This is too funny...
The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#2While it's possible that he authored his own political website, I would strongly suspect this is a proxy blame. I am all for blaming Lamar Smith as much as the next guy. My issue is assigning a state to an individual when another individual performed the state changing action. The furthest it is fair to place that assignment is shared with the entire group.
edit, apparently downvoting is the same as disagreeing here too. sigh. guess this teaches me to share my honest thoughts and to continue chasing integers.
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#3This really goes to show just how easy it would be to be accused and shutdown as a copyright violator. In this case it was probably an issue of the web designer recklessly searching for a Texas-y background and Congressman Smith unknowingly using the copyrighted image. Sure, it's irresponsible, but it's an understandable mistake to make.
Enter sites with untold volumes of user-submitted content. To begin, it's unlikely that the site owner will be able to police the content due to the sheer scale of it. But what's worse is that if content (like this copyrighted image) is found on the site, there is no immediately clear way to know if its use and publication is licensed or not. (I know this is basically a rehash of our old arguments.)
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#4While it's possible that he authored his own political website, I would strongly suspect this is a proxy blame. I am all for blaming Lamar Smith as much as the next guy. My issue is assigning a state to an individual when another individual performed the state changing action. The furthest it is fair to place that assignment is shared with the entire group. edit, apparently downvoting is the same as disagreeing here…
I agree that it's unfair to accuse Congressman Smith of directly and maliciously using pirated content. However, the irony of the matter is that under his own proposed bill, the congressman's site would be blacklisted regardless. One reason SOPA is such a bad idea is because it does precisely what you take issue with by assigning the label 'copyright infringer' to the congressman without any due process.
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#5While it's possible that he authored his own political website, I would strongly suspect this is a proxy blame. I am all for blaming Lamar Smith as much as the next guy. My issue is assigning a state to an individual when another individual performed the state changing action. The furthest it is fair to place that assignment is shared with the entire group. edit, apparently downvoting is the same as disagreeing here…
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Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#6While it's possible that he authored his own political website, I would strongly suspect this is a proxy blame. I am all for blaming Lamar Smith as much as the next guy. My issue is assigning a state to an individual when another individual performed the state changing action. The furthest it is fair to place that assignment is shared with the entire group. edit, apparently downvoting is the same as disagreeing here…
My issue with SOPA, etc. is the whole "Punish you first, possibly irreparably, then find out if you're guilty later" aspect of it that carries no consequences if it is abused as such.
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#7Is there any provision under SOPA with which we can somehow blacklist Lamar Smith's toupée?
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#8While it's possible that he authored his own political website, I would strongly suspect this is a proxy blame. I am all for blaming Lamar Smith as much as the next guy. My issue is assigning a state to an individual when another individual performed the state changing action. The furthest it is fair to place that assignment is shared with the entire group. edit, apparently downvoting is the same as disagreeing here…
The entire point of SOPA is to enshrine proxy blame as law, friend.
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#9While it's possible that he authored his own political website, I would strongly suspect this is a proxy blame. I am all for blaming Lamar Smith as much as the next guy. My issue is assigning a state to an individual when another individual performed the state changing action. The furthest it is fair to place that assignment is shared with the entire group. edit, apparently downvoting is the same as disagreeing here…
And that is one of the core reason why SOPA is a flawed concept.
Re: The author of SOPA is a copyright violator
#10This really goes to show just how easy it would be to be accused and shutdown as a copyright violator. In this case it was probably an issue of the web designer recklessly searching for a Texas-y background and Congressman Smith unknowingly using the copyrighted image. Sure, it's irresponsible, but it's an understandable mistake to make. Enter sites with untold volumes of user-submitted content. To begin, it's unlike…
Considering that the owner is a US Congressman with extensive knowledge of copyright law (or so I assume) - he should have been paying attention to what happens on his freaking website, which is nothing more than his business card to the whole world.
Failing to do so, talking about scale doesn't make much sense, since if a US Congressman, that happens to be the author of SOPA, can't handle it - what chances are there for any website to be on the lookout for violations?