Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

I wanted to start a discussion about this bill here because it could profoundly impact everyone here on The Warpath. SOPA could cause a significant change to how we browse the internet in general and be particularly devestating for online forums, YouTube, Facebook, and Google. This bill essentially takes due process away from the site owners and starts us down a slippery slope that could lead us even farther down the internet censorship rabbit hole.

On the surface, most people would not object to stopping piracy. I respect intellectual property and think that the owners of that property should get a fair price for their goods. I feel as if many of the media-based industries are pretty far behind the curve, which contributes to the piracy -- but that subject is for another day.

The real issue comes with the fact that a site owner is going to be held liable for everything that happens on their site. For instance, if someone started posting links for illegal Redskins gear, live streams for the games, YouTube videos with the skins in it -- Matty is responsible. His site will get shut down and he has no real recourse to get that reversed. It requires either ridiculous amounts of moderation or mods having to approve every post before it is allowed through. Please think of Mrs. Smootsmack. She would never see her husband again!

If they are found in violation they will be removed from the DNS servers. That means if thewarpath was in violation, you would be forwarded to a page saying this site is suspect if pirating. However, instead of typing [url=http://www.thewarpath.net]The Warpath: Redskins Fan Site[/url] you typed [url=http://208.131.157.100]The Warpath: Redskins Fan Site[/url] The Warpath would still come up. Thus this would make 3rd party DNS servers the norm.

My explanation was far from eloquent, if you're interested in reading more about it Toms Hardware did an excellent write up of how it would affect their site. If this topic hits a sensitive spot, like it does for me, I suggest you reach out to your politicians. Many of us are outraged by this and GoDaddy took a huge hit because of their support of this bill, that they were both responsible for helping to draft and coincidentally exempt from the ramifications.

[url=http://www.tomshardware.com/news/toms-hardware-sopa-Stop-Online-Piracy-Act-PROTECT-IP-Senate,14393.html]Save Tom's, Stop SOPA[/url]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Reminds me of all the regulations surrounding the performance of copyrighted music in public. Will you be required to get an annual Web-posting license similar to my music performance license from BMI and ASCAP?
When at a party, folks get upset when they bring me some music they have and want it played but I have to refuse them because I don't know its pedigree and I have not paid the royalty fees on it. I can see where you will be faced with similar issues involving the material that is posted on your web site.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Online piracy is here to stay. Sure they'll start with the websites but eventually movie studios and record companies are going to want to move on to individuals who download music and movies. I'm glad that a good amount of Republican Senators and Congressman oppose the bill seeing as how they currently have a lot of seats in both houses.

The sad thing though is that the studios and record companies charge way to much for their products. Hence the appeal of piracy. They said back in the 80's when CD's first came out that the price would eventually go down as the cost of production decreased. Some 10, 15 years later companies are still trying to get $14 or $15 for a CD.

An HBO series single season on DVD cost something like $40 or $50 and anywhere from $60 to $80 on Blu Ray. Companies are trying to get $15 or $16 for a single movie on DVD and now are trying to squeeze more out of legitimate companies like NetFlix for the rights to other movies. ITunes had a great model for legitimate music downloads. People could buy 2 songs for $2. Then the record companies got greedy and pushed for the price to be raised. Now you have people downloading 1 song for $1.29 instead of 2 for $2. And worse then that the record companies now realize that in the digital age artist need them less and less.

I'm all for capitalism but the studios and record companies brought this on themselves and are now getting this ass kicked in a true free market system. And the ironic thing to is that piracy has increased exposure. People that wouldn't watch a TV show before because they had no idea what was going on could get caught up with previous episodes and then watch the current episodes with commercials. Musicians that they never heard of that get bunched with theme based torrents suddenly get noticed by illegal downloaders. And believe it or not a lot of people that download music illegally will go back to itunes and purchase legitimate versions of the songs they download.

Bottom line though is that this is censorship and an extension of the Patriot Act that will lead to more and more basic liberties being taken away.

Ironically if this gets passed VPN sales will probably end up going through the roof.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

It's amazing the amount of corruption in this law
[url=http://www.politicolnews.com/att-comcast-distribute-piracy-software-sopa/]ATT, Comcast Distribute Piracy Software-SOPA - Politicol News[/url]
[YT]WJIuYgIvKsc[/YT][YT]ahvmFL5Ra68[/YT]

[QUOTE]CNET and Download.com were the principle distributors of piracy software like Kazaa, Bearshare and Limewire, with each downloaded hundreds of millions of times. Not only that, but they literally provided instructions on how to download songs, even going so far as to recommend what copyright material to download and providing links to it on their sites.

The issue? CNET is owned by CBS/Viacom, one of the chief supporters of SOPA. The allegation in the video is that all these media companies, from Viacom to Time Warner to Disney, let consumers run wild with this software for years, and now get to step back saying “look at all this piracy!” when it’s their sites that distributed the software to illegally download content for decades. – Forbes[/QUOTE]


[QUOTE]House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has expressed opposition to the bill, as well as Representatives Darrell Issa (R-CA) and presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX), who joined nine Democrats to sign a letter to other House members warning that the bill would cause "an explosion of innovation-killing lawsuits and litigation."[80] [B]"Issa said the legislation is beyond repair and must be rewritten from scratch[/B]," reported The Hill.[81] Issa and Lofgren have announced plans for legislation offering "a copyright enforcement process modeled after the U.S. International Trade Commission's (ITC) patent infringement investigations."[29]
[/QUOTE]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Well, if this bill passes, life is gonna suck way more exponentially.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=mooby;871037]Well, if this bill passes, life is gonna suck way more exponentially.[/quote]

I don't believe it will pass. Granted it's a very real threat.

[url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57349540-281/sopa-opponents-may-go-nuclear-and-other-2012-predictions/]SOPA opponents may go nuclear and other 2012 predictions | Privacy Inc. - CNET News[/url]

Ironic seeing who is writing this article but nonetheless it brings up a good point. Anyway bottom line is that Google alone could be enough to stand up to the 120 or so other companies trying to get SOPA passed. You can then go on to include the likes of Twitter, YouTube (owned by Google), Linkedin, EBay, Amazon, and Yahoo among others that will start their own push to oppose the bill assuming they haven't already. IIRC Facebook has opposed the bill participating in a letter to what I believe is a Supreme Court justice but Zuckerberg has remained publicly neutral.

[url=http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111214/12310917086/is-facebook-selling-out-internet.shtml]Is Facebook Selling Out The Internet? | Techdirt[/url]

[quote]In newspapers across the country today, a who's who of massively successful entrepreneurs are asking Congress not to pass SOPA or PROTECT IP. On the list of people signing:
[LIST][*]Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape, Opsware, and Andreessen Horowitz[*]Mitchell Baker, co-founder of Mozilla Firefox[*]Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google[*]Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square[*]Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and Hunch[*]David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo[*]Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn[*]Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post[*]Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube[*]Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive[*]Elon Musk, co-founder of Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX[*]Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist[*]Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay[*]Biz Stone, co-founder of Obvious and Twitter[*]Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and Wikimedia[*]Evan Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Twitter[*]Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo[/LIST][/quote]

[quote]That said, there is one name that's oddly missing: Mark Zuckerberg. [B]Facebook did already come out against the bill, but Mark's name is not on here.[/B] Given the list of other names on here, there's no doubt he was asked, but for whatever reasons has chosen not to speak out. In asking around, it appears that he made the decision not to stick his neck out on this one, even as the company agrees that SOPA is bad.
[/quote]

Not to mention the majority of people don't like the idea of turning the internet into a legal minefield where clicking on the wrong site can result in litigation or termination of internet service. Plus keep in mind that parents have limited control of what their kids do online.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Basically says that messing with technology, one of the last competitive advantages for the US economy and a major catalyst for job creation is foolish. Also they would take major job creators like Google and Yahoo which would be bumped down in popularity in favor of offshore search engines that aren't censored and can't be blocked by SOPA.
[YT]eqHHwMNKL3I[/YT][YT]1kNq9Ca_5Kc[/YT]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

when computers used cassette to store data, games were pirated over radiowaves. you can't stop piracy... you can push it to anonymous proxied and fully encrypted networks running 3rd party dns, but you don't want to do that. Cause then you loose your ear to what's really happening, and people with aims far worse than downloading an mp3 can ride the new wave of the 2nd internet everyone is invisible. SOPA let's terrorists win :P


I mean, the last round they told isps they had to keep their logs for 2 years, so guess what happened? they stopped keeping logs of anything.


before photoshop was widely pirated, people had to learn it at work while being paid, now they come in with the skill set, so its easier to run photoshop in your business since the talent is widely available and the business HAS to be on the up and up.

for games its less clear, but plenty of studies show that the biggest music pirates spend the most money on music, people that pirate software wouldn't use it/buy it wasn't free, and piracy of TV, music, and books tends to lead to increased sales. I think games are the only place where companies really lose out, and that's why most PC games now are designed for consoles (ie xbox) in mind, cause the PC profit margin on non java/flash/mmos just isn't there (part of that is due to DRASTICALLY increased budget requirements on a tier 1 title though).

blah blah blah DMCA sucked, SOPA sucks, and you can't make good legislation from a bad concept.

slightly offtopic, so sorry, but it seems like every 3 years some other awful tech laws comes down the pipes that only seems to make sense to people who have no idea what the internet is or does and that LOTS of people and money is is involved in the current e-commerce system they're trying to severely cripple.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=That Guy;871056]when computers used cassette to store data, games were pirated over radiowaves. you can't stop piracy... you can push it to anonymous proxied and fully encrypted networks running 3rd party dns, but you don't want to do that. Cause then you loose your ear to what's really happening, and people with aims far worse than downloading an mp3 can ride the new wave of the 2nd internet everyone is invisible. SOPA let's terrorists win :P[/quote]

That's the funniest thing about this whole bill. It does everything but stop piracy. Heck it barely puts a dent in it. All the while screwing up everything else to appease Hollywood and the dying record industry. Stupid Hollywood. First they force us to sit through terrible movies now they want to mess up the internet.


[quote=That Guy;871056]

for games its less clear, but plenty of studies show that the biggest music pirates spend the most money on music, people that pirate software wouldn't use it/buy it wasn't free, and piracy of TV, music, and books tends to lead to increased sales. I think games are the only place where companies really lose out, and that's why most PC games now are designed for consoles (ie xbox) in mind, cause the PC profit margin on non java/flash/mmos just isn't there (part of that is due to DRASTICALLY increased budget requirements on a tier 1 title though).[/quote]

PC games are less popular for developers because of their impracticality. Granted piracy reduces the appeal but it's such an unstable market. Someone buys a gaming machine it becomes obsolete in 2 or 3 years if they're lucky. Meanwhile PS3 and 360 will have had a lifespan of around 10 years when it's all said and done. Developers get more time to familiarize themselves with the platform and when they finish the product they have a good idea as to what to expect when it comes to sales.

The more ambitious titles like Crysis and Battlefield I believe are basically R&D for the next generation of consoles all the while getting a chance to produce sales. Theres also stuff like WOW but those are more niche markets that have excellent revenue models.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

the highest margin PC games are MMOs or flash/java "app" type titles (like minecraft).
WoW makes over 5mill profit per MONTH last i heard and minecraft has sold like $10mill worth or something insane.

ID, valve, and epic have basically moved from game producers to engine producers, so any sales on their "demo" products is just gravy.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=Dirtbag59;871020]Online piracy is here to stay. Sure they'll start with the websites but eventually movie studios and record companies are going to want to move on to individuals who download music and movies. I'm glad that a good amount of Republican Senators and Congressman oppose the bill seeing as how they currently have a lot of seats in both houses.

The sad thing though is that the studios and record companies charge way to much for their products. Hence the appeal of piracy. They said back in the 80's when CD's first came out that the price would eventually go down as the cost of production decreased. Some 10, 15 years later companies are still trying to get $14 or $15 for a CD.

An HBO series single season on DVD cost something like $40 or $50 and anywhere from $60 to $80 on Blu Ray. Companies are trying to get $15 or $16 for a single movie on DVD and now are trying to squeeze more out of legitimate companies like NetFlix for the rights to other movies. ITunes had a great model for legitimate music downloads. People could buy 2 songs for $2. Then the record companies got greedy and pushed for the price to be raised. Now you have people downloading 1 song for $1.29 instead of 2 for $2. And worse then that the record companies now realize that in the digital age artist need them less and less.

I'm all for capitalism but the studios and record companies brought this on themselves and are now getting this ass kicked in a true free market system. And the ironic thing to is that piracy has increased exposure. People that wouldn't watch a TV show before because they had no idea what was going on could get caught up with previous episodes and then watch the current episodes with commercials. Musicians that they never heard of that get bunched with theme based torrents suddenly get noticed by illegal downloaders. And believe it or not a lot of people that download music illegally will go back to itunes and purchase legitimate versions of the songs they download.

Bottom line though is that this is censorship and an extension of the Patriot Act that will lead to more and more basic liberties being taken away.

Ironically if this gets passed VPN sales will probably end up going through the roof.[/quote]

Really so if I decided to sell my 2004 Ford Explorer for $16,000 and because I have asked too much it will be my fault if someone just steals it.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=firstdown;871241]Really so if I decided to sell my 2004 Ford Explorer for $16,000 and because I have asked too much it will be my fault if someone just steals it.[/quote]

:doh: Is the Ford Explorer something you yourself mass produce for the masses? Do you earn money related to it in thousands of other ways besides selling it in one form to consumers?

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

if you ask for 30% over value you're going to have a hard time selling it, especially when other people are offering it for free. I don't know how you got to there from that post though fd.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=firstdown;871241]Really so if I decided to sell my 2004 Ford Explorer for $16,000 and because I have asked too much it will be my fault if someone just steals it.[/quote]

You're talking about outright theft with your Ford Explorer example. I think Matty posted this, or something like it, a while back.
[IMG]http://www.megaleecher.net/uploads/piracy-is-theft.jpg[/IMG]

Either way it's apples to oranges. And on top of that regardless of your feelings on piracy, as stated before this law does little, if anything to reduce piracy. Forget stopping it, it barely reduces it. All while screwing up the rest of the internet and crippling the last major competitive advantage for the US economy. Everyone should be opposed to this law, not just people that use torrents.

For the most part it boils down to a lot of hollywood big wigs and technologically illiterate politicians with little or no understanding on the inner workings of the net trying to control something they can't. And the sad part is, if the CNET example I posted earlier is legit, the studios that are spearheading this law are the same ones that gave us the damn software to begin with.

Lucky for us reason is likely to win out but the fact that this proposal has gotten as far as it has is disturbing.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Theft is theft you guys just don't want to call it that because you fell its OK to do.

So using that example I guess you don't have a problem is someone slips you a fake $100 bill. After all the original is still in the hands of the owner.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=firstdown;872662]Theft is theft you guys just don't want to call it that because you fell its OK to do.

So using that example I guess you don't have a problem is someone slips you a fake $100 bill. After all the original is still in the hands of the owner.[/quote]

That's not the same. A fake $100 bill is valueless. Pirated content is not.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Whats amazing to me is the power of populist movements that occure over the internet. When netflix, tried to introduce Qwister the online community rebelled and taught Netflix a lesson. When BoA rolled out 5 dollar ATM debit card charges the internet got pissed and stopped them from implementing that fee. Most recently Verizon tried to start a 2 dollar charge for one time phone or online payments... it didnt work out. GoDaddy lost 80k domains and pulled its support of SOPA.[/FONT][/COLOR]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=Lotus;872669]That's not the same. A fake $100 bill is valueless. Pirated content is not.[/quote]

So your saying that pirated content has value and is actual a bigger crime. Good point.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=firstdown;872662]Theft is theft you guys just don't want to call it that because you fell its OK to do.

So using that example I guess you don't have a problem is someone slips you a fake $100 bill. After all the original is still in the hands of the owner.[/quote]

Again apples to oranges. You're comparing outright fraud that results in actual shrinkage to copying a file. If I take a fake $100 bill to Best Buy and buy $100 of merchandise, Best Buy has lost a $100 of inventory that they can never sell again. Any college student thats taken Business 101 understands the value of physical inventory and the significance of someone actually stealing it.

[quote]Technically, inventory costs include warehousing and insurance expenses associated with storing unsold merchandise. [/quote]

Also remember if you've ever recorded a song off the radio, you've engaged in piracy. TV companies tried to get time shifting technology like VCR's to be marked as a violation of copyright law. So it's all right to record a show on DVR and skip the commercials but if someone downloads it off bittorrent they should be sued or thrown in jail?

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc]Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url].


[quote]Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984),[1] also known as the "Betamax case", is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use. The Court also ruled that the manufacturers of home video recording devices, such as Betamax or other VCRs (referred to as VTRs in the case), cannot be liable for infringement. The case was a boon to the home video market as it created a legal safe haven for the technology, which also significantly benefited the entertainment industry through the sale of pre-recorded movies.
[/quote]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

The piracy and console vs PC discussions are probably better suited for another thread.

Firstdown. The problem with this bill is it doesn't actually do anything to combat piracy. People that want to pirate can easily get around this and still get all of the content they want. What it kills is forums, help sites, youtube, etc.

What we're suffering from is ignorance from our elected official. Most of these people are the age of our grandparents... Anyone elses grandparents have trouble checking their e-mail, let alone writing legislation for something they can't comprehend?

What it comes down to is this bill is about censorship. I don't have a problem in taking strides to reduce actual piracy. However, people posting videos while doing a review of a product can get taken down for trademark issues. That, to me, is a huge problem.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=Daseal;872731]The piracy and console vs PC discussions are probably better suited for another thread.

Firstdown. The problem with this bill is it doesn't actually do anything to combat piracy. People that want to pirate can easily get around this and still get all of the content they want. What it kills is forums, help sites, youtube, etc.

What we're suffering from is ignorance from our elected official. Most of these people are the age of our grandparents... [B]Anyone elses grandparents have trouble checking their e-mail, let alone writing legislation for something they can't comprehend?[/B]

What it comes down to is this bill is about censorship. I don't have a problem in taking strides to reduce actual piracy. However, people posting videos while doing a review of a product can get taken down for trademark issues. That, to me, is a huge problem.[/quote]

lol too true

hell some can't even understand how to use voicemail let alone e-mail, and don't even get them near a smart phone.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=Dirtbag59;872698]Again apples to oranges. You're comparing outright fraud that results in actual shrinkage to copying a file. If I take a fake $100 bill to Best Buy and buy $100 of merchandise, [B]Best Buy has lost a $100 of inventory that they can never sell again.[/B] Any college student thats taken Business 101 understands the value of physical inventory and the significance of someone actually stealing it.



Also remember if you've ever recorded a song off the radio, you've engaged in piracy. TV companies tried to get time shifting technology like VCR's to be marked as a violation of copyright law. So it's all right to record a show on DVR and skip the commercials but if someone downloads it off bittorrent they should be sued or thrown in jail?

[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Universal_City_Studios,_Inc"]Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/URL].[/quote]

So when you illegally down load a song and the song writer does not get paid for the sale he is not loosing anything? Then times this by the millions of people down loading music and its adds up to allot more then $100.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=Daseal;872731]The piracy and console vs PC discussions are probably better suited for another thread.

Firstdown. The problem with this bill is it doesn't actually do anything to combat piracy. People that want to pirate can easily get around this and still get all of the content they want. What it kills is forums, help sites, youtube, etc.

What we're suffering from is ignorance from our elected official. Most of these people are the age of our grandparents... Anyone elses grandparents have trouble checking their e-mail, let alone writing legislation for something they can't comprehend?

What it comes down to is this bill is about censorship. I don't have a problem in taking strides to reduce actual piracy. However, people posting videos while doing a review of a product can get taken down for trademark issues. That, to me, is a huge problem.[/quote]

Well said, Daseal!

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=Daseal;872731] However, people posting videos while doing a review of a product can get taken down for trademark issues. That, to me, is a huge problem.[/quote]

well, it's not as long as every review is nothing less than shameless corporate shilling. see? this really isn't a problem after all ;) if they're only going to remove negative reviews, all you've got to do is never say anything negative.

so simple.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=firstdown;872760]So when you illegally down load a song and the song writer does not get paid for the sale he is not loosing anything? Then times this by the millions of people down loading music and its adds up to allot more then $100.[/quote]

Artist are barely loosing anything to begin with. They're better off getting their music out there and encouraging people to see them live then they are getting $23 (divided 4 or 5 ways) for every $1,000 sold (assuming they won't get deducted for their "advance") It's widely accepted that touring is where the money is for musicians. Not record sales. Before they needed record companies to get their name out there so people would play to see them live.

So by supporting the record industry and going against piracy you are effectively taking money out of the musicians pocket and putting it back into the pockets of the suits that like to sue 12 year old kids for downloading songs.
[url=http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml]RIAA Accounting: Why Even Major Label Musicians Rarely Make Money From Album Sales | Techdirt[/url]

[quote]Of course, it's actually even more ridiculous than this report makes it out to be. Going back ten years ago, Courtney Love famously laid out the details of recording economics, where the label can make $11 million... and the actual artists make absolutely nothing. It starts off with a band getting a massive $1 million advance, and then you follow the money:[/quote]

[quote]And that explains why huge megastars like Lyle Lovett have pointed out that he sold 4.6 million records and never made a dime from album sales. It's why the band 30 Seconds to Mars went platinum and sold 2 million records and never made a dime from album sales. You hear these stories quite often.
[/quote]

[url=http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=86535&page=1#.TwPI6tRAY-A]Concert Tours Are Where the Real Money Is - ABC News[/url]

[quote]Performers frequently moan about never seeing a royalty check from their record label, [B]no matter how many discs they sell[/B]. But a top concert draw can take home 35 percent of the night's gate and up to 50 percent of the dollar flow from merchandise sold at the show. The labels get none of it.[/quote]

And of course the RIAA, the cartel that benefits from the sale of music isn't exactly innocent in all this. Remember when I told you that they brought this on themselves.
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2289224.stm]BBC NEWS | Business | Music groups settle on CD price-fixing[/url]
[quote]The world's five largest music companies and three biggest music retailers have agreed to pay $143m (£91m) to settle a two year CD price-fixing case, although they would not admit any wrong-doing.

The case was launched in the US in August 2000 as a lawsuit supported by most US states alleging that the music industry had artificially inflated CD prices between 1995 and 2000.[/quote]

So it's alright for Record companies to engage in collusion and violate anti-trust laws to make money (before Napster mind you) but if some high school kid downloads music he's a criminal?

[url=http://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/news/anti-piracy-movie-ads-caught-using-pirated-music/60075.htm]Anti-Piracy Movie Ads Caught Using Pirated Music - Entertainment News - Pedestrian TV[/url]

[quote]We all know how the rest goes, because thanks to the Motion Picture Association Of America and their foreign associates, every time you hire a DVD, you have to sit through this ad before you get to the main menu.[B] But in what must be the most delicious slice of irony served this year, it has just been discovered that that the music used to soundtrack this 50-second pain in the ass is actually stolen.[/B][/quote]

The ironic thing about all of this though is the fact that I still support artist by actually buying their music on Itunes. I'm always sure to buy a gift card every month to buy songs and download TV shows like How I Met Your Mother. On top of that I have a Netflix account.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

a lot of bands are now renting out the venues they play in so they can take the concession money too... and a lot of them are also dumping their lighting rigs and just hiring it out to a random contractor from whatever city there in and renting equipment. they can tour two weeks a year and make more than you or I would in 3 years, so I'm not sure piracy is a huge personal concern economically.

that said - my parent's have cable - I don't (and haven't since 2003) - yet I have a slingbox in their home and can watch their cable 24/7 365 anywhere in the world for free (well, the box was $60) - is that pirating TV, cause it's perfectly legal (and good luck finding another way to watch a skins game in kyrgyzstan). I skip the commercials too... evil.

I don't think either of those points is really on topic :/ but piracy and unlimited free duplication is kind of a weird concept to a legal system built on physical ownership of things. and being responsible for real time managment of a million concurrent users is beyond feasible. Someone can anonymously post nazi propaganda on youtube and their held to the same legal responsibility as if they posted and endorsed it (as proposed and interpreted) - the current system is to notify them and then they'll have it removed, which seems much more fair than blacking out the site or forcing us to keep a running list of ip addresses (then everyone could just go to ://you.tube/ and get redirected - stupidity averted!.

If you want to stop piracy, start with education. if you blanket block piratebay, people will just proxy around it. our own government has created a program called triangle specifically designed to share files past firewalls (to spread propaganda into china), and of course, a tool being a tool, kids use it at school to pass mp3s around their schools firewall.

and if you want a copy of that program, email VoA.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Best part though of the RIAA's argument against piracy and how it's ruining music is this.

[URL="http://torrentfreak.com/artists-make-more-money-in-file-sharing-age-than-before-100914/"]Artists Make More Money in File Sharing Age Than Before It[/URL]

[QUOTE]An extensive study into the effect of digitalization on the music industry in Norway has shed an interesting light on the position of artists today, compared to 1999. While the music industry often talks about artists being on the brink of bankruptcy due to illicit file-sharing, the study found that the number of artists as well as their average income has seen a major increase in the last decade.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]
After crunching the music industry’s numbers the researchers found that total industry revenue grew from 1.4 billion Norwegian kronor in 1999 to 1.9 billion in 2009. After adjusting this figure for inflation this comes down to a 4% increase in revenues for the music industry in this time period. Admittedly, this is not much of a growth, but things get more interesting when the research zooms in on artist revenue.

In the same period when the overall revenues of the industry grew by only 4%, [B]the revenue for artists alone more than doubled with an increase of 114%. After an inflation adjustment,[/B] artist revenue went up from 255 million in 1999 to 545 million kronor in 2009.

Some of the growth can be attributed to the fact that the number of artists increased by 28% in the same time period. However, per artist the yearly income still saw a 66% increase from 80,000 to 133,000 kronor between 1999 and 2009. In conclusion, one could say that artists are far better off now than they were before the digitization of music started.[/QUOTE]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Dirtbag you seem to really know all about this. Do you have a site this could affect?LOL

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=firstdown;873302]Dirtbag you seem to really know all about this. Do you have a site this could affect?LOL[/quote]

Just a site called the Pirate Bay. No big deal. Small site, no one ever goes there. Lol.

Anyway, regardless of how people on all three sides of the piracy debate feel, we should all agree that this bill is a terrible idea. Not only is it unconstitutional but it has the potential to stunt the growth of the internet like a bodybuilding kid on a diet of cigarettes and caffeine. Sites that we love like YouTube would become reduced by as much as 80%. Heck even the Warpath can be punished for us linking to a video with copy-written content, in spite of fair use.

And again the ironic part in all of this is that it barely puts a dent in online piracy.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[url=http://news.yahoo.com/wikipedia-blackout-3-847-673-english-language-pages-190506843.html]Wikipedia to blackout all 3,847,673 English-language pages to protest PIPA - Yahoo! News[/url]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Funny story about the other party thats claiming to loose money due to online piracy.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting]Hollywood accounting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]

[QUOTE]Hollywood accounting (also known as Hollywood bookkeeping)[1] refers to the opaque accounting methods used by the film, video and television industry to budget and record profits for film projects. Expenditures can be inflated to reduce or eliminate the reported profit of the project thereby reducing the amount which the corporation must pay in royalties or other profit-sharing agreements, as these are based on the net profit.
[/QUOTE]

[url=http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/13500315912/hollywood-accounting-darth-vader-not-getting-paid-because-return-jedi-still-isnt-profitable.shtml]Hollywood Accounting: Darth Vader Not Getting Paid, Because Return Of The Jedi Still Isn't Profitable | Techdirt[/url]

[QUOTE]“I get these occasional letters from Lucasfilm saying that we regret to inform you that as Return of the Jedi has never gone into profit, we’ve got nothing to send you. Now here we’re talking about one of the biggest releases of all time,” said Prowse. “I don’t want to look like I’m bitching about it,” he said, “but on the other hand, if there’s a pot of gold somewhere that I ought to be having a share of, I would like to see it.”
[/QUOTE]

So basically they're claiming to loose money to online piracy when in reality these studios have been using accounting tricks for years to claim losses. Apparently the Enron shell company accounting trick is also pretty common in Hollywood.

[url=http://www.alexhopmann.com/2007/07/07/enron-and-hollywood-accounting/]Enron and Hollywood Accounting » Alex Hopmann’s Blog[/url]

[QUOTE]One thought occured to me- the type of schemes that Enron used to do fake accounting to pump up their profits remind me of the kind of schemes that the Hollywood studios use (in reverse) to make sure that films never have a profit and thus they don’t have to pay out percentages to various folks who have a stake in the film. For those that aren’t familiar with it, having a percentage of the profit in a typical film has become a real joke since even films that rake in $100s of millions of dollars world-wide somehow always end up not making a profit. Strange that the studios keep paying for them when they never make any money?
[/QUOTE]


[QUOTE=CRedskinsRule;876328][url=http://news.yahoo.com/wikipedia-blackout-3-847-673-english-language-pages-190506843.html]Wikipedia to blackout all 3,847,673 English-language pages to protest PIPA - Yahoo! News[/url][/QUOTE]

Good for them. Plus it's in Wales so not only do we get the full benefit of the blackout but we also still get to use Wiki. FTMFW!

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Matty is thewarpth going to be blacked out tomorrow??!?!?!?!??!!![/FONT][/COLOR]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=mlmpetert;876506][COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]Matty is thewarpth going to be blacked out tomorrow??!?!?!?!??!!![/FONT][/COLOR][/quote]

Yes, and only because you dared to ask. Had you not said anything nothing would've happened. See what you've done now?

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

^ my bad

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

I needed Wikipedia at 12:04am 1/18/2012. And Google has electrical tape covering the doodle..

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[quote=diehard;876730]I needed Wikipedia at 12:04am 1/18/2012. And Google has electrical tape covering the doodle..[/quote]

You can still view Wikipedia. Just search for whatever you want on Google and click the grey arrow box to the right of the Google search link. That should bring up a picture of the page with the words "[COLOR="Blue"]Cached[/COLOR]" and [COLOR="blue"]Similar [/COLOR]near the top of the picture in blue letters. Click on [COLOR="Indigo"][B]Cached [/B][/COLOR]and you can view the page.

You'll have to go back to google to view other wikipedia pages as you can't use wiki's search feature but for the most part you can still use wikipedia.

So for example
[url=http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3HuptPfjMFEJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Til_Death+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]'Til Death - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]

vs the blackout link
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Til_Death]'Til Death - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]

At the same time keep in mind that the Wikipedia blackout is an example of what to expect should SOPA or PIPA pass and be made into a bill.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

From Wikipedia's [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more"]statement page[/URL] about the blackout:

[QUOTE]Is it still possible to access Wikipedia in any way?

Yes. During the blackout, Wikipedia is accessible on mobile devices and smart phones. You can also view Wikipedia normally by disabling JavaScript in your browser, as explained on this Technical FAQ page. Our purpose here isn't to make it completely impossible for people to read Wikipedia, and it's okay for you to circumvent the blackout. We just want to make sure you see our message. [/QUOTE]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

[url]https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/[/url]

Sign the petition from google.

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

Heard this on the radio this morning.

[url=http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2012/01/sopa-sponsor-lamar-smiths-campaign-website-violated-copyright-laws/]SOPA Sponsor Lamar Smith’s Campaign Website Violated Copyright Laws[/url]

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]I think rational people agree that something needs to be done to better enforce and control online piracy, however, the proposed law seems to give much more power then what’s actually needed. I don’t understand why people keep thinking giving more power to the federal govt is a good thing?[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana] [/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]I have a good friend from Thailand that was on a visa while in America. She moved back to Thailand about 8 months ago and hates it partly because of internet there. She doesn’t have American internet, its severely restricted. Restriction is a bad thing. [/FONT][/COLOR]

Re: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
 

You know how they could do something about piracy? Make their product cheaper. When you overcharge for your product, people are going to steal it. Greedy ass movie companies should understand this. In fact, I find it one of the most ironic and hypocritical things ever for the movie industry to complain about theft and piracy yet it's entire foundation came from the theft of Louis Lumiere's invention.


Even now, the movie industry steals people's ideas and stories to cash in on them. They are no different than any other major corporation when it comes to squeezing the people for every cent they can while showing little to no morals in how they accomplish it.

[url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/blogs/thr-esq/man-dreamworks-stole-kung-fu-56811]Man Who Says DreamWorks Stole 'Kung Fu Panda' Wins Round in Court - THR, Esq.[/url]

Seems hollywood had no problems stealing from this man and making billions of dollars off him either.



[url=http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-isnt-killing-the-movie-industry-greed-is-100222/]Piracy Isn’t Killing The Movie Industry, Greed Is | TorrentFreak[/url]


[quote]The greed of the music studios hasn’t gone unnoticed by Paul Uniacke, head of the Video Ezy and Blockbuster video rental chains. “Studio greed is what’s holding back video-on-demand,” he said in response to the studios demands to pay huge sums of money upfront if they want to offer on-demand streams.



“Movie studios are still as arrogant as the music moguls were before digital downloads and piracy destroyed them. The only thing that’s protecting the movie studios (from more widespread illegal downloading) now is file size,” Uniacke added.[/quote]