Im certain many ATRL 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 seen the previous posts on the subject but I think it is imperative to understand what this could do to ATRL.
Let me be clear,
SOPA is the most dangerous threat to free speech ever proposed by the US government.
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 ATRL member posts the IP address of the domain's web server, one complaint could get all of ATRL blocked to the entire nation.
Or, if someone posts a link on ATRL 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 ATRL blocked to the entire nation.
To make it even clearer:
Quote:
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:
Quote:
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.
I am not an admin, so I dont know how many posts ATRL has, but I would assume that we have more than a million posts. Under such broad guidelines of the SOPA legislation and with no requirement that the complainant be a holder of the copyrighted material, I'm sure there's material buried deep in ATRL 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.
For those members in the United States, consider contacting your representatives in the House and Senate and ensure they know how dangerous this legislation is.
Let's say, theoretically, that this was to be passed. And Kh-Loud decided to be a dumbass asian and post an illegal Talk that Talk download link, Def Jam files a complaint and ATRL gets blocked. Could I go outside the country to, let's say, England and browse ATRL?
Let's say, theoretically, that this was to be passed. And Kh-Loud decided to be a dumbass asian and post an illegal Talk that Talk download link, Def Jam files a complaint and ATRL gets blocked. Could I go outside the country to, let's say, England and browse ATRL?
If I understood it correctly the owner/s of ATRL would/could be held responsible for that post of the illegal link.
This bill could and will seriously change the internet. SO many major sites could get shut down. Even if you link to a song on YouTube, ATRL could get shut down.
However, if you enter the IP address to a website (enter 98.137.149.56 in your address bar and you go to Yahoo), the site will still work and SOPA can't do **** about it. There's a full lists of IPs here: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/c...f_sopa_passes/
This bill could and will seriously change the internet. SO many major sites could get shut down. Even if you link to a song on YouTube, ATRL could get shut down.
However, if you enter the IP address to a website (enter 98.137.149.56 in your address bar and you go to Yahoo), the site will still work and SOPA can't do **** about it. There's a full lists of IPs here: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/c...f_sopa_passes/
Posting the link to the that list like you just did could get ATRL shut down if someone complained.
And to the above poster, Def Jam doesn't have to complain, anyone could do it and it would get shut down.
I think the issue here is that with the arrival of the internet, copyright laws have become impossible to enforce.
There will always be a way to pirate. Instead, we should focus on developing things to reduce piracy. For instance, I think a concept like Netflix is a great start. People will pay a flat fee and have access to anything they want. Why can't they pioneer something along these lines for music instead of passing stupid legislation, which, let's face it, the US government has more important things it should be focusing on.
Maybe people shouldn't be posting ILLEGAL links in the first place?
in a perfect world everyone would follow the rules but in reality, all it would take is one ignorant person to innocently do it, and ATRL would get shut down. Look at how many people got WPs when TTT leaked, simply because they weren't aware of the ruling about providing links to illegal downloads.
Maybe people shouldn't be posting ILLEGAL links in the first place?
You dont understand, this bill goes beyond that:
Posting something as simple youtube video or posting lyrics from a song you like could get the site shut down
Quote:
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
Maybe people shouldn't be posting ILLEGAL links in the first place?
ATRL owner can't be responsible for every member on this site. As the OP said, even 1 complain could get ATRL closed/blocked for US citizens which is ridiculous.
in a perfect world everyone would follow the rules but in reality, all it would take is one ignorant person to innocently do it, and ATRL would get shut down. Look at how many people got WPs when TTT leaked, simply because they weren't aware of the ruling about providing links to illegal downloads.
I understand that, but isn't it our responsibility to READ the rules? I'm pretty sure that when I signed up to this site I had to read something like a Terms & Conditions or w/e.
And it's not like this is a site-only rule, this is actually a common law. I just don't get how you can be upset because the government wants to begin enforcing the law now.
If you don't wanna suffer consequences, simply don't break the rule.