SOPA Blackout Protest

[spellbanisher]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Wikipedia is now down. Life as we know it has now come to a sreeching halt. For the next 24 hours, darkness will be our companion.

Don't panic. I found a way to circumvent this. When you go to a page on wikipedia, it loads first and then sends you to a black screen. You can press the stop loading button (or icon or whatever you call it) before it gets a chance to redirect.

[Sil_liS]

I found another website doing the blackout:
http://www.good.is/#sopa_learn:

Passing SOPA would:

* Give the U.S. government the power to censor the entire internet
* Stifle innovation, scaring off new startups without the resources to monitor everything posted on their sites.
* Clamp down on Americans' free speech rights, subjecting them to criminal prosecution for posting film clips or covers of famous songs on YouTube
* Fail in its goal to stop copyright violations online—the bill does not cut off pirates' access to resources, so they will be able to continue business as usual.

[HarryT]

Give the U.S. government the power to censor the entire internet

Blocking access to sites which are flagrant pirate sites is not something new. British courts already have (and use) the power to order ISPs to block access to such sites. Eg, the "Newzbin" site, which collates links to pirated content on Usenet newsgroups, is blocked by several major British ISPs. Blocking criminal sites is not censorship; it's justice.

Stifle innovation, scaring off new startups without the resources to monitor everything posted on their sites.

Translation: Sites which openly host copyright infringing material under a "disclaimer" that "we aren't responsible for what our wicked users do" should be allowed to continue getting away with it. Sorry: your site; your responsibility. MR doesn't try to hide behind such a blanket disclaimer.

Clamp down on Americans' free speech rights, subjecting them to criminal prosecution for posting film clips or covers of famous songs on YouTube

Translation: We think that people should be able to flout copyright law with impunity?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Translation: Sites which openly host copyright infringing material under a "disclaimer" that "we aren't responsible for what our wicked users do" should be allowed to continue getting away with it. Sorry: your site; your responsibility. MR doesn't try to hide behind such a blanket disclaimer.

Have you actually read the posting guidelines?

Laws certainly vary between countries and something may be perfectly lawful in one country while being unlawful in another. It is up to the individual to determine if they can download an eBook or make use of forum or Wiki content. In general, the MobileRead site will conform to the laws of the hosting country.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Have you actually read the posting guidelines?

Yes. What is your point? Everything we host is legal for us for host. That doesn't mean that it's legal for a particular person to download, but that's not the point at issue here. We are talking about sites which illegally host copyrighted material.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes. What is your point? Everything we host is legal for us for host. That doesn't mean that it's legal for a particular person to download, but that's not the point at issue here. We are talking about sites which illegally host copyrighted material.

I was commenting on the blanket disclaimer that MR has and that you think that it's not hiding behind.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I was commenting on the blanket disclaimer that MR has and that you think that it's not hiding behind.

We certainly DON'T have a blanket disclaimer about the legality of our hosting. If you think we do, you haven't read it properly. We very properly tell you that you must check that something is legal for you to download, but if you upload something "dodgy" here, you'll soon find out how we treat people who do that kind of thing . I wouldn't recommend putting it to the test.

[spindlegirl]

theoatmeal.com is the best blackout page!

[Dylrob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Blocking access to sites which are flagrant pirate sites is not something new. British courts already have (and use) the power to order ISPs to block access to such sites. Eg, the "Newzbin" site, which collates links to pirated content on Usenet newsgroups, is blocked by several major British ISPs. Blocking criminal sites is not censorship; it's justice.

Doesn't Britian also have cameras practically everywhere? No offense, but your government scares me sometimes.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Translation: Sites which openly host copyright infringing material under a "disclaimer" that "we aren't responsible for what our wicked users do" should be allowed to continue getting away with it. Sorry: your site; your responsibility. MR doesn't try to hide behind such a blanket disclaimer.

MobileRead has a fairly moderate level of users. It's a lot harder and more costly for a site like Twitter or Wikipedia to actively monitor all user activity. Especially since the site does not even have to host the copyrighted material itself. Just linking to a completely separate site which happens to have such material is enough to be shut down or blocked under SOPA.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Translation: We think that people should be able to flout copyright law with impunity?

I've seen countless of videos pulled that were clearly used under fair use. My point being that the media corporations themselves only follow copyright law when it works in their favor.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dylrob

Doesn't Britian also have cameras practically everywhere? No offense, but your government scares me sometimes.

None taken. It's our government, not yours.

MobileRead has a fairly moderate level of users. It's a lot harder for a site like Twitter or Wikipedia to actively monitor all user activity. Especially since the site does not even have to host the copyrighted material itself. Just linking to a completely separate site which happens to have such material is enough to be shut down or blocked under SOPA.

Surely what matters is a site's response to the posting of such material? If the site has an active policy of encouraging users to report infringing material (as Wiki does - never used Twitter, so I can't comment on that), then I suspect that it's unlikely to fall foul of the law.

I've seen countless of videos pulled that were clearly used under fair use. The media corporations only follow copyright law when it works in their favor.

The example posted, though, was film clips and covers of popular songs. Both of those are very likely to be infringing. A film clip COULD be fair use if it's being used for purposes of academic criticism, for example, but that seems pretty unlikely on YouTube.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes. What is your point? Everything we host is legal for us for host. That doesn't mean that it's legal for a particular person to download, but that's not the point at issue here. We are talking about sites which illegally host copyrighted material.

Would that actually protect you against this law?
You are hosting material that US-based organisations have valid copyright claims to in the US. What is to stop them using SOPA to prevent access to MobileRead from the US to prevent the illegal download of those materials?
If I pick a random country in the world that has no copyright legislation, and host a server offering downloads of current movies, I wouldn't be breaking the law of my hosting country, but would expect to be targetted by this legislation.

[tubemonkey]

Google opposes SOPA and supports the SOPA protesters. It shows its support with a dedicated page; yet it won't join the blackout. Hmmm What's really ironic is that YouTube hosts copyrighted material.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Google opposes SOPA and supports the SOPA protesters. It shows its support with a dedicated page; yet it won't join the blackout. Hmmm What's really ironic is that YouTube hosts copyrighted material.

There seems to be very little EXCEPT copyrighted material on YouTube. It constantly amazes me that it continues to operate with apparent impunity.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Would that actually protect you against this law?
You are hosting material that US-based organisations have valid copyright claims to in the US. What is to stop them using SOPA to prevent access to MobileRead from the US to prevent the illegal download of those materials?

Nothing at all. It's for the American people to decide, through their representatives, whether this is what they want to happen. If they decide that such is their collective wish, then personally I think they would be misguided, but it's not my decision to make.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Topics like this invariably turn political, because it is political. The only way to prevent it is to post the information and then lock the thread.

OK, then. Can we just ask for a reduction of whining about how The Man is keeping us down and how corrupt every single politician is, and instead try to be a bit more constructive?