Every site with user generated content (in Off-topic)

Will be in danger of being "disconnected" if this Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill becomes law. Please, if you live in the United States, please read this article regarding this new bill set to wreck DNS, among other things here in the US.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/15/speak-out-against-sopa-send-congress-a-physical-letter-in-just-a-few-clicks/

My letter opposing this bill has been sent.

Can you explain to me what you mean by "user generated content" and point out the section of the bill that pertains to that.

Bill here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:

Funding to websites can be cut (via ad networks and payment systems) at only an accusation from a rights-holder. A mechanic similar to the DMCA but much smaller in scope (the DMCA is only to remove infringing content); a mechanic which rights-holders have been known to abuse heavily even though its supposedly under penalty of perjury to do so.

Sent in a letter, focusing more on the infringement upon free speech without appeal or review. This bill had better not pass.

I'm writing a letter to Sander Levin now.

IANAL, but this seems like the most terrible section 102.c.2.A.i


From what I've ready, these kinds of protections already exist, however what this does, is allow a claimant to blow past all the niceties of court and get the "possibly" infringing site down as fast as possible, using the DNS as fodder in their personal war. The court proceedings would essentially occur after the site was already removed from DNS.

Nevermind the fact that this is essentially forcing foreign websites to conform to US Law or be removed from the DNS.

You should add the new Net Neutrality guidelines to the great ideas that will wreck the internet.

Fighting against censorship is much different then fighting against monetization of bandwidth. Every time I visit Google or YouTube, I am paying the telco/ISP for that bandwidth. Every time I visit Google or Facebook, Google and Facebook are ALSO already paying for that bandwidth.

What telcos and ISP's have noticed though, is that lots of people are going to the same site, and that same site is a big company with deep pockets, and they would very much like to find a way to extract some money from this company with big pockets.

The internet does not need MORE middlemen trying to extract money from websites, who are already paying for their bandwidth. If we didn't have some form of net neutrality, we would be imposing a new tax on all new startups and small businesses, as they would essentially need to pay TWICE for their bandwidth.

so far it doesnt sound good: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/at-web-censorship-hearing-congress-guns-for-pro-pirate-google.ars

:(

Gotta love the logic of passing unnecessary laws:

Record box office revenues set past 4 years in a row:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/piracy-once-again-fails-to-get-in-way-of-record-box-office.ars

And apparently not many Americans are hardcore pirates either:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/its-official-america-a-land-of-young-casual-pirates.ars

And this is why I think if everyone is Congress got fired... it wouldn't be a terrible idea.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/strange-bedfellows-nancy-pelosi-ron-paul-join-sopa-opposition.ars

With so many opposed to this, seems a good way to see which senate/house members are in Big Contents pocket.

http://www.yousaytoo.com/congressional-sopa-hearings-no-opponents-of-the-bill-allowed/1434936#.Tsl5xNcWPKM.tumblr

Your link, OB, has no references at all. A little digging shows that it is the effect of reblogging endlessly from the link that Pit posted at 2:58 on the 16th.

My point -- this already happened last week. Activists need to work on preventing the next step of the bill.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/even-the-business-software-alliance-now-backpedaling-on-sopa-support.ars