The wave of online protests against two Congressional bills that aim to curtail copyright violations on the Internet is gathering momentum.
Wikipedia is the latest Web site to decide to shut on Wednesday in protest against the two Congressional bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act, often called SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, which is often called PIPA.
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Reddit is also participating. In lieu of the website, American visitors will see information about the bill.
No, Wikipedia isn't built on copyright violations. But the SOPA and PIPA law proposals are going much further than to just protect copyright. Many big companies are protesting against these proposed laws. I don't know the details but as far as I know these laws propose to put heavy censorship on the whole web, where any company who doesn't like what someone writes can have the website shutdown, or even websites that link to the website.
John Jai wrote:Bill says to curtail copyright violation. Wikipedia is built on such violations?
Let's say some fool posts an pirated whatever on wikipedia. Before wikipedia takes it down someone says "wikipedia hosts pirated content; let's delist them". Shouldn't wikipedia get the opportunity to fix it before facing a large/fatal penalty? These feels like another case of big media trying to have a solution that is so much worse than the problem.
Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:...Let's say some fool posts an pirated whatever on wikipedia. Before wikipedia takes it down someone says "wikipedia hosts pirated content; let's delist them". Shouldn't wikipedia get the opportunity to fix it before facing a large/fatal penalty? .
When I read this thread first, I could actually not figure out what it was actually about. But I think whenever it comes to laws or acts, they need to be carefully framed, because they are often often 'read between the lines' or I must say even between the individual words. Back to wikipedia, and sites whose content is mainly driven not by themselves but by its users, be it a blog, are very tricky to handle in terms of copyrights. "Who should be blamed for the copyright post?" the host or the poster? Jeanne, I can not think that wikipedia can be excused or be given a temporary time-line to 'fix' a pirated content (especially when you are in process of framing/enforcing a law or act ). Because this might lead to a strange scenario where in say, a much awaited new movie in the town can be put on the internet(again say not by the host but by the poster), and be distributed/downloaded and say after the 'time-line' be taken or 'fixed' off! !! The copyright-violation-business is done and it is all done well within the 'time-line' of the law!
Wikipedia has a page that explains what it means and why they're protesting.
By the way, also for JavaRanch these bills would be very harmful. It sometimes happens that people (knowingly or unknowingly) post illegally copied material, or links to illegally copied material, in a forum post. The moderators usually take care of removing those things, but imagine that JavaRanch would be blacklisted because of this!
John Jai
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We can add another rule besides "Be Nice" stating no posting of copyright violations and it's like parking at owner's risk. Javaranch cannot be held because of violated postings and the individual is. Will that suffice?
Akhilesh Trivedi
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Posts: 1351
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John Jai wrote:We can add another rule besides "Be Nice" stating no posting of copyright violations and it's like parking at owner's risk. Javaranch cannot be held because of violated postings and the individual is. Will that suffice?
That may suffice, but how do you convince 'law-people' or the guy whose content is copied here. Its not about parking at owner's risk. It is about whose vehicle is parked and how to deal with it.?? And it is more vigorous, a vehicle has an owner but 'literature/art' have a copyright owner, while you can not ctrl-c ctrl-v a vehicle it is as easy for later case.
John Jai wrote:We can add another rule besides "Be Nice" stating no posting of copyright violations and it's like parking at owner's risk. Javaranch cannot be held because of violated postings and the individual is. Will that suffice?
If these new laws would be in effect then no, such a rule would not suffice. These laws would mean that anybody who complains about illegal material on JavaRanch, or even only a link to illegal material, could have JavaRanch be taken off the web. Doesn't matter if JavaRanch told its users that it's not allowed.
To further muddy the waters...if a company complains that JavaRanch is hosting pirated material, according to the law, they don't even have to tell us they are taking us down. There does not seem to be any remedy to get us back online. There is no independant, 3rd party (such a a court) to decide such things, or to hear an appeal (at least as far as I've read).
Basically, the DNS is NOT ALLOWED to tell anyone how to get to JavaRanch. This is a fundamental breach of the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It may be illegal for me to BUILD a bomb, but it is NOT illegal for me to tell you how to build it - that is protected as free speech.
John Jai
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So you guys in US feel that this law will be passed at sometime? What's the alternative that's being proposed to the law makers? Why suddenly this bill got momentum? Is there any election coming near by?
And with the car analogy - I complain ypu are parked illegally. Your car is towed but we don't tell you where it has been taken or how to get it back.
Christian Peacock
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Joined: Mar 02, 2010
Posts: 5
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To hold the web site owner responsible for illegal content posted by others is just ridiculous. It's like prosecuting someone for holding stolen goods that have been dumped on their property by a passing thief.
Like everything else, the web is being turned from something of pleasure for many into a commercial tool for the few.
Christian Peacock wrote:To hold the web site owner responsible for illegal content posted by others is just ridiculous. It's like prosecuting someone for holding stolen goods that have been dumped on their property by a passing thief. Like everything else, the web is being turned from something of pleasure for many into a commercial tool for the few.
Its far worse that this. The bill says that anyone claiming that their copyright has been violated can cause the "bad site" DNS to be broken. Breaking DNS is not something that any technical person accepts -- managing DNS properly is hard enough already.
I write software for a living, there is very little difference between the bits I write and the bits in an album or in a movie. I want to get paid, I expect that others do too. So there is a real problem. But SOPA and PIPA are not real solutions. They are stupid, evil, arbitrary, and infeasible.
I have no idea why Google pushed for an on-line petition. Congresscritters do not care about them.
The only thing that congresscritters care about are voters in their district. You have one Congressman/woman, and two Senators. Those are the only folks you can impact, unless you give money to the EFF, ACLU, EPIC, etc. When you talk to them, you have to give your name and your address, so they can verify that you vote in a place that matters to them.
I live "inside the Beltway" so calling Capitol Hill is a local call for me. I called the Capitol switchboard three times yesterday to tell each of my three congresscritters what I thought. It took only a minute or two per office. It took a couple of tried, the switchboard was overloaded.
Bear Bibeault
Author and opinionated walrus
Marshal
Henry Wong wrote:Yeah. Kinda feel sorry for congress. Having to choose between losing millions of dollars from lobbyists or supporting their constituents.
Usually, they pick the lobbyists and money. A friend of mine was the Director of Communications for the US House a few years back. He was in charge of telephones, networking, etc. He offered to upgrade their systems to a modern email system so that the Congressman/woman could get in better communications with their constituents. He was told in no uncertain terms: the congressmen do not want to have better communications with the constituents.
This battle is not close to being over. SOPA lives and may polymorph into more laws in the future.
Randall Twede
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i didn't read all the replies to this but i will say this. this is not the first time they have tried to pass overreaching laws like this in the name of protecting copyrights. they were doing it when i was in school the last time around 2003 or so.
subject: wikipedia and reddit protesting web bills on wednesday
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