Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
khanacademy.org
Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
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Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#2Sal showed up at our weekly company picnic/lunch today and said something like, "All these sites are down cuz of SOPA, but everything I read is still so hard to understand," so he dove in and made this this morning. Pretty cool.
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#3Sal showed up at our weekly company picnic/lunch today and said something like, "All these sites are down cuz of SOPA, but everything I read is still so hard to understand," so he dove in and made this this morning. Pretty cool.
Personally, I think this is exactly what is needed. My girlfriend and I are home from work today because of a snow storm, and she wanted to check out thechive.com, but they are down protesting SOPA. I was explaining to her what SOPA is, and why I think it is a bad idea. She didn't want to read pages of material or call someone since we don't live in the States. I could have just pointed her to the 10 minute video and let her see for herself.
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#4Sal showed up at our weekly company picnic/lunch today and said something like, "All these sites are down cuz of SOPA, but everything I read is still so hard to understand," so he dove in and made this this morning. Pretty cool.
I find it really disappointing that the informational response to SOPA has been quantitative and not qualitative. Everyone and their dog have made (1) an infographic, (2) a video, and (3) a black-out or banner script.
This only serves to underscore what so many people don't get most of the time: the availability of information is not binary nor an issue necessarily aided by a proliferation of resources on the matter.
We see the same thing when we are teaching ourselves and others programming and git(!), and we would do well to see our failure to educate people on something so many intelligent and affluent people in technology oppose as a wake-up call in this issue and all other issues that depend on our ability to explain them and bring them to people's attention.
It's a perfect coincidence that we needed Sal Khan of all people to show us this - once again.
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#5Shows how effective khanacademy.org is when, after watching the entire video, I discovered I wasn't logged in and was disappointed I wouldn't get my points!
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#6All the blackout banners should link to this video.
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#7A very nice video, except the particular passage referred to has the clause "designed for..., has only limited purpose or use other than, or is marketed for..." violating various laws. I don't think any of his examples would fall under any of these categories.
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#8Shows how effective khanacademy.org is when, after watching the entire video, I discovered I wasn't logged in and was disappointed I wouldn't get my points!
The Vision of the Gamepocalypse is coming true. :)
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#9A very nice video, except the particular passage referred to has the clause "designed for..., has only limited purpose or use other than, or is marketed for..." violating various laws. I don't think any of his examples would fall under any of these categories.
I find it disturbing that even though I am still against SOPA and the likes, that the opposition seems to be willfully ignoring this portion. Unless I am totally misreading it, it would be very difficult for the likes of Youtube or Facebook to be included.
The language is still dangerous though, because the designed for clause seems to open things up. I can easily see BitTorrent being brought in to be "designed for" downloading illegal movies, because judges aren't likely to think downloading linux distributions is very significant alternative use. The thing that concerns me is that smaller companies or companies outside of the mainstream might not get much credit for having other purposes. Imagine if reddit had r/stealmovies, a judge might not care much about the rest of it if there are thousands of people using it to talk about infringing.
There is enough wrong with this bill to oppose it without resorting to hyperbolic threats.
edit: Thinking about it more, youtube might be a great example. Current youtube won't be brought down with this, but youtube in it's infancy very well might have been stomped out. Imagine explaining to a Judge, "no, you don't understand. Right now it might be used for mostly unauthorized music videos, but showing home videos of cats is going to be HUGE!"
Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA
#10Linking is not a crime. If we'll ever make any "Internet Freedom" laws or Constitutional Amendments, that definitely needs to be in there.
The 1st Amendment should already cover linking as speech, but apparently MPAA/RIAA and some in Congress disagree.