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How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

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Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#51

Post by idonthack »

danramteke wrote: post #30
maeon3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freedom was not nor ever will be won with words. Freedom is won from the barrell of a gun. words only have power when they are from someone ready to use action if they have no effect.

And sometimes freedom is won by marching for salt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

The peaceful independence movement in India was only able to achieve victory because it was an alternative to violent revolution advocated by other factions. The British recognized that continuing to resist the peaceful revolution would result in a violent revolution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hx-G1uhRqA#t=54m

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#52

Post by gyardley »

alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

While your Congressman has probably already made up his mind on this issue, you're not going to help him change it if your communication comes from a 'liberal' organization like the EFF.

Why don't you try writing him while incorporating some more conservative commentary? Here's a couple of links from the National Review, one of my morning reads:

http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/281962/larry-downes-sop...

http://www.nationalreview.com/media-blog/283537/sopa-battle-...

I'm sure you can find more with a little Google-fu.

One of the more interesting things about SOPA is that both its supporters and opponents are pretty bipartisan. You can't oppose (or support) it by indiscriminately supporting one party or the other.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#53

Post by ra »

notatoad wrote: post #40
alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

the response from your congressman's office was a form letter. the problem with letter writing campaigns is that after the first few most letters get stopped by the aides before they ever reach anybody of importance. congressmen have office hours. stop by and see if you can talk to him about it.

That's true, but there is a 'hack' to get around that. Generally new questions arriving at the office will not have prepared responses. New text can not usually be written by the staffers without being reviewed.

So, the trick is to raise 2 (unrelated or related) issues in your letter. Issue one is the real issue you are concerned about, and the other needs to be something low profile that will not already have a canned response.

That way a reply will need to be drafted by staffers and reviewed by someone (hopefully the actual politician).

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#54

Post by 1010100101 »

nknight wrote: post #19
quanticle wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much freer would the Internet have been if the DMCA had not been passed? Think of all the hours YouTube alone spends in policing itself and handling copyright takedown notices and imagine those hours spent improving YouTube or coming up with new video sharing services. The current copyright regime is tolerable. Tolerable and good are worlds apart.

YouTube would not exist today without the safe-harbor provisions of the DMCA. It would have been sued out of existence years ago. The DMCA did not create copyright law, it modified it, and pre-DMCA, YouTube would have had no protections.

And without a fair use exception to copyright, search engines like Google could not show matching web site excerpts in their results.

Imagine search engine results that consisted only of URL's.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#55

Post by roc »

BoppreH wrote: post #42
ghurlman wrote: post #4

Thanksgiving was the cutesy (but needed) Upgrade Your Parents' Browser Day. $winter_holiday_of_choice should include a Explain SOPA To Your Parents Lunch or something - we need to get as many level-headed against SOPA as possible.

Funny how people use "$winter_holiday_of_choice" to avoid religious bias, but end up ignoring the literal half of the planet where the holiday happens during summer. Not complaining, just pointing out the futility of the exercise. It would have made sense if SOPA was an American problem, but as it stands it threatens the internet for the whole world because of hosting locations and origin of technology companies.

> "Not complaining, just pointing out the futility of the exercise."

So you're saying we should go with $solstice_holiday_of_choice ?

Just because they didn't abstract sufficiently doesn't mean that abstraction is necessarily futile.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#56

Post by georgemcbay »

freehunter wrote: post #18
alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

Mr Congressman, you have lost my vote forever. Furthermore, I will be campaigning on behalf of $OPPONENT who still believes in freedom and our greatest liberties. The fact that we have great men like $OPPONENT proves American democracy still works.

Unfortunately it is incredibly rare to find a match for your hypothetical $OPPONENT that is both electable enough that your letter won't be laughed off and who actually fits the description of being a great man (or woman).

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#57

Post by 16s »

I was once the registered DMCA agent for a large organization. All of the registered agents are listed on the US Copyright's Office website so that rights holders can look-up the names and addresses to send notices when an IP address within that organization is found to have content that is thought to be infringing (P2P, music, movies, etc).

Fewer than 1 in 10 came to me (the person registered to receive the notices). Subcontractors working on behalf of rights holders would send notices to any email address that they could find. Some went to retired employees, transferred employees, etc. It got so bad that we put a comment in ARIN that specified the agent's contact address to try and stop it. Didn't work.

The DMCA requires a proper notice be sent to the registered agent and grants the organization safe-harbor. It is very well defined. Here is the official list of registered agents (the one and only list... but DMCA subcontractors don't read it):

http://www.copyright.gov/onlinesp/list/a_agents.html

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#58

Post by yummyfajitas »

gyardley wrote: post #52
alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

While your Congressman has probably already made up his mind on this issue, you're not going to help him change it if your communication comes from a 'liberal' organization like the EFF. Why don't you try writing him while incorporating some more conservative commentary? Here's a couple of links from the National Review, one of my morning reads: http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/281962/larry-downes-sop... http://w…

How is the EFF a liberal organization? Their primary agenda seems to be pro individual privacy, pro encryption, and anti-copyright.

Until 2001, some of those (encryption and privacy) were conservative issues. Now both parties tend to be in agreement and oppose the EFF on all of these issues.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#59

Post by sixtofour »

alttag wrote: post #11

I participated in the recent EFF push for contacting elected representatives regarding SOPA. I customized their pre-packaged letter greatly, adding both my experience and qualifications and expounding on the distrust from the tech industry to SOPA. The response from my (Republican) Congressman was a form letter telling me I was wrong, and regurgitating a the pro-SOPA talking points. I've been contemplating a rather s…

Post all three pieces somewhere (your letter, his non-response, and your severe response), then call it to the attention of everyone who has the slightest interest in his embarrassment, including news outlets whose only interest is selling ads via controversy.

Re: How does SOPA threaten Stack Overflow?

#60

Post by jim-greer »

jim-greer wrote: post #37
jamesmoss wrote: post #6

This is great but surely we need to be targeting a wider audience? SO is made up of tech enthusiasts, I imagine a large percentage of them have heard of SOPA and understand the issues. However they probably represent a tiny fraction of the population. Really we need the eBay's, AOL's and Craiglist's of this world to be running campaigns like this, getting the message out to the more casual internet user.

Craigslist might actually do it... I doubt AOL or eBay ever would.

I tweeted to Craig Newmark and he answered positively - here's hoping: http://twitter.com/#!/craignewmark/status/141604875581657088
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