SOPA...

[Alara Moonrunner]

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/11/stop-s ... ernet.html

>_> I really hope this doesn't get passed... It sounds like a big potential problem.

Here's some of what the EFF has to say on it:

SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance to Break the Internet

As promised, here’s the first installment of our closer review of the massive piece of job-killing Internet regulation that is the Stop Online Piracy Act. We’ll start with how it could impact Twitter, Tumblr, and the next innovative social network, cloud computing, or web hosting service that some smart kid is designing in her garage right now.

Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go: despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward “rogue” foreign sites, there is no question that it targets US companies as well. The bill sets up a system to punish sites allegedly “dedicated to the theft of US property.” How do you get that label? Doesn’t take much: Some portion of your site (even a single page) must

1. be directed toward the US, and either
2. allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” infringement or
3. allegedly be taking or have taken steps to “avoid confirming a high probability” of infringement.

From https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/s ... k-Internet

[erikhol]

I heard about this on Attack of the Show, of all places. This sounds like it will be an incrediably damaging piece of legislation, if passed. I would usually just relax and figure that it will get defeated, once people realize how bad it is. But common sense isn't something I have much faith in pervailing lately.

[The_LT]

Okay here's the BIG question... Say this Bill passes, I mean all the way passes and becomes law, What will happen to the group?

[Lunagel]

Pretty much a moot point, Obama has said repeatedly he'll uphold net neutrality.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valle ... lity-rules

[lonegamer7]

Let's just hope it get striked FAST, and whoever his successor is keeps net neutrality.

[Lunagel]

Honestly the way congress works, just the threat of a veto vote is enough to make them reconsider since they don't want to vote up something the president's going to shut down and vice versa. Plus there's enough backlash to make most politicians think twice about voting for something that gets their constituents in a tizzy.

[Alara Moonrunner]

I trust Obama's word about this as far as I can throw him. I can't.

[Lunagel]

No political or religion talk on the forums, that's the fastest way to lose friends and make enemies.

[takenoko]

As annoying as political talk is, I think Alara is directly responding to the claim that Obama will veto the bill. So it's still relevant to the thread

[The_LT]

Yeah but it still doesn't answer my question of what could happen to this site, the guys who put in the work on this site could see all their work go up in blaze of governmental overreaction. So I have to ask, does the group have a plan?

[Gunzy]

They'll probably release the stuff over the IRC channel or something.

[takenoko]

I've never been good at taking the future into consideration. All I know is what is going on now, which is we plan to run the group the same way until something definitely will affect it. You can't plan for all the potential futures, that's not realistic.

[Alara Moonrunner]

As annoying as political talk is, I think Alara is directly responding to the claim that Obama will veto the bill. So it's still relevant to the thread

I was, thanks Take.

[CrazyDreamer]

Bah. Something important enough to make me stop lurking and admit that I keep my eye on this place.

• SOPA and PROTECT-IP/PIPA are horrible, horrible things for all sorts of reasons. (Lack of due process, creating a censorship infrastructure, international legal implications, &c. &c. &c.)
• They have nothing to do with Net Neutrality, and it's worth noting that Obama, while quick to issue a veto threat on that issue, has not said word one about this one.
• They have a good chance of passing. If not SOPA, which is getting a lot of grassroots opposition and attention, then PIPA. (There's been some speculation that SOPA was originally extreme in order to garner support for the moderate-only-in-comparison-to-SOPA PIPA. Even if that wasn't intentional, that may be the effect.)

Those things being said, I don't know why anyone here would care about any theoretical effect on TV-Nihon. Everything here is already civil copyright infringement at a minimum, and unless the people who run it are multimillionaires, the fines for even non-willful infringement would bankrupt them in an instant; losing the domain name isn't much of a penalty by comparison. The fact that the copyright owners probably don't know and don't care about this site is what keeps a lawsuit from happening; the same would be true under SOPA.

[Lunagel]

The thing about SOPA is that there is nothing mentioned about licensed/unlicensed works, and since it's so vaguely worded it basically gives carte blanche to the government to regulate the internet as they see fit, so who knows if they'd pass us over or not.