How SOPA Could Ruin My Life ...

Snip ~ "The fine print of the law says sites that distribute copyrighted content could be subject to summary censorship, ie Torrent sites and the like.

BUT .. it also encompasses any sites that LINK to copyrighted content, which is the bomb that blows up any semblance of sense this bill might have had"

12/16/2011

How SOPA Could Ruin My Life

Hi, my name is Paul, and I’m a small business owner. But my storefront isn’t quite of the traditional variety. Rather, it’s a virtual one, a website I built from scratch, and currently own and operate.

While I enjoy my time freelancing here at Forbes, it’s not how I make most of my money.

Rather, my main source of income is from this personal site, Unreality. It’s a movie/tv/video game site that I started with a partner about three years ago. Since then, it’s grown to averaging between 2.8 and 3.2 million page views a month. Not a giant, but not bad for two people, and with ad revenue, it’s enough to live on.

But that might not be the case if the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) passes. My virtual small business, along with many others like it, might be history.

Continues ...read more ..

Why is this? Am I a pirate, who feeds my users stolen content every day and deserves to be slain by a new law like this? Not at all, and this is the fundamental problem with SOPA and other prospective laws like it (Protect IP most recently).

The goal of the entertainment industry to stop piracy is understandable.

It’s hard to make a coherent case that you should be able to download a full movie or album completely for free, without giving a cent to anyone involved. But in trying to solve this singular issue, the entertainment lobby has opened up a can of worms that threatens the entire internet, and more specifically, my livelihood.

The “actual” piracy portions of the bill are debatable in their own right, namely that the government can simply block known rogue foreign sites like The Pirate Bay from American’s eyes. Though these are the most obvious infringers, it still reeks of Chinese and Iranian internet policies that allow the government to simply censor the internet the way they see fit, and the crux of the bill seems wholly unconstitutional.

But rather where we get into even more trouble is when you look at the details of SOPA, and how it might affect someone like me. Their definition of what piracy is ends up including most of the internet, including my own site, and the punishments for even minor infringements could be catastrophic and run me out of business completely.

The fine print of the law says sites that distribute copyrighted content could be subject to summary censorship, ie Torrent sites and the like.

But it also encompasses any sites that LINK to copyrighted content, which is the bomb that blows up any semblance of sense this bill might have had.

My site likes to find the best media-related content on the internet. We post photos, artwork and embed YouTube videos that involve things about our favorite movies, shows and games. I always give credit where it’s due, but on occasion, a photographer or artist cannot be located.

Under SOPA, should they find their content on my site, they would legally have the right to petition my advertisers to stop paying me, or report me to the government.

The same goes for YouTube videos I might feature. Though the content is not mine, as I haven’t uploaded it to the web myself, I am indeed linking to it, and with this new law, I would be subject to the same sort of harsh penalties should the content within be something copyrighted like footage from a game or movie. I am willingly linking to “infringing” content, and under SOPA, can be branded a “rogue site” because of that. Such a classification could cause me to lose everything.

Read more of Paul's Story @ link

Stephen Colbert explains SOPA ~ Maybe Funny, But in Reality It's Total Censorship and Not Funny ~ December 21st

*Be careful if you use companies such as Google, Yahoo, PayPal, Twitter and eBay ...

SOPA has NOT been postponed to 2012! The Committee members who support SOPA quietly changed the hearing date to December 21st, trying to trick the American people into thinking it was over for the year. Link

Washington, After two days of debate, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) abruptly halted a key hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, postponing a Committee vote on the bill until 2012.

The move marks a win for hordes of internet activists who oppose the bill, but gives lawmakers another opportunity to juice deep-pocketed corporations for campaign contributions.

snip ~ "The most troubling dynamic in Congress is the way the agenda itself becomes a tool for fundraising," notes Harvard University Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig. "Dramatic fights over billion-dollar industries are exactly what legislators want going into an election year, because it flushes money into their pot. " Link
_Watch _

Stephen Colbert explains SOPA ..

Stop Online Piracy Act

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If this passes anyone who is charged with a copyright violation can get 3-5 years prison for the first offense!

The bill may be passed before the end of the year. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R.3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors.

The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.[2]

Now before the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the Protect IP Act.[3]

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This video has the details. PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet

Watch here ~ Link
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PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting "creativity". The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites-- they just have to convince a judge that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement."

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that's for a fix that won't work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights.
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December 16, 2011

A key House vote on controversial anti-piracy legislation has been delayed.

The House Judiciary Committee adjourned on Friday without deciding on whether or not to send the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act to the House floor.

The committee had been engaged in a marathon markup version of the bill, but the session came to an abrupt end, as Congress had to turn its attention to a floor vote on a nearly $1 trillion spending bill that would avert a government shutdown.

The discussion will resume when Congress is next in session -- which could be next week.

The law, along with its Senate sister, the Protect IP Act, are both championed by the recording and film industries. They both seek to combat online piracy by giving the Justice Department authority to block offshore "rogue" websites that engage in the illicit sale of everything from pirated films to bogus pharmaceuticals.

The act would give federal authorities new power to block service providers, search engines, payment processors, and advertising networks it considers to be facilitating illegal on-line activity, such as streaming pirated television programs, films or selling pharmaceuticals.

However, the legislation has been fiercely opposed by a coalition of high-tech companies such as Google, Yahoo, PayPal, Twitter and eBay, who have charged that the effort to crack down on illegal downloads are too far-reaching and akin to censorship.

In a feisty statement, Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) expressed optimism that the bill will pass once Congress is in session.

"The criticism of this bill is completely hypothetical; none of it is based in reality," Smith said. "Not one of the critics was able to point to any language in the bill that would in any way harm the Internet. Their accusations are simply not supported by any facts." (hmmm, says who, the multi-billion government owned entertainment industry?)

Friday's committee session adjourned after considering 25 amendments to the bill.

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