Thread: Save The WEB!!

Originally Posted by Achillesdude

Shutting it down? No. Censorship? Yes....

Youtube, wiki, and many forums might end up getting shut down. The way the law is written, if someone uploads copyrighted material to youtube, ALL of youtube gets shut down completely by the government. And I think youtube can be sued.

It also has political implications:

Another Reason Not To Pass SOPA/PROTECT-IP: Citigroup Lawyers Now Using Digital Copyright Law To Suppress Muckraking Journalism | The Second Alarm

Here’s another reason the proposed law, which allows “the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial,” should be opposed. A leaked series of Citigroup memos about the benefit of the world turning towards economic feudalism (the so-called Plutonomy Memos), once known mostly to lefty blogs, gained some notoriety after Michael Moore featured them in his movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. Here’s the clip

If SOPA/PROTECT-IP passes, then copyright holders like Citigroup will gain the ability to shut down entire websites without a court order, a power well beyond the DMCA and other digital copyright laws. That means independent blogs, media outlets, etc., will become targets for destruction when they publish allegedly copyrighted whistleblower documents and other leaked memos. Independent media will be delisted from search engines and their domains could be blocked. SOPA/PROTECT-IP is an assault on journalism (see this breakdown by Jessica Roy at Mediabistro), but the latest moves by Citigroup only reinforce the danger.

yes....i also heard that youtube is the target of this......they say we wont be able to post any videos or share or anything like that........all i can say is that this will end my karaoke parties because we use all the music from youtube.......................it sucks in my opinion but i guess they have to do what they have to do.

Originally Posted by kellyb

Youtube, wiki, and many forums might end up getting shut down. The way the law is written, if someone uploads copyrighted material to youtube, ALL of youtube gets shut down completely by the government. And I think youtube can be sued.

Law only effects those that subscribe to it.

Originally Posted by Achillesdude

Law only effects those that subscribe to it.

I'm pretty sure youtube ITSELF can be pulled off the internet if they are found hosting anything copyrighted.

Originally Posted by augustus

Nothing lasts forever.....

Dark matter does.

pwnd

Originally Posted by kellyb

I'm pretty sure youtube ITSELF can be pulled off the internet if they are found hosting anything copyrighted.

Because they sign contracts and they subscribe (give consent) to be governed. Many firms, sites, corporations, monopolies, do this to gain perks and benefits the government offer, if some sites do not (said above) then they cannot be pulled or censored.

Originally Posted by Achillesdude

Because they sign contracts and they subscribe (give consent) to be governed. Many firms, sites, corporations, monopolies, do this to gain perks and benefits the government offer, if some sites do not (said above) then they cannot be pulled or censored.

The only way websites are immune to the law is if they voluntarily act to stop piracy to a level deemed okay. If not, then it's perfectly within the right of them to shut down Youtube, even if one of the worlds largest companies own it.
This immunity is the only perk offered by the bill. Essentially it is able to bully every website into complying.
Hopefully if this passes we'll see the collapse of the US Web hosting economy, and see mass migration to servers abroad, along with a giant middle finger to the US global police policy.

YouTubes domain is hosted in the states. Google would have to take pretty serious action to prevent themselves being shut down (look at ThePirateBay... Despite numerous attempts to shut it down, some even being illegal, all have failed.)
The question is just how far would Google and such be willing to go? Probably not that far.

Still, I do not think this will be the death of the internet. If this passes, it'll be the birth of something new. There are people out there clever enough to circumvent these laws, as we see from the masses of file sharing websites who already have court orders against them.

In a perfect world, we would have smart people in congress making laws on what they actually understand. In reality we don't. The level of techno-ignorance is astounding in not only the people who proposed this bill, but also those who support it. Fortunately there is enough experts in the field voicing their concerns over this, and many of the concerns are similar.

This is bullshit