First of all, if you don't know what I'm talking about go here:

http://americancensorship.org/

There's a video further down the page explaining what SOPA and PIPA are.

The basic gist of things is copy protection gone crazy. It would give the US government the ability to shut down and sue websites for any form of copyright infringement, even if the content there is user posted and not host posted. Some of the stuff it mentions in the video is crazy, such as the baby video being blammed because of music playing in the background. So theoretically speaking, you'd not be allowed to carry recording equipment down the street in-case you filmed your kids at a park and someone near by, say a shop with in store radio or a car driving past, played some music that is copyright protected.

In all honesty - I know I'm taking it to an extreme, but thought I'd post it here and get your thoughts on it?

EDIT: For further reading; http://gizmodo.com/5877000/what-is-sopa

It is hard to find something that isn't totally biased, but I guess there is a good reason for that.

Yea, the laws were totally screwed up. And the blackout worked. As did all the phone calls, petitions, and everything else. Every presidential candidate voiced their opposition and both laws were "shelved". Yay. I blacked out clankiller.com too... just a black background and a link to ars's explanation of SOPA/PIPA in the header. I didn't actually take down the whole site. *shrug* But I potentially reached 280 visitors (minus whoever came to the forums... I didn't black those out. :p)

Haha, I didn't even notice your blackout (bookmarked forums directly), but it's cool that you participated. Those laws were utter BS. I mean they wouldn't have affected me directly yet, but I would potentially have seen a lot of my favorite sites get in trouble. That bill was way too vague and gave way too much authority to shut down sites to be even considered democratic.

Hungary has got a similar issues (but focusing on the press) going on btw. Sign o' the times...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 06,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/eur ... 06,00.html

Yea, it's rearing its ugly head everywhere, and a lot of that is in direct response to pressure from the US government. It's a freaking embarrassment. It's what happens when big corporate interests run the government, instead of the people. On a positive note, the American people are finally starting to notice. Hopefully the idiotic corporations keep pushing until there's enough uproar to beat them down.

Did you see where the MPAA (motion picture association of american... a bunch of bastards just like the RIAA) held a press conference where they said they wouldn't give Obama money any more because he went against SOPA/PIPA? That's like "we bought your ass with campaign contributions. You better back what we want!" It's so brazen... everyone knows it's true, but to actually come out and say it? Wow.



http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valle ... oliticians

heh... there's a petition on the whitehouse website to investigate Chris Dodd for bribery based off his quote in my previous quote. Awesome stuff. Man... don't piss off the internet.

Here it is: http://www.valuewalk.com/2012/01/americans-asks-obama-administration-to-investigate-chris-dodd-and-the-mpaa-for-bribery-petition/#.Tx0dHaX9OIo

When I signed it, it had 8000 signatures (that was Saturday). Currently it's at 23,462. At 25,000, the Whitehouse is supposed to respond. Most likely, it will respond "no comment" or something equally worthless, but just the fact this is making news is a win in and of itself. It's not making the big name news, not yet at least, but there's still plenty of time.

The petition is at almost 30.000 signatures now, so it was succesful.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/! ... n=shorturl

Some other (international) agreements floating around now that aim to do similar things like SOPA and ACTA though, so the battle is far, far from over. I would even say that it's a losing battle as a consumer. But we gotta voice our dissent regardless.

Well, ACTA was already passed by most countries that matter, but now there's talk about making the signing illegal under the constitution in the US, since Congress didn't approve it. There's some wiggle room for "executive agreements" or some such that the President can sign without Congress approval, but our Constitution specifically mandates that Congress is in charge of treaties or whatever.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201003 ... 8722.shtml

And yes, a bunch of other smaller laws like SOPA are still running rampant elsewhere.

BTW, I'm very VERY amused at part of the Polish assembly or whatever coming to session wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Freaking priceless.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/27 ... in_poland/

haha, I wonder if they realize the 'other' significance (4chan-anonymous) of the mask. But cool that they wanted to make a statement against these neofascist attempts to control all information.

As Alpha Centauri put it, more than ten years ago already

Just in: FBI warns that people concerned with their online privacy are "suspect".

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... terrorists

http://info.publicintelligence.net/FBI- ... t_Cafe.pdf

Yeah...we're slowly going towards a surveillance state. That flyer is batshit insane. Switch out SIM cards? Encrypt pictures and data? Pay cash? SUSPECT!

Oh yea, totally. That's our government for you. Though our nanny surveillance state still doesn't approach the insanity that is Britain.