If SOPA passes, the liberal artistic "licence" freedoms we have come to enjoy could be drastically affected. Including on this site. Contact your elected reps via Wiki's site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki For more on SOPA and PIPA... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more Google have also blacked out their banner... http://www.google.com/
From what I understand, it will also give Congress the power to (arbitrarily?) shut down the WEB when it deems fit, or finds it a "threat" to national security. Hmm.
It really doesn't surprise me, come to think of it. I can see these laws taking over in the near future.
Which is why we have to protest it. Ironically, Wiki's aproach to it - going to the page but being met by a boycott page - gave me a taste of what is may be like if the Govt decides to temporarily shut the Web for whatever "reason". A message for example stating "the web is offline right now...." Or coming here and being redirected by the host site because a painting, photo or book passage was posted here, and the licencee complained it was an infringement violation. They may not even warm the Webmaster, they will just shut the site down. (I have seen that actually occur on another site but it was for TOS violations).
Protesting has not and will continue to not do shit, unfortunately. The government is well aware that Americans are too chickenshit to take anything past the stage of chanting "we're not happy, we're not happy", and most Americans are too lazy to even do that. Maybe taking away peoples porn will actually move them to action.
yeah man this is ridiculous they need to stop with the occupy wall street shit and march on the capitol
Obama claims he will veto that legislation if it passes his desk but he's said shit like that before and backtracked so we'll have to see. I'm hoping this has an effect on Congress but unfortunately these days the only thing that seems to matter is money.
this is a scary wakeup call cant imagine not being able to post youtube videos here, or to have the internet policed by corporations
Its goes further - YouTube will be shut down. This Bill will override what is now the S.O.P....which is that an artist/lawyer/record company will demand YT remove their video/music/movie that's in copyright violation - a Corp or artist will legally now be able to have Y/T's server yanked. Not that Y/T don't have the money to fight it in court, but even if challenged all the way to the Supreme Court, they still might lose. SOPA's defense is that it's intention is to stop international piracy of music and movies online, but we all know that it will not exempt the USA from it's crackdown.
The people who supported SOPA and PIPA are lying to their teeth. I remember to that guy from WikiLeaks and if it could happen to him it could happen to anyone. The net in the US would end up like China. This is a election year and the people who are texting nothing should get off their butts and take action like who are the local representatives and senators. I hope the internet will still be free but,if we do nothing a censored net will be a scary.
Good. Any Congress person who will/would have voted yay for SOPA, will be collecting Unemployment next election.
"Thank you. The Wikipedia blackout is over — and you have spoken. More than 162 million people saw our message asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down Congress’s switchboards. You melted their servers. Your voice was loud and strong. Millions of people have spoken in defense of a free and open Internet. For us, this is not about money. It’s about knowledge. As a community of authors, editors, photographers, and programmers, we invite everyone to share and build upon our work. Our mission is to empower and engage people to document the sum of all human knowledge, and to make it available to all humanity, in perpetuity. We care passionately about the rights of authors, because we are authors. SOPA and PIPA are not dead: they are waiting in the shadows. What’s happened in the last 24 hours, though, is extraordinary. The Internet has enabled creativity, knowledge, and innovation to shine, and as Wikipedia went dark, you've directed your energy to protecting it. We’re turning the lights back on. Help us keep them shining brightly." -Wikipedia power in numbers