exists. Just replacing who is in charge isn't going to change anything. Only by total collapse can something better arise.

SOPA/PIPA follows the idea of, "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide." While this may, in theory, be true, it's also the unifying slogan of every police state that's ever existed. Between this and the new law allowing American's to be detained without due process (supposed to be protection against terrorism, but if a government has the power, it's damn well going to exploit it), I look forward to seeing the American government go (even further) downhill.

Burn it down to the ground, baby.

[-Luthe]

That's a very Marxist perspective, GS. I like it.

[-Ezekiel]

Akio, you made me rage quit with that one. That was a sucky ending...

And GS, you have my vote for jester when I become supreme ruler.

[-Alucard]

Akio that was very "touching" to say the least and it does almost bring tears to my eyes when I think that in a couple decades that could be any one of us. I am not sure what I would do if they ever got rid of the internet I had enough issue losing it for two months......

[-Kilik]

In all honesty guys, we should've say this coming. in fact many did, all such 'Roman republics' are doomed to fail.

Personally the only law we absolutely need is something that reads like this;

For every single law passed, two laws must be removed.

that would bring us down to the laws we absolutely need, and make them think twice when it comes down to passing anything at all..

Besides gunslinger said it best. people do better when they're left alone.

i THINK 'll just sit around waiting for the 'public's general and cival appeal'... Not a very patient person though...

[-Raeliron]

Sopa is Dead. But PIPA remains.

That's what happens when you kill Megaupload... bitch.

[-Ezekiel]

People, these aren't dead. They've been shelved. That means when there is a sitting later on in the year they'll sneak them in and no one will know about the vote and how fast it will be. The same thing happened with the Patriot Act.

And Megaupload had nothing to do with it, that was Warner Music shooting across the bow of it's major artists saying "don't appear to be in bed with these people".

[-Akio Fairchild]

Megaupload being shut down IS a major factor of what caused the riots on the US government (and the IP bombing that followed)

While many people (incorrectly) assumed that Megaupload was taken down by PIPA or SOPA (two bills that hadn't been brought to vote yet), they decided that they should act out more violently, and voiced their opinion more vehemently.

While I do agree that MU's shutdown was not caused by SOPA or PIPA, I DO think that Megaupload's shutdown did cause the events which led to SOPA and PIPA being shelved.

If only because of a misunderstanding.


EDIT: Which reminds me: if I recall correctly, MU's shutdown was because it opened a server in USA which put it in defiance of our copyright laws. Because of this incredibly stupid move by Megaupload, they were able to be shut down by the US.