How SOPA (as written) might kill ATS and free speech online (UPDATED)

By now, I'm certain many ATS members have heard of "SOPA" and "PIPPA" -- two proposed US legislations; Stop Online Piracy Act bill in the House and Protect IP Act in the Senate (respectively). I've been rather busy on a number of items intended to "push The Above Network forward," and have perhaps been remiss in informing our members about our official position on these two highly controversial, much discussed, and important pieces of legislation being considered by the idiots and fools known as elected officials.

Let me be clear,
SOPA is the most dangerous threat to free speech ever proposed by the US government.
That's what I think.

Next, some informational links:

SOPA: paving the road to American Fascism

Tech entrepreneurs attack SOPA

Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter considering “nuclear option” to protest SOPA

SOPA, Freedom, And The Invisible War

SOPA: The New American Censorship?

SOPA/PIPA Copyright Bills Also Target American Sites

And, an excellent video:



SOPA and PIPA are both presented by politicians with big-media money jingling around in their back pockets, front pockets, and brought into their offices in great big wheel barrels by the lobbyists who run Washington. The intentions are to block access to "offshore" websites that provide access to pirated content such as movies, music, pictures, words, etc. If passed, the bills would enabled the blocking of such sites to everyone in the United States, with little or no due-process, and little or no confirmation a complaint originates with the actual copyright holder.

However, learned legal analysts have agreed that the "non-circumvention" aspects of SOPA and PIPA could easily be used to legally block access to domains owned and operated in the United States.

For example, if an "illegal" content domain is blocked, and an ATS member posts the IP address of the domain's web server, one complaint could get all of ATS blocked to the entire nation.

Or, if someone posts a link on ATS to a FireFox plug-in that provides an alternate means of access to blocked sites (one is under development), one complaint could get all of ATS blocked to the entire nation.

We have more than 13 million posts. Under such broad guidelines and with no requirement that the complainant be a holder of the copyrighted material, I'm sure there's material buried deep in ATS that would allow those with ill-intent to shut us down.

Obviously, all that also applies to any other user-generated content site, all of which are vital to free speech online.

Seriously.


This is important.


Also, consider participating here:

americancensorship.org

or here…

We The People (WhiteHouse.gov) Petition






IMPORTANT UPDATE

I met with Congressman Ben Quayle regarding SOPA, here is what happened.

dog speed ATS!
crossings fingers. signed 3 petitions today.
it's too bad nobody will pay attention to this type of post on Facebook. yesterday I posted the NDAA on FB and a whopping 2 friends replied or signed petitions...

edit: signed up for town hall. thx for the heads up.

Forget ATS, it's going to kill the internet.

Originally posted by satron
Forget ATS, it's going to kill the internet.

Surely no president would sign such legislation into law.
Although I do not know where our current president stands on this issue....

This is scary!!!

-Christosterone

Unfortunately for those of us in the USA, the majority of americans are too mired down with the multituds of problems that the current administration have thrown us into while still dealing the ones caused by the previous administration. Trying to get people to wake up to this is going to be hard because frankly, i think their numb to it all until something directly effects them. And i think thats exactly what its going to take for the general public to realize we are heading in the wrong direction...

Great info and correctly laid out.

Now the REAL question is if SOPA was truly engineered to fight online piracy or rather ATS-like sites?

What danger does downloading movies/music pose? And why would the Government even consider getting involved? They never get involved in anything unless there is an end game for them.

Now, what danger does the truth pose? Therein lies the puzzle.

The Government is threatened by freedom of speech and expression so what is the real issue here? What are they trying to stop...The new Animation Block Buster from being downloaded or the spread of ideas, information and dissent?

So by creating legislation for one front, the rest can be incorporated at will. Anytime, anyplace and anything.

I think I know the answer already.

Peace

To back up your arguement, because it is indeed a valid one, here is an article I saw on tomshardware that states the case very eloquently...

SOPA threatens to fundamentally change the way information is presented online by placing massive restrictions on user-generated content like posts to forums, video uploads, podcasts or images. In a nutshell, here’s what the law would do:

Assign liability to site owners for everything users post, without consideration for whether or not the user posted without permission. Site owners could face jail time or heavy fines, and DNS blacklisting.

It would require web services like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to monitor and aggressively filter everything all users upload.

It would deny site owners due process of law, by initiating a DNS blacklisting based solely on a good faith assertion by an individual copyright or intellectual property owner.

It would give the U.S. government the power to selectively censor the web using techniques similar to those used in China, Malaysia and Iran. The Great Firewall of China is an example of this type of embedded, infrastructural internet censorship.

As an example, imagine a user posts a video clip to the Tom’s Community of a step-by-step guide on how to set up water cooling on an overclocked i7 CPU. Playing in the background behind the voiceover is “Derezzed” by Daft Punk. The studio representing Daft Punk could issue a complaint, without being required to notify us or request a take-down. Tom’s Hardware would be liable and prosecuted solely on a good faith assertion of the copyright owner, without notification, with the site operators subject to possible jail time for not preventing the video from being posted.

www.tomshardware.com...


This is indeed a real threat, and we need to stop it....

It will be gradual, over decades.. IMO. Just like human freedoms... Slowly but surely.

Take away our Internet and their WILL be an uprising overnight.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


What would the internet look like if this were to pass?

I agree that it would harm perhaps even become fatal to a number of sites. I'm just trying to see what the final picture looks like.

Originally posted by beezzer
What would the internet look like if this were to pass?

We're going to be running a "semi-dark" site-wide protest soon. That will help you visually understand what much of the Internet would look like.

So, it's ok for SkepticOverlord to express his views and provide a link to a petition to stop SOPA, but when I do it my thread gets deleted? WTF?

Censorship and Free Speech you say, S.O.?! I so wanna, but I won't.

Now that I got that outta my system, I'm with ya. Just mebbe, though, the internet has "served it's purpose." I'm not holding out a lot of hope for our great Nation--or the World--but I'm game to try and combat this.

Good luck and fight the good fight.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord

Originally posted by beezzer
What would the internet look like if this were to pass?

We're going to be running a "semi-dark" site-wide protest soon. That will help you visually understand what much of the Internet would look like.

Question. Advertising plays a big part in sites and generated views. Wouldn't this also affect companies that rely on the internet for their revenue?

This could actually cause job loss and revenue loss for a variety of companies. (If I'm thinking this through correctly)

reply to post by jude11

Might I venture a guess to your question? Staff please feel free to chip in. The amount of money any internet site makes when compared to the recording industry is in the order of a drop of water side by side all the oceans an/or the seas of the world? Seeking debunking here....

Originally posted by LightSpeedDriver
reply to post by jude11

 

Might I venture a guess to your question? Staff please feel free to chip in.

the amount of money any internet site makes compared to the recording industry is in the order of a drop of water when side by side to all the ocean an/or the seas of the world?

Seeking debunking here....

Agreed.

But if they think that any legislation is going to stop the free flow of music, they really have no clue as to how industrious we can be when push comes to shove.

Apathy makes all of this not just possible, but likely.

People wont know what they have lost until it is gone.

The next global crisis will show how truly important the internet is... Assuming the sites for sharing news and information are all still up and running.

If not, you may be in the dark... Not a good place to be.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Seriously, SO... We need to take the money out from under Them. I might suspect that You are aware of My intense efforts here on ATS (though I am working elsewhere, too) to bring the solution to the fore of awareness.

I am hoping You have seen My post here: www.abovetopsecret.com... as it links to the bulk of My work along that line.

Basically, money is merely an accounting mechanism for meaningful energy expended in an energy-scarce society. Adding abundant free energy would eliminate the need for money. And I have personal awareness of electrogravitics which not only offers antigravity but also overunity.

Sadly, They pulled it into black ops over 50 years ago. And it was pulled, not for the "weaponization" capabilities, as They claimed at the time, but specifically for the overunity aspects. THEY know that free energy means the end of Their power over Us.

I have been hoping to have ATS give some kind of support. But now that it's corporate, perhaps I am sitting with a pipe dream. I keep hoping I am not.

Please, SO, take a look at the thread I linked above - and the threads I linked there. Awareness must be brought to the tipping point before We can demand release of the electrogravitic tech into the public domain. But if We get it there... We can end povery, hunger, war, and...profit motive.

Originally posted by jude11
But if they think that any legislation is going to stop the free flow of music...

I should make one thing very clear, our policy at ATS has long been to respect content that has been created by others. We always insist on snippets and proper attribution of sourced material.

Additionally, I also personally feel very strongly that it's wrong to obtain or use the creative output of someone in a manner where that person does not get their due compensation. Circumvention a flawed revenue model (of unethical record companies) is not a valid excuse in my mind.

However, that being said, these proposed laws are going way to far. Compare it with killing a bee in your house with a wrecking ball.

reply to post by Amaterasu


Sorry, but my physics background precludes me from having any hope for "free energy."

Originally posted by Christosterone

Originally posted by satron
Forget ATS, it's going to kill the internet.

Surely no president would sign such legislation into law.
Although I do not know where our current president stands on this issue....

This is scary!!!

-Christosterone

Surely no president would sign legislation that allows American Citizens to be labeled with a fuzzily defined epithet and then "disappeared!"

Oh. Wait. Yeah. You'd BETTER be scared.