So have the powers that be at DI thought about SOPA and PIPA

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by friendorfoe, Jan 18, 2012.

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  1. friendorfoe

    friendorfoe Active Member

    How do you guys think it would affect forums like this?
     
  2. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    And what exactly are SOPA and PIPA?
     
  3. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    SOPA - soup
    PIPA - pipe = soup pipe

    Abner
     
  4. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    I understand the need for copyright and intellectual property protection, but the potential abuses of the law are FAR too vast. Sal Khan, at Khanacademy.com, has put together a great video that breaks down why so many internet companies feel that this is dangerous.


    [video=youtube;tzqMoOk9NWc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzqMoOk9NWc[/video]
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Many, many people within the interwebs community are anti-SOPA
     
  6. Steve King

    Steve King Member

    Thanks for posting this link to the Khan Academy video about SOPA and PIPA. It is the clearest explanation of the concerns shared by many in the online community. I wish the traditional news media was able to explain these concerns as thoroughly as Sal Khan.

    Thanks to Wikipedia's blackout yesterday, some congressional sponsors of SOPA (in the House) and PIPA (in the Senate) are withdrawing their support or asking for changes to the bill in their chamber of congress. Although, some members of Congress remain steadfast in their support. For example, Sen. Barbara Boxer, of California, issued a statement reaffirming her sponsorship of PIPA.
     
  7. friendorfoe

    friendorfoe Active Member

    Lamar S. Smith (GOP Texas) decided to take SOPA back to the drawing board only after defending it publicly and loudly for months. It looks like yesterday's blackout and actions taken by Google (4.5 million signatures on a petition in 1 day) worked...for now.

    Basically the highlights as it would concern a forum like this would be to make the site owners responsible for 100% of the content. And since this site allows end users to post, could theoretically be deigned to be advocating or at least enabling copyright infringement just by the nature of discussion forums. SOPA = Stop Online Piracy Act and PIPA = Protect IP Act. Both are bad news for any and all social media from Facebook to Vbulletin boards.
     
  8. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    So now people who care about freedom and liberty are coming out of the woodwork when their internet gets taken away? Where were all these freedom fighters when the evil government wanted to use its largess to compel people to purchase something that they don’t want to purchase, or to hire someone they might not want to hire?
     
  9. StefanM

    StefanM New Member

    Well, they likely have varying opinions on healthcare and employment law. Also, only a minority of people willingly choose not to have health insurance, and only a minority make hiring decisions. The vast majority of us use the internet.
     
  10. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    True. Your reply begs the question though: Does the majority rule?
     
  11. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    Two major, highly controversial, life-altering bills in congress that the mainstream media have done a great job of covering up.

    As written, it would make toast of DegreeInfo as well as nearly every other forum on the internet.
     
  12. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    The social majority, yes. The numerical majority, usually not.
     
  13. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I for one wasn't here yesterday to comment on this thread because I was too busy campaigning against the illegitimate legislative abortions known as SOPA and PIPA.
     
  14. friendorfoe

    friendorfoe Active Member

    As I recall people were coming out of the woodwork for Obamacare too. Remember all the Congressional and Senatorial town halls where people's representatives required police escorts...shouting crowds, people being ignored by their representatives right in front of the news cameras. I remember one Congresswoman in Houston, TX actually answered her cell phone in the middle of taking a question from a member of the crowd who was a cancer survivor, the video was shocking but not as shocking as that critter getting re-elected after that.

    Obamacare was rammed down the throats of the American public despite vocal and present protests to the counter. That's the catalyst behind the 2010 House swing to the Right IMHO.
     
  15. friendorfoe

    friendorfoe Active Member

    Degreeinfo and all like forums, Facebook, Wikipedia heck maybe even Ebay gone or at least severely mutated. It would have crippled the U.S. technlogy sector and likely put us at a strategic global disadvantage from which we would never have recovered. And why? Because the record and movie industry don't like people copying their stuff. Nice.
     
  16. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    I've read in passing (without doing the substantial amount of research usually demanded by this community) that the movie and record industries have a huge political lobby while social media barely have any. Cenk Uygur, the paranoid ultra-liberal whose videos I at times post here, suggested that SOPA and PIPA may have been a ploy from congress to force social media to create a political lobby, which would in turn become another funnel for bribery. It's just crazy enough to fit the MO of Washington in the year 2012.
     
  17. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    The majority of people who vote or otherwise become integrally involved do, in fact, rule. This, as you know, is not the numerical majority of citizens.
     
  18. friendorfoe

    friendorfoe Active Member

    According to one of the 50 or so articles I've read in the past few days (or so it seems) I believe it was the Huffington Post or Forbes that reported that the tech industry as a whole has spent only 10% of what the entertainment industry has in lobby money (over what period of time I assume to be 2011 but I cannot recall). Suffice to say, you may have something there. This may amount to one giant shakedown. I wonder how much more the American people are willing to take from D.C. before things start turning ugly. I mean ugly as in making the occupy wall street look more like Sesame Street kind of ugly. Why are we as a people demanding an end to lobbyists period? Nobody should be able to go into Congress and 2 or 3 years later be millionaires. They should not be allowed to do insider trading, they should be forced to take the same healthcare and retirement they force on us (and supposedly manage for us) they should be required to follow speed limits, obey the laws, pay back their student loans and be prohibited from accepting any money not directly out of their salary like every other gosh danged public servant in America. Sorry...I'm just getting sick to death of it all.
     
  19. Messdiener

    Messdiener Active Member

    Where is the like button?
     
  20. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    Because, in America, half of the voting population has an IQ under 100.
     

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