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Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

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Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#41

Post by weaksauce »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #35
weaksauce wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two scenarios that I can see: Without SOPA: Let's pretend that there is an innovative site that is going to be made in a few years that allows people to submit things to it and sell. This site gives some creative person a chance to make a full living. (this is actually happening now in many places) With SOPA: Two options: Site either does not get created at all because of fear of creating sites that might cross SOPA…

Although you could argue that without some piracy control the creative person will just have their content ripped off anyway so can't make a full living.

You can argue that but it's not really true. There are controls already in place. Giving them the ability to take down whole domains without any mediation is way too much power. The world needs checks and balances. The smaller artists will not benefit from this because they are not able to police things at that level.

The content producers need to make lawful content delivery a better experience than pirating things. I love steam because it makes things much easier to download, install and keep up to date. It's a better experience all around.

I am all for taking down websites that are gross offenders but this legislation is like cutting off your foot because you stubbed your toe.

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#42

Post by davidcuddeback »

weaksauce wrote: post #26
amichail wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But copyright enforcement needs to get stronger to give creative people a better chance of making a living from their creative work.

Two scenarios that I can see: Without SOPA: Let's pretend that there is an innovative site that is going to be made in a few years that allows people to submit things to it and sell. This site gives some creative person a chance to make a full living. (this is actually happening now in many places) With SOPA: Two options: Site either does not get created at all because of fear of creating sites that might cross SOPA…

I think you're missing one. With SOPA, the website could still get built and maybe it never gets taken down for whatever reason [1]. I'm against SOPA too, but I think the two options you provided in the scenario with SOPA present a false dichotomy. I don't want to see SOPA pass, but fallacies won't sway the opinions of intelligent people.

[1] Could be that the website owner polices their site effectively, or maybe they grease enough palms to keep their site. The reason doesn't matter. The point is, there are other possible outcomes.

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#43

Post by GHFigs »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #27
amichail wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But copyright enforcement needs to get stronger to give creative people a better chance of making a living from their creative work.

No, SOPA will only favor the people who take their cut from selling the work of the creatives. Metallica never lost a dime from Napster, the artists make all their money from touring, the Record label itself makes money from record sales. If only there were some mechanism where creatives could market and distribute to the masses on their own, they could cut out the middle men distributors who support SOPA..... ... ..

What makes you think that piracy (and counterfeiting, etc) would cease without middlemen?

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#44

Post by timwiseman »

amichail wrote: post #13
fennecfoxen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's not like ripping creative people off through piracy/whatever isn't already illegal...

But copyright enforcement needs to get stronger to give creative people a better chance of making a living from their creative work.

I'm not sure that's true. To be completely clear, I am strongly against piracy.

But I am not sure enforcement measures against piracy would actually help "creative people" much if at all. Cory Doctorow is a prime example who makes his work freely available but makes his living through his creative work. Perfect enforcement of copyright wouldn't have virtually no impact on his situation.

Obviously, that is just one anecdote. But we can see every single person making their living off of creative work as a counter-example right now as a counter-point since Piracy is currently rampant and while there is enforcement it is minimal compared to the emount of piracy that happens.

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#45

Post by timwiseman »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #33
weaksauce wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? with SOPA you are enabling the copyright holders to go after apple's entire distribution center because someone cloned tetris and the owners of tetris came after apple with an infringment claim. This takes down all of distribution not just the clone. Since the distribution is over the internet and name resolution is based on dns this is actually possible. unless apple changes it to be static IP addresses it woul…

The thing with this is I just can't imagine the App store getting shut down because of this, or even youtube. There would be a serious uproar if that happened, people wouldn't stand for it. More likely is that some pirate sites will die and others will just go deeper underground. The people who are likely to be scared into shutting up shop all together will be smaller distributors of independent or amateur content. I…

The thing with this is I just can't imagine the App store getting shut down because of this, or even youtube.

Those two are so well known and have so many lawyers at the ready they would be safe.

But, there are plenty of smaller, legitimate services and sites that would be shut down because of SOPA.

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#46

Post by waqf »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #37
amichail wrote: post #10

Shouldn't creative people support SOPA? Is SOPA really a war between creative people and analytical people?

SOPA represents a complete destruction of protections for free speech and due process on the internet. An allegation of wrong-doing is sufficient to trigger the government enforced complete shut-down of a website. Why should anyone support that regardless of what sort of pretext is used to justify such an abuse of power? Should we round up all single adult males over the age of 40 out of a fear of pedophilia in order…

(devil's advocate) Your analogy is bad because "rounding up" is something one Does Not Do Without Due Process, whereas deleting an intertube site is not. (America managed for 200 years without any intertubes at all, you know, so it can't be all that important.)

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#47

Post by scott_s »

igorgue wrote: post #31
igorgue wrote: post #9

I mean, he invented the internet what else do you expect? :-)

There's really no sense of humor here, guys! Downvote me here too! :-)

You've been here for over two years, so I'm surprised you haven't learned that HN considers such posts to be noise.

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#48

Post by crgt »

waqf wrote: post #46
InclinedPlane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SOPA represents a complete destruction of protections for free speech and due process on the internet. An allegation of wrong-doing is sufficient to trigger the government enforced complete shut-down of a website. Why should anyone support that regardless of what sort of pretext is used to justify such an abuse of power? Should we round up all single adult males over the age of 40 out of a fear of pedophilia in order…

(devil's advocate) Your analogy is bad because "rounding up" is something one Does Not Do Without Due Process, whereas deleting an intertube site is not. (America managed for 200 years without any intertubes at all, you know, so it can't be all that important.)

Perhaps take a look at the NDAA? Due process was just signed away. http://boingboing.net/2012/01/03/missing-portion-of-obama-ho...

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#49

Post by InclinedPlane »

waqf wrote: post #46
InclinedPlane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SOPA represents a complete destruction of protections for free speech and due process on the internet. An allegation of wrong-doing is sufficient to trigger the government enforced complete shut-down of a website. Why should anyone support that regardless of what sort of pretext is used to justify such an abuse of power? Should we round up all single adult males over the age of 40 out of a fear of pedophilia in order…

(devil's advocate) Your analogy is bad because "rounding up" is something one Does Not Do Without Due Process, whereas deleting an intertube site is not. (America managed for 200 years without any intertubes at all, you know, so it can't be all that important.)

A closer analogy is shutting down a printing press. America survived for 100 years before offset printing existed, so why not craft a law that excludes newspapers that use offset printing presses from first amendment protections?

Re: Al Gore Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

#50

Post by igorgue »

scott_s wrote: post #47
igorgue wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really no sense of humor here, guys! Downvote me here too! :-)

You've been here for over two years, so I'm surprised you haven't learned that HN considers such posts to be noise.

I know, but I like to tease, thanks for looking at my profile!
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