SOPA / Internet Censorship Bill (HR 3261)

Lefsetz' letter is finally up. Full text here.

Looks like the gubmint is starting to reverse course on this. I guess democracy does work from time to time. We just need to get really, really pissed off first.

Rubio is backing off, and he is one of the sponsors. Pretty impressive. The difference in lobbying strategy - millions of bribery dollars vs shutting off the internet - is also very interesting.

Ron Paul publicly denounces SOPA, Rand Paul promises a filibuster in the Senate to oppose PIPA. Two other co-sponsors have backed out besides Rubio.

Update: 18 senators now opposed, including seven former co-sponsors.

Aetius wrote:

Ron Paul publicly denounces SOPA, Rand Paul promises a filibuster in the Senate to oppose PIPA. Two other co-sponsors have backed out besides Rubio.

Update: 18 senators now opposed, including seven former co-sponsors.

It gets even better.

Author of SOPA is a copyright violator.

Tkyl wrote:
Aetius wrote:

Ron Paul publicly denounces SOPA, Rand Paul promises a filibuster in the Senate to oppose PIPA. Two other co-sponsors have backed out besides Rubio.

Update: 18 senators now opposed, including seven former co-sponsors.

It gets even better.

Author of SOPA is a copyright violator.

Beautiful.

Khan Academy overview of the bills. Ends with a great final thought.

Nice. Thanks for that.

LobsterMobster wrote:
Tkyl wrote:
Aetius wrote:

Ron Paul publicly denounces SOPA, Rand Paul promises a filibuster in the Senate to oppose PIPA. Two other co-sponsors have backed out besides Rubio.

Update: 18 senators now opposed, including seven former co-sponsors.

It gets even better.

Author of SOPA is a copyright violator.

Beautiful.

Sadtrombone has one ad on their page and it's for Romney. Foreshadow perhaps?

That Khan Academy video breakdown is the best layman's explanation I've across and makes the bill even more frightening than I imagined. It's a travesty that Congress is even discussing this.

US government hits Megaupload with mega piracy indictment

The US government has closed down one of the world's largest filesharing websites, accusing its founders of racketeering, money laundering and presiding over "massive" online piracy.

According to prosecutors, Megaupload illegally cheated copyright holders out of $500m in revenue as part of a criminal enterprise spanning five years.

A lawyer for Megaupload told the Guardian it would "vigorously" defend itself against the charges, dismissing the criminal action as "a civil case in disguise".

News of the indictment – being framed as one of the biggest copyright cases in US history – came a day after major internet firms held a 24-hour protest over proposed anti-piracy laws.

WTF? So much for needing SOPA/PIPA.

93_confirmed wrote:

US government hits Megaupload with mega piracy indictment

The US government has closed down one of the world's largest filesharing websites, accusing its founders of racketeering, money laundering and presiding over "massive" online piracy.

According to prosecutors, Megaupload illegally cheated copyright holders out of $500m in revenue as part of a criminal enterprise spanning five years.

A lawyer for Megaupload told the Guardian it would "vigorously" defend itself against the charges, dismissing the criminal action as "a civil case in disguise".

News of the indictment – being framed as one of the biggest copyright cases in US history – came a day after major internet firms held a 24-hour protest over proposed anti-piracy laws.

WTF? So much for needing SOPA/PIPA.

Mabye this is a CYA move by the government, so that they can come out against PIPA/SOPA and still claim to be against piracy? Those charges seem to be aiming awfully high.

NathanialG wrote:

Mabye this is a CYA move by the government, so that they can come out against PIPA/SOPA and still claim to be against piracy? Those charges seem to be aiming awfully high.

Or maybe it's to remind us that they're going to do whatever they want regardless of legislation.

In a rare moment, we get to see how the people in charge actually think:

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.c...

Leo Hindery, a major Democratic donor whose New York media private equity firm owns cable channels, said Obama might have reason to worry about his entertainment industry fundraising base.

[The bill] is an issue that has no business being decided politically – by anybody on one side or the other – and the fact that it might be becoming a political issue is unfair to the content producers,” said Hindery, who’s contributed more than $3 million to Democratic candidates and groups.

Entertainment industry insiders suspect the White House’s stance on SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act pending in the House, could harm Obama’s fundraising prospects.

Emphasis is mine.

Aetius wrote:

In a rare moment, we get to see how the people in charge actually think:

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.c...

Leo Hindery, a major Democratic donor whose New York media private equity firm owns cable channels, said Obama might have reason to worry about his entertainment industry fundraising base.

[The bill] is an issue that has no business being decided politically – by anybody on one side or the other – and the fact that it might be becoming a political issue is unfair to the content producers,” said Hindery, who’s contributed more than $3 million to Democratic candidates and groups.

Entertainment industry insiders suspect the White House’s stance on SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act pending in the House, could harm Obama’s fundraising prospects.

Emphasis is mine.

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

Duoae wrote:

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

That's how I read it.

Tkyl wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

That's how I read it.

Yes. The government should just leave the laws about the entertainment industry to the experts...the entertainment industry.

Tkyl wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

That's how I read it.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/20/27...
Democracy is always getting in the way of getting things done. Next time they will attempt to strike more quickly.

Duoae wrote:

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

More like: a bill that was already bought and paid for has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills.

I'm surprised that the White House has taken any sort of nuanced stance here at all, as the Democrats are historically the preferred vendors for entertainment legislation. Could be that Obama saw the huge potential for public outcry and decided to cut his losses early to cash in on some positive PR.

This has happened occasionally; sometimes corporate written legislation hits surprise resistance from the public and it gets derailed when Congress gets scared. Usually that's just temporary and it comes back once the heat dies down (hey, look, Elysium's article on the front page...).

NathanialG wrote:
Tkyl wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

That's how I read it.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/20/27...
Democracy is always getting in the way of getting things done. Next time they will attempt to strike more quickly.

He has a point. If the SOPA voting hadn't been delayed due to that one guy getting bored and insulting the current speaker on Twitter it probably would have passed.

gregrampage wrote:
Tkyl wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

That's how I read it.

Yes. The government should just leave the laws about the entertainment industry to the experts...the entertainment industry.

While the first part of the quote was scary enough, I found the second part worse: "...the fact that it might be becoming a political issue is unfair to the content producers." You heard it. Not only are corporations people, but their wishes and desires are far, far more important then us mere meatbags.

OG_slinger wrote:
gregrampage wrote:
Tkyl wrote:
Duoae wrote:

Wait... Am i misreading that by thinking it says that "[a] bill has no business being decided by the legal apparatus that decides upon bills"?

That's how I read it.

Yes. The government should just leave the laws about the entertainment industry to the experts...the entertainment industry.

While the first part of the quote was scary enough, I found the second part worse: "...the fact that it might be becoming a political issue is unfair to the content producers." You heard it. Not only are corporations people, but their wishes and desires are far, far more important then us mere meatbags.

Content producers are like job creators. We should worship them.

The US government has closed down one of the world's largest filesharing websites, accusing its founders of racketeering, money laundering and presiding over "massive" online piracy.
According to prosecutors, Megaupload illegally cheated copyright holders out of $500m in revenue as part of a criminal enterprise spanning five years.

So wait, let me see if I have this straight...

As the CEO of Massey Energy, you preside over a company that falsifies safety records for a coal mine. Said safety violations eventually lead to people dying in your mine. Your punishment? Nothing.

As the CEO of MegaUpload.com, you preside over a company that allows people to upload files for free. Your punishment? 5 years in jail.

What am I missing here?

The entertainment industry paid congress $94 million to draft legislation. When that failed they enacted it out anyways.

I know that what's happening right now is depressing and worrisome, but surely I can't be the only one in abject wonder that we're now living in Shadowrun, right? Minus the magic, sure, but still.

Trying to publicly coerce the President in such a manner probably guarantees that he cannot cave to your demands. I also feel that it borders on illegality, and if it doesn't it should.

This Smith guy is running out of feet. He should stop aiming his gun at them. Even though he's withdrawn SOPA, we have other targets. He's got another bill out there that just hit the House floor, with nasty, nasty results for civil liberties if it passes.

The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, which, among other ridiculously vague and useless things, would require ISP's to store all customer's browsing history and personally identifiable information for over a year and make it available to law enforcement. All in the name of supposedly stopping child pornography.

It's far from dead. It was introduced last May, and was reported to the full house by the Committee of Energy and Commerce in December.

Do they have any idea of the scale we're talking about? Even just raw server logs as they're currently constituted without that extra personal tracking data would be terabytes a day for any decent sized provider. And apparently this guy doesn't understand the fine art of Private mode or the obfuscation practiced by most internet security packages even if a user isn't trying to go completely anonymous. If the data doesn't come off the client, the ISP can't record it.

The sheer technical impossibility of recording the data is just the tip of the iceberg. Trying to get any useful data out of something that large is not a trivial matter. Plus, I don't see any provisions for designating the format of the data so each provider would have their own and law enforcement agencies would have to figure out how to cope with all of them.

Security for this would be a nightmare. Every ISP would be maintaining an ever-growing pile of candy that hackers and even their own marketing departments would be salivating over. And with the scope of the data collection, this would make the Sony break-in look like nothing. No one in their right mind would ever even use their online banking ever again.

Not to even mention that if you really were trying to avoid this and serve up child porn, all it would take to get around this is to have your own server and maintain your own connection. The law limits the reporting to what is termed a "public accommodation", and by the definitions already tested in court a fully private network would be exempt. The costs are really not that bad. I've worked for two small business that did it for years. We had three T1s from a reputable telco for a little less than $1000 a month. And it's easy enough to setup a self-taught tape monkey like me can run it. Anyone who knows what he was doing could handle it with no problem. A couple dummy fronts over it and a strategy for moving the business info around would make it very hard to find.

More info on the new privacy bill.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...

Should we just convert the thread to a privacy/censorship catch all or make a new one for this new bill?

Edwin wrote:

More info on the new privacy bill.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...

Should we just convert the thread to a privacy/censorship catch all or make a new one for this new bill?

I'd say make a new one.

LarryC wrote:

I know that what's happening right now is depressing and worrisome, but surely I can't be the only one in abject wonder that we're now living in Shadowrun, right? Minus the magic, sure, but still.

2012 ain't over yet.