# SOPA - US plans to adopt censorship for 'rogue' websites



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

So, after hearing the news I must say I am shocked and very worried. This has got to be the single greatest threat to the web because this bill will have the power to remove any website that is suspected of copyright infringement, within a matter of hours. Note not proven to be infringing copyright, but anything suspected of copyright.

I dont know about you guys, but I dont want to see websites like youtube, various uploader services, and some forums being shut down because someone posted something that violated copyright.






I am hoping this doesnt pass, but just in case, I have already searched and found some DNS bypass addresses just in case things go off the ball.

Your thoughts?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Haven't really been following this much. The original placed most of the burden of enforcing it on people who were already over-worked. Do any of the amendments change that?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

How does this affect anything 'offshore'?


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> How does this affect anything 'offshore'?


most major websites are run in the united states, and so by blacklisting them they are effectively removed from the web globally.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Yes, so it's everybody's business.

As usual, the last thing big corporations want is an educated public, because that might enable the public to think for itself.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Yes, so it's everybody's business.
> 
> As usual, the last thing big corporations want is an educated public, because that might enable the public to think for itself.


"Why think for yourself when you can pay us to think for you!"


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Oh, by the way, here are a couple Firefox extensions to get around SOPA if it ever passes:
DESOPA (DNS Evasion to Stop Oppressive Policy in America) simply asks foreign DNS servers for the IP address of the website in question, and then accesses the website directly by IP address.
MAFIAAFire: ThePirateBay Dancing! takes this one step further by automatically routing your request through a series of random proxies to get around DNS blocking.

The former does not work on websites that aren't directly accessible by IP address, either because they're on virtual hosts or because they use subdomains. The latter _does_ work for those, but is usually slower.


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

Thank you Little Penguin. Another reason to be glad I use Firefox.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Wtf is up with you Americans? Surely this kind of **** is unconstitutional!


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Politicians here don't really care about the constitution, they just wave it around sometimes to look good.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Wtf is up with you Americans? Surely this kind of **** is unconstitutional!


Could be. Using 'standard procedure' it could take years for the question to be addressed by SCOTUS.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

If it went through, is it possible that there would be a mass exodus of web hosting companies to Europe? Would they be immune in Europe?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Wtf is up with you Americans? Surely this kind of **** is unconstitutional!


The constitution really wasn't written with the Internet in mind (one of the advantages of having an "unwritten constitution" as GB does is that it evolves; ours doesn't). The only things in our constitution that keep the future in mind are the amendment process and the so-called "elastic clause," which gives Congress the power to make any law that seems "necessary and proper" to the issue at hand. It could be argued that domain names, which are simply addresses by which one can access a webpage, and not the webpage itself, do not fall under the protection of the first amendment of the Bill of Rights.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

What is the major incentive for this? It seems like something that industries and corporations would want to back rather than something a government would want for its citizens.

Also, is there genuine consolation (I'm tempted to think there is) that techies will always be far ahead of out of touch politicians?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Polednice said:


> What is the major incentive for this? *It seems like something that industries and corporations would want to back* rather than something a government would want for its citizens.


That's exactly it.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Kopachris said:


> That's exactly it.


Sometimes I wonder if we bring it on ourselves by generally promoting and/or accepting the profit motive as the be all and end all. Do many business people actually encounter ideas about fair competition, censorship, and other ethical practices?

It just seems to me that they're almost not entirely to blame for their idiocy because they have been trained to make the most money possible by the most efficient means, and that is certainly what they'd be doing.


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## Scarpia (Jul 21, 2010)

I do not know if the proposed system is unjustifiably broad, or gives the government unreasonable powers, but protection of intellectual property is one of the most important features of a successful economy. Talk of "censorship" is off base. Individuals who create content have a right to sell or distribute that content as they see fit, whether the work is a book, a recording, a movie, a software program, or what-have-you. Other parties have no right to distribute that content, even if they do not profit from it. I am in support of strong efforts to protect intellectual property, in principal, although I am not sufficiently familiar with the specific law in question to say whether I favor it.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Scarpia said:


> I do not know if the proposed system is unjustifiably broad, or gives the government unreasonable powers, but protection of intellectual property is one of the most important features of a successful economy. Talk of "censorship" is off base. Individuals who create content have a right to sell or distribute that content as they see fit, whether the work is a book, a recording, a movie, a software program, or what-have-you. Other parties have no right to distribute that content, even if they do not profit from it. I am in support of strong efforts to protect intellectual property, in principal, although I am not sufficiently familiar with the specific law in question to say whether I favor it.


I'm not so worried about SOPA; I think that, even if it does pass, it'll fall flat on its face. I'm more worried about the situation with perpetual copyright and patent abuse (Google: "patent troll").


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Scarpia said:


> I do not know if the proposed system is unjustifiably broad, or gives the government unreasonable powers, but protection of intellectual property is one of the most important features of a successful economy. Talk of "censorship" is off base. Individuals who create content have a right to sell or distribute that content as they see fit, whether the work is a book, a recording, a movie, a software program, or what-have-you. Other parties have no right to distribute that content, even if they do not profit from it. I am in support of strong efforts to protect intellectual property, in principal, although I am not sufficiently familiar with the specific law in question to say whether I favor it.


I share similar views with you as well about intellectual property. The issue I have with this bill, is that any website suspected of infringement, can have a complaint filed, looked over by a judge, and in a matter of hours, the entire website is pulled down.

And even if the website is not responsible (a user posts a video that is infringing) the entire website is put down over the actions of a user, that is outside of its control. That has happened a few times here on these forums too (any youtube link with music), so essentially, this website can be pulled down if it were to receive a complaint. Thats a big problem.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Originally Posted by Polednice 
What is the major incentive for this? It seems like something that industries and corporations would want to back rather than something a government would want for its citizens.



Kopachris said:


> That's exactly it.


Bingo!

http://www.thevileplutocrat.com/bile/articles/congressional-staffers-behind-sopa-become-lobbyists-for-entertainment-indus/


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## BradPiano (Dec 22, 2011)

Well if it does pass, this forum could go down just because any vBulletin forum had copyrighted material because vBulletin's HQ is located in Southern California.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

GO DADDY is notified of a possible boycott.

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/122311-go-daddy-faces-boycott-threat-254377.html?hpg1=bn


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

BradPiano said:


> Well if it does pass, this forum could go down just because any vBulletin forum had copyrighted material because vBulletin's HQ is located in Southern California.


? The link is not the material, eh?


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## BradPiano (Dec 22, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> ? The link is not the material, eh?


Sorry, what? According to this page, vBulletin is located in Southern California, and vBulletin is a VERY popular service for forum creation. If any other vBulletin forum, say, embedded a video into their post that contained copyrighted material (even singing karaoke would be considered copyrighted), the United States government could take down the entire vBulletin service, thus ridding the internet of this and every other vBulletin forum forever.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

It seems like you'd get a different answer from different people. SOPA's terms are delightfully ambiguous.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

BradPiano said:


> Sorry, what? According to this page, vBulletin is located in Southern California, and vBulletin is a VERY popular service for forum creation. If any other vBulletin forum, say, embedded a video into their post that contained copyrighted material (even singing karaoke would be considered copyrighted), the United States government could take down the entire vBulletin service, thus ridding the internet of this and every other vBulletin forum forever.


No. Under SOPA, the US Government could only block the infringing site's domain name. The website itself would still be operational, and because the vBulletin software is licensed to individual sites, vBulletin isn't in any danger.


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## BradPiano (Dec 22, 2011)

Kopachris said:


> No. Under SOPA, the US Government could only block the infringing site's domain name. The website itself would still be operational, and because the vBulletin software is licensed to individual sites, vBulletin isn't in any danger.


Ahh... I wasn't aware.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

regressivetransphobe said:


> It seems like you'd get a different answer from different people. SOPA's terms are delightfully ambiguous.


All right. I certainly don't disagree.

If, however, somebody says something like we _have_ to pass it so that you can find out what is in it, 
then I'll *know for sure* it should be opposed with all of our being(!)


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